Clive, you open up a challenging question - how to effect the changes
necessary to sort out global warming. You note that 'heavily coerced
change' as illustrated by Communist countries hasn't worked out well.
The (logically unsound) implication is that because Communism didn't
work out well, no system of heavily coerced change will. I wonder
whether that's true. Might there be a way of imposing change that could
work out well? Isn't that what laws do - impose change? Wouldn't a
carbon tax be a heavily coerced change, at least as far as those
suffering its burden are concerned? And what's the alternative? Gently
encouraged change? That hasn't done too well either over the last
several decades.
Perhaps neither approach works. Perhaps the system actually has to
collapse in order to create the right circumstances for renewal. Of
course, what emerges from that renewal is likely to be radically
different from what collapsed, but then, if it collapsed because it
wasn't sustainable, it was always bound to collapse sooner or later.
However the change is effected, those with the power to make that change
have to want to. If they just pay lip service to the need for change,
it cannot happen by gentle encouragement and reasoned argument. We know
where that leads.
Regards
Robert
On 16/02/2023 05:44, Clive Elsworth wrote:
Chris, would you be against a quick fix for lung cancer, i.e. one that
enabled sufferers to live to a ripe old age, that if they were to give
up smoking would enable them to be fit and healthy during their latter
years also?
I am all for societal awakening of the Earth’s limits to its
exploitation. Indeed, Jim Hansen et al in their latest paper point out
that humans have been geoengineering the planet for thousands of years
with land-use changes, averting what would otherwise have been the
next glacial period. But I fear ideas of society-wide imposed, heavily
coerced change. Communist countries have shown us how that goes.
Today’s political structures evolved at a time when environmental
planetary stability was taken for granted. Consequently, with public
fear of undoing the destructive geoengineering now underway,
politicians do not fund quick fixes, even if such fixes look to be
able to stave off tipping points. Instead, they declare a climate
emergency and encourage us all to reduce our personal footprints, and
companies, their corporate footprints - a totally inadequate response.
There is little government support for the basic research needed to
find the new technologies needed to solve problems that could apply to
everyone, such as direct cooling by rebrightening the planet. (Not
that that is sufficient on its own.)
Of course they will retort that they support BECCS and DAC, neither of
which are plausibly scalable to the extent needed. But at least in
democratic countries they remain open to criticism. That’s a tough
call for them, and so they should be acknowledged for that. I’d
suggest constructive, helpful criticism is needed from the rest of us,
and also presentation of new ideas that have survived close scientific
scrutiny, which of course many of us on groups like this are already
engaged in.
Clive
On 16/02/2023 00:33 GMT 'Chris Van Arsdale' via Carbon Dioxide
Removal <[email protected]> wrote:
Dr 1: The earth patient is bleeding out, give them plasma!
Dr 2: Plasma doesn't address the root cause of gun violence in this
country, and its use (or research into) might lead to a delayed
adoption of gun control.
... Well, perhaps not wrong, but we don't exactly have a lot of
patients to work with here.
On Wed, Feb 15, 2023 at 11:41 AM Greg Rau <[email protected]> wrote:
https://www.c2g2.net/asa-larsson-blind/?utm_source=Carnegie+Climate+Governance+Initiative&utm_campaign=92a857209e-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2023_02_15_06_42&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d7ddd02ed0-92a857209e-[LIST_EMAIL_ID]
<https://www.c2g2.net/asa-larsson-blind/?utm_source=Carnegie+Climate+Governance+Initiative&utm_campaign=92a857209e-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2023_02_15_06_42&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d7ddd02ed0-92a857209e-[LIST_EMAIL_ID]>
"There is a need for technology development, and there is clearly
a need and we see that in climate discussions broadly, the great
importance of research. This is not something that we question
at all.
What we do oppose is the direction toward technologies that do
not actually target the root causes of climate change and the
great amount of resources that are put into what could be seen as
feeding into the idea of a quick fix and the over belief of
technology being the main solution, also then taking away the
importance of the parallel transition of the society toward a
more sustainable way of living. We cannot downplay the need for
change and we need to realize that the solution of this crisis is
a change in societal structures.
Of course we need new technologies and of course we also need
research, and we need to listen to the researchers. We have
extensive research saying that we need to cut emissions and that
we need to change the economical structures on Earth, scrutinize
power balances, and take action, and they have been saying that
for quite some time now.
Our fear is that when we now have researchers saying that we
might not need to change that much and that we could actually
with new technology monitor and manage the whole Earth to the
extent of also controlling the atmosphere. For me that is not
learning from what researchers have been saying what we need to
do now, that we need to take a step back, to find a way back to
respect the boundaries of Earth, that we have overused the
world’s resources, we have overexploited for too long, and that
is what has been putting us into this climate crisis. It is the
mindset of humans entitled to control everything on earth and not
needing to respect the Earth’s boundaries.
Whatever we do now should be guided by the principle and the
guiding question: Is this a measure that will help get us back
on-track in respecting the boundaries of the Earth’s resources,
even if it is in the long term? I don’t see that this kind of
technology does that actually.
GR So, by analogy we shouldn't learn how to treat lung cancer
because it doesn't address the "root cause" - smoking? Would be
interesting to get their take on CDR.
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