Dear Andrew Song (care of and cc Luke Iseman), Thank you for the opportunity to attend your open call today. We're pleased that you are allowing this dialogue.
Given that openness, it was disappointing that you chose to eject Andrew Lockley from the call - after his forthright expression of widely-held concerns relating to your firm's conduct, and his urging the firm to change course. For the avoidance of doubt, Gideon Futerman's subsequent presence on the call was no endorsement of that decision. We (Andrew and Gideon) are both of the opinion that SAI may have a potential role to play in reducing some of the impacts of climate change, and that sensible research is likely necessary. We are therefore not opposed in principle to SAI, or to the operation of firms which might service a scientifically grounded and politically & publicly acceptable SAI industry. We also have no personal animosity towards you, nor do we seek to disparage your intellectual ability or personal moral character. As a matter of personal policy, we do not routinely raise public criticism of firms or individuals - but today's attempt to fully express our arguments to the firm have failed, so we now take the extraordinary step of writing this open letter. Notwithstanding our support for the field, and our respect for the organisations and individuals who operate in it, we wish to express the following specific concerns about your work: 1) your firm appears to lack basic knowledge of the climate science, politics, and ethics of SAI 2) you have not, as yet, convened any kind of oversight committee to rectify the knowledge gaps in (1) 3) you have commercialised your product without any kind of validation of either: your hardware safety & efficacy (see 10-13 below); or of the climatic suitability, safety, & efficacy of the injection regime you are working towards - which is currently unpublished (see 7 & 8 below) 4) acknowledging your US links and the development status of Mexico, your decision to launch first from Mexico has the superficial appearance of forum-shopping - despite your founder's personal connection to the country 5) you have made no public commitment to permanently abide by the Mexican state's informal SAI prohibition, invoked in response to your founder's previous launches. In your blog post, you commit only to pausing until their strategy is published, and following their research protocols. https://makesunsets.com/blogs/news/Mexico Here, you make no specific mention of adhering to any *deployment* controls. Deployment, not research, is the most concerning aspect of your firm's operations 6) you have made no public commitment to seek prior regulatory and/or public approval for any commercial launches in alternative jurisdictions 7) you are selling deployment - while making claims for radiative offsetting that have not been published in a peer reviewed journal, nor are they widely accepted by scientists 8) your marketing attempts do not make plain that some leading scientists in the field may oppose your sale of credits on the grounds of efficacy, appropriateness, and/or climate impact at scale - in short, your present service requires a clear risk warning 9) you set no standard of competence for your customers - allowing unsophisticated members of the public to take actions which we believe are fundamentally misrepresented (as in 7), and fundamentally misguided (as in 8) 10) you have made no attempt to formally publish reports on your work (eg payload masses, grid references, etc.), and have made no commitment to do so in future - preventing any external attempts to scrutinise, observe, or interface with your work 11) you have made no commitment either to publicly announce specific future launches, or to launch only with transponders - so as to protect those who may be immediately endangered by any unplanned intact landing (a hot landing) 12) you have published no technical details on your balloon's failsafe systems (if any), which may be required to prevent uncontrolled horizontal drift or hot landings 13) you have not demonstrated how you are enabling the public to recognise and manage a hot landing, or to aid you by returning aircraft fragments & scientific payloads for analysis. We believe that your actions, in totality, are neither a sensible commercial path for your firm, nor do they represent appropriate conduct of SAI research and early deployment. These actions pose bystander risks, political risks, and climate risks at scale. These risks are presently neither adequately mitigated nor justified. In summary: our belief is that what you are doing may be counterproductive, dangerous to bystanders, financially misleading, and reckless to political risks. We believe you should stop publicly-funded commercial deployment - immediately, completely, and for the presently-foreseeable future. We urge you to address all the concerns raised above, and take a fundamentally different approach - one based on initial demonstration of technical competence and political acceptability, before considering commercial deployment. Furthermore we believe you should also reconsider your corporate and personal conduct towards those in the field who are sympathetic to sensible consideration of SAI - but not to the way your firm is approaching its premature deployment. We and our peers may not be your customers, employees or investors - but we nevertheless believe that you should be accountable to academics and others in the field. Should you ignore our polite request for a course correction, we intend to gather a public petition of experts calling on your firm to make the changes demanded in this letter. We believe this will attract considerable media attention, and raise the likelihood of determined international political and regulatory action against your firm. We believe the research community and wider society will not tolerate continuation of your current path - and you should stop before you are stopped. Sincerely, Gideon Futerman and Andrew Lockley -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/geoengineering/CAJ3C-063JQdkGTXBX0jxtjnnsLP8AHaBdMnAtAS1Eto7nYYdfg%40mail.gmail.com.
