[geo] Australian Medical Students’ Association Global Health Essay Competition — Global climate change, geo-engineering and human health | Medical Journal of Australia
https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2013/199/7/australian-medical-students-association-global-health-essay-competition-global Rio+20’s proposed Sustainable Development Goals have the potential to redefine the course of international action on climate change. They recognise that environmental health is inextricably linked with human health, and that environmental sustainability is of paramount importance in safeguarding global health. Competition entrants were asked to discuss ways of making global health a central component of international sustainable development initiatives and environmental policy, using one or two concrete examplesRio+20’s Sustainable Development Goals represent a salutary advance in global discourse on climate change action. The goals acknowledge the indissoluble connection between human health and environmental sustainability.1 Climate change scenarios portend a host of health ills: the spread of tropical pathogens; inclement weather events with their attendant toll on human populations; and the degradation of terrestrial and oceanic ecosystem services resulting in increased water scarcity, food shortages, civil strife and possibly war.2,3 In short, it is clear that climate change represents profound health challenges.Conversely, climate change mitigation represents health opportunities. Concrete examples abound on the health co-benefits of progressive climate change mitigation.4 A reduction on fossil fuel reliance from motorised transport, for instance, offers improved cardiovascular performance in an increasingly sedentary global population beset with metabolic disease. Similarly, less indoor biofuel combustion and improved air quality could ameliorate the incidence and severity of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease5 and lung cancer,6 as well as other lung disease.One underinvestigated dimension to climate change discourse, however, is the link between human health and geo-engineering. Geo-engineering projects are increasingly proposed as a safety valve in the event of runaway climate change and continued global disagreement over deep emissions cuts.7 Geo-engineering represents a broad church of technologies that involve manipulation of climate settings on a planetary scale to manipulate anticipated and observed climate change phenomena. The technologies fall into one of two main categories — those aimed at removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and those aimed at reducing radiative forcing by deflecting sunlight.8 While the term can refer to a suite of climate-modifying technologies, I’ve focused here on two geo-engineering technologies: fertilising oceans with iron filings to stimulate phytoplankton blooms to resorb more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere; and seeding the upper atmosphere with reflective aluminium nanoparticles or sulfur aerosols to reduce solar radiation.While these technologies may smack of science fiction, we are clearly living in the Anthropocene age, with the problems of climate change, ozone depletion and mass extinction of species all evidence that human industrial civilisation is a geological force capable of overwhelming planetary regulation.9 Moreover, as climate change negotiations reach an impasse, geotechnology is increasingly gaining political traction, with politicians loath to navigate the diabolical policy dilemmas of deep and economically painful emissions reductions. Geo-engineering poses myriad moral, ecological, security and governance challenges. However, the human health implications are a little-explored dimension to these technologies. This is vitally worth considering given the scale and irreversibility of any such possible experiment with global human health.Technologies aiming to reduce solar radiation, for instance, pose potential health hazards. Current modalities for deflecting sunlight include sulfur and nanometallic aerosols such as aluminum. Aluminium is a pro-inflammatory compound, and environmental exposure to the metal has been linked, albeit controversially, with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.10-12 Suspended aerosolised aluminium has the potential to prove a hazardous environmental exposure, warranting careful and close investigation as well as a precautionary approach before widespread deployment.Sulfur aerosols to reflect sunlight are another candidate technology as part of the suite of geo-engineering proposals. Sulfur seeding of the stratosphere holds possibilities for ecological disturbance with human health implications. Sulfur aerosols mimic the global dimming effect that classically follows large-scale volcanic eruptions. However, studies suggest that these aerosols have the potential to deplete stratospheric ozone by serving as surfaces for heterogeneous chemistry.13 This could cause increased levels of carcinogenic solar ultraviolet-B energy to reach the surface with a potential impact on health and biological populations.
[geo] International workshop on geoengineering | IFRIS
http://ifris.org/en/agenda/international-workshop-on-geoengineering-2/ 11 10 2013 International workshop on geoengineering Venue: ISCC, 20 rue Berbier-du-Mets, 75013 Paris Organisers: M. van Hemert, A. Dahan Centre Alexandre Koyré (CNRS) et ANR ClimaConf / IFRIS Geoengineering on the climate change agenda Over the last few years, geoengineering – an umbrella term for technoscientific proposals promising a large-scale manipulation of the climate system to counteract global warming – has gained prominence on the climate science and policy agendas. We think it is time to take a step back and reflect on the promises, risks and pitfalls of geoengineering as thoroughly as possible. In Europe, the debate on geoengineering research is taking shape at this very moment: France and the European Union are preparing a research agenda, while the UK and Germany already ventured into funding a wide range of research projects, from RD for specific geoengineering options to reflection on its desirability. At the international level of climate change politics, the positioning of geoengineering as an option besides mitigation and adaptation is taking on concrete form: in the next IPCC report, geoengineering will be assessed by WG I and WG III – the WG I report will just have been released when this workshop takes place. In the WG I report, geoengineering is largely assessed on the basis of climate simulations and scenarios, which begs questions on the assumptions that shape them. There is also a fair amount of research on the governance of geoengineering going on which, perhaps unintentionally, risks to perform the stance that developing geoengineering is indeed a responsible option if ‘appropriate governance frameworks’ such as high level principles and codes of conduct are in place.The rise of geoengineering on the scientific and policy agendas thus raises many questions. What made the rise of geoengineering on these agendas possible in the first place? How to understand and deal with the credibility geoengineering proposals and scenarios have gained in recent years? What research on geoengineering is taking place at present? What kind of research on geoengineering should be publicly funded – if any? How to monitor and respond to privately funded geoengineering RD and political lobbying in these circles? What kinds of worlds would geoengineering bring into being? How to reflect on the governance of geoengineering without performing it as feasible? In this workshop, we aim to bring historical, philosophical, climate politics and ‘inside’ climate science perspectives together to open up the debate on these and other questions and to identify resistances and openings towards other imaginaries. Scholars and scientists implicated in the debate will present their views and ‘inside’ experiences of the research and debate as it has been taking shape.From a historical perspective, geoengineering appears to bring back dreams of planetary control, some dating from the Cold War. The strategies of protagonists and the contexts in which ideas are formulated, received and evaluated have changed, however. Geoengineering proposals have been developed at labs which changed their orientation from military to environmental research. A state-led science policy has been replaced by a neoliberal science policy. The climate change regime, with its dual strategy of emission reduction and enhancing carbon sinks has come to be seen as a failure, since worldwide emissions are rising. Promissory discourses about green technologies and the imaginary of the Anthropocene have also changed the game of the geoengineers. But how exactly has the game changed?For climate scientists, geoengineering raises epistemic questions about competing climate paradigms, the reliability of models and their ability to predict regional dimensions of climate, and about the range of uncertainties and unknowns that may play a role in assessing impacts of geoengineering schemes. The political dimension of these issues comes to the fore in the moves and countermoves of geoengineering advocates and critics. A question which perplexes many climate scientists is how a few advocates of geoengineering appear to have become so influential as to impose a geoengineering research agenda on a majority that is still very reluctant and critical, if not opposed to geoengineering. How are critical climate scientists mobilizing knowledge and resources to provide a counterweight to geoengineering advocates? What are the major controversies?From a philosophical perspective, the idea of geoengineering raises questions about the relationship between humans and the Earth, and between its inhabitants – in different times and places -, that are at once ethical and ontological. What would it mean to make the climate? What kind of Anthropos and what kind of Earth are presumed? What about (in)commensurability between ideas about ‘engineering the planet’ and heterogeneity of cosmologies,
[geo] Let me break it down: Geoengineering | Matt Crossman
http://mattcrossman.me/2013/09/13/let-me-break-it-down-geoengineering/ A major figure in the scientific field made a suprising call this week. The Astronomer Royal, Lord Rees appealed for urgent research into geoengineering solutions to the growing carbon emissions problem, in case other efforts fail.I can easily understand how you might arrive at such a recommendation. The UN-lead international effort to get countries to agree on cutting emissions voluntarily has stalled in a major way. Unlike the international treaty to cut CFCs and protect the Ozone layer, the carbon emissions / climate change problem is much more complex, disproportionately affects the developing world, and can only be addressed through pretty expensive, along term solutions. Flip all three of those factors on their head and you know why the Montreal Protocol on CFCs was so effective.The major debates in the UNFCC surround the notion of ‘intra-generational equity’ – that is, fairness within this generation in apportioning the effort in dealing with climate change. Developing countries have rightfully protested at developed countries calling for scaled back development, since the developed countries have already benefitted from the unregulated consumption of fossil fuel reserves in order to boost the scale of their economies to unprecedented and unexpected levels. It’s easy to take a look at the failure to agree a successor to Kyoto, look at the creeping rise of carbon emissions into dangerous levels, and panic. It’s easy to give up, and suggest a plan B, an alternative to global coordinated action to decarbonise energy and develop truly sustainable economies. So what’s the ‘solution’ if we can’t get the political will behind efforts to combat climate change, making effective cuts and decarbonising electricity? Geoengineering. That is, tinkering with the earth’s physical processes in such a way as drastically affect carbon concentrations in the atmosphere, or reflect solar energy back into space. Seeding clouds, triggering algal blooms in the ocean, construction of giant carbon scrubbers – the kind of giant fantastical engineering projects seen only in science fiction.Why is this a problem? Let me break it down for you: 1. It’s really hard No, really. It’s going to be incredibly hard to achieve, not without an absolute guarantee that there won’t be unforeseen consequences.One of the reasons action on climate change has stalled is due to the poor public understanding of science and the highly complicated analysis of the global climate needed to underpin any policy action. That is, modelling the climate and the way it might change is very complex and controversial. Making long term projections leaves you open to the critique of the climate denier.The IPCC is probably the most cautious scientific body that has ever existed. We are as near to certain that human activity is causing climate change, but we are far from certain on its specific effects. That’s because climate modelling is incredibly hard.So what hope do the geoengineers have of recommending a series of globally implemented fixes that fully understand the dynamics of the earth’s climate, in such a way that they will remove carbon and reduce global warming, maintaining the precise conditions for life enjoyed by this planet for millennia? And let’s not forget – if we mess this up, we have no second chance. We will have to be sure that any geoengineering fix would not have any unexpected consequences or system level effects.The ideas seem nice in isolation – human beings have solve problems using tools since the dawn of time, and so it appeals to us. But let’s say we took it seriously. We can’t even get planning permissions for wind turbines sorted; how will we get planning consent from entire nations, when we can’t be sure of the risks and the rewards? A mass adoption of geoengineering will waste even more precious time. 2: It’s not a solution Well, at least, it’s not a solution once you really understand the nature of the problem. Geoengineering recommends expending our very limited resources and political will on agreeing very complicated trans-national structures which will solve the short term effects of climate change – but enable society and industry to carry on exactly as we know it.Climate change isn’t a ‘problem’ – it’s a symptom of an unsustainable economic model fuelled by a once-in-a-generation glut of cheap energy. Excess carbon emissions are but one consequence of our unsustainable lifestyles. The problem is man seeing himself as ‘master’ of the environment rather than ‘part of’ the environment. Geoengineering confirms us in our role as ‘masters’ rather than living pieces of the ecosystem.One of the great advances in recent centuries has been the specialisation of knowledge in the areas of science, engineering and the like. But the danger with specialisation is that we have a cognitive bias towards our own field; an engineering tends to see the world in
[geo] Re: Linking solar geoengineering and emissions reduction
Still, it seems that some sort of linkage between solar geoengineering and CO2-emissions reductions is needed if we are to avoid getting in a situation where both solar geoengineering deployments and atmospheric CO2 concentrations are steadily ramping up for many decades. If the climate situation is bad enough that a country feels that it is in its national interest to engage in solar geoengineering, then it should feel that it is in its national interest to phase out CO2 emissions. The coupling of solar geoengineering deployment to the manufacture of new CO2-emitting devices (smoke stacks, tail pipes) because both activities are tangible and verifiable actions, but other options are possible. However, I would not be satisfied with current deployment of solar geonegineering systems in return for promises of future emissions reduction. If, for example, the US starts spraying aerosols over the Arctic, but we are simultaneously building new CO2-emitting power plants, how can we get away from the conclusion that the solar geoengineering is facilitating continued CO2 emissions? Many suspect that solar geoengineering is just a ruse to allow continued CO2 emissions. Explicit linkage along the lines I suggest would make it so that solar geoengineering deployment is NOT in the interest of the fossil-fuel companies etc, and so could change political dynamic on research etc. On Saturday, September 14, 2013, Mike MacCracken wrote: My personal view of an optimal strategy would be to start early with regional geoengineering—so would seek to alleviate specific regional risks (like accelerated ice loss in the Arctic, etc.), per my paper that is in proceedings of IPCC workshop (copy attached)-which would alleviate some aspects of severe impacts and provide some useful experience as one checks out what can be done, etc. For global geoengineering, I just think one has to have simultaneous action on emissions reductions as only with that being done will we have a sense of how big an effort we need to be thinking about and how long it must be kept in place. Mike On 9/14/13 9:52 AM, esubscript...@montgomerycountymd.gov euggor...@comcast.net wrote: Mike: Long ago, after much grief and unhappiness I concluded that when there was a job to be done, or a result achieved, and I was not in complete control of the all the needed elements of the process, although I could argue on behalf of what I thought needed to be done by others, I did my part anyway and generally got it done. I learned from experience that when I got my part done or was getting it done, it put pressure on the laggards to do their part done since they were clearly naked and I was not. What I am saying is figure out how to get the cooling job or the part you can implement done, do your part, and use your success to put pressure on the those who control the production of energy, especially hydrocarbon based energy, which you do not and cannot control. Don't waste your time on worrying about non hydrocarbon energy sources since the issues are mainly economic/political and not technical. Geoengineering has enough on its plate without dealing with non science issues out of ones control. Best of Luck. -gene -- *From: *Mike MacCracken mmacc...@comcast.net *To: *esubscript...@montgomerycountymd.gov euggor...@comcast.net *Cc: *Ken Caldeira kcalde...@gmail.com, Geoengineering Geoengineering@googlegroups.com *Sent: *Friday, September 13, 2013 10:39:44 PM *Subject: *Re: [geo] Linking solar geoengineering and emissions reduction Re: [geo] Linking solar geoengineering and emissions reduction Gene—The problem is that how much can be done by geoengineering is limited—geoengineering is not an option in itself, it can only be effective over time if there is also mitigation and adaptation (and still some suffering). Mike On 9/13/13 4:45 PM, esubscript...@montgomerycountymd.gov about:blank euggor...@comcast.net about:blank wrote: Mike: As scientists you need to continue to develop technology for reducing global temperature. Let us hope you are extremely successful. Let others deal with emission reduction, which is not part of geoengineering although it is an important part of global warming mitigation. Emission reduction is partly technical, not part of geoengineering but political and what happens will be determined by politicians. *Don't make geoengineering hostage to the politicians. *As scientists you have a lot on your plate. It seems unwise to put yourselves in the position of fighting the politicians and energy companies. -gene -- *From: *Mike MacCracken mmacc...@comcast.net about:blank *To: *Ken Caldeira kcalde...@gmail.com about:blank , Geoengineering Geoengineering@googlegroups.com about:blank *Sent: *Friday, September 13, 2013 4:14:43 PM *Subject: *Re: [geo] Linking solar geoengineering and emissions reduction Re: [geo]
[geo] Offtopic : Did IPCC 'Lowball' Sea Level Rise And Climate Sensitivity? | ThinkProgress
Poster's note : off topic, but useful when considering whether, when and how much geoengineering may be needed. This reflects my personal concerns. I note generally that the precautionary principle often appears misapplied in climate science, with caution applied when pointing out risks, not when avoiding them. (Don't go hiking with some climate scientists - they won't point out a snake until they know for sure if it's venomous :-) ) http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/09/10/2596781/denier-intimidation-tactics-ipcc-lowball-sea-level-rise-climate-sensitivity/ TRENDING NY Times: Did Denier ‘Intimidation Tactics’ Move IPCC To ‘Lowball’ Sea Level Rise And Climate Sensitivity? BY JOE ROMM ON SEPTEMBER 10, 2013 AT 5:39 PMThe New York Times has a must-read article on how and why the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change “seems to be bending over backward to be scientifically conservative” in its forthcoming assessment. Climate Progress has explained many times why the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) is “an instantly out-of-date snapshot that lowballs future warming because it continues to ignore large parts of the recent literature and omit what it can’t model.” For instance, we have known for years that perhaps the single most important carbon-cycle feedback is the thawing of the northern permafrost. The AR5′s climate models completely ignore it, thereby lowballing likely warming this century. The Times explains what the AR5 is doing: In one case, we have a lot of mainstream science that says if human society keeps burning fossil fuels with abandon, considerable land ice could melt and the ocean could rise as much as three feet by the year 2100. We have some outlier science that says the problem could be quite a bit worse than that, with a maximum rise exceeding five feet. The drafters of the report went with the lower numbers, choosing to treat the outlier science as not very credible.In the second case, we have mainstream science that says if the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere doubles, which is well on its way to happening, the long-term rise in the temperature of the earth will be at least 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, but more likely above 5 degrees. We have outlier science that says the rise could come in well below 3 degrees.In this case, the drafters of the report lowered the bottom end in a range of temperatures for how much the earth could warm, treating the outlier science as credible.… Is it right to throw out bleeding-edge science in the one case while keeping it in the other? I’m not certain that the upper ranges of sea level rise projections are an “outlier.” A good discussion of the recent literature can be found in this January 2013 RealClimate post by Stefan Rahmstorf. His and other research suggests sea level rise could easily be 5 feet if we don’t reverse emissions trends soon.Similarly, plenty of recent research supports a higher than expected warming this century — see “Science Stunner (11/12): Observations Support Predictions Of Extreme Warming And Worse Droughts This Century” and, from August, “Ocean Acidification May Amplify Global Warming This Century Up To 0.9°F.”The key point is that while many in the media seem to buy into the myth that the IPCC overstates future impacts, the NY Times points out “it is interesting to see that in these two important cases, the panel seems to be bending over backward to be scientifically conservative.” The NYT notes “there are climate scientists not serving on the committee this year” whose “fear is that the intergovernmental panel might be pulling punches.” The question, then, is why is the IPCC so conservative, why does it appear to be pulling its punches? True, a certain degree of caution is inherent in science, which is by nature skeptical. That goes double in a consensus-based process where any member country can object to any number. But the Times goes further:It turns out that the Nobel Prize, welcome as it might have been back in 2007, served the same function it has for many other scientists who have won it over the years: it painted a fat target on the committee’s back. The group has been subjected to attack in recent years by climate skeptics. The intimidation tactics have included abusive language on blogs, comparisons to the Unabomber, e-mail hacking and even occasional death threats.Who could blame the panel if it wound up erring on the side of scientific conservatism? Yet most citizens surely want something else from the group: an unvarnished analysis of the risks they face.It would certainly be a shame if the IPCC felt in the least bit cowed by the shameless tactics of the most successful disinformation campaign in history. The IPCC does science no favor by pulling its punches. Future generations are all but certain to suffer through the worst-case scenario — multiple, simultaneous catastrophes — if we keep taking no serious action. They won’t much care why the scientific community pulled its punches, only
[geo] CO2 effects on plankton
In situ studies predict major changes to plankton community structure and C cycling/storage as CO2 increases. As an aside, interesting to ponder the politics/ethics of adding CO2 versus iron to ocean experiments at this scale. -Greg http://www.egu.eu/news/76/tiny-plankton-could-have-big-impact-on-climate/ As the climate changes and oceans’ acidity increases, tiny plankton seem set to succeed. An international team of marine scientists has found that the smallest plankton groups thrive under elevated carbon dioxide (CO2) levels. This could cause an imbalance in the food web as well as decrease ocean CO2 uptake, an important regulator of global climate. The results of the study, conducted off the coast of Svalbard, Norway, in 2010, are now compiled in a special issue published in Biogeoscienceshttp://www.biogeosciences.net/, a journal of the European Geosciences Union. “Time and [time] again the tiniest plankton benefits from the surplus CO2, they produce more biomass and more organic carbon, and dimethyl sulphide production and carbon export are decreasing,” -- 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 post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: [geo] CO2 effects on plankton
The full set of papers is available here: http://www.biogeosciences.net/special_issue120.html ___ Ken Caldeira Carnegie Institution for Science Dept of Global Ecology 260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA 94305 USA +1 650 704 7212 kcalde...@carnegiescience.edu http://dge.stanford.edu/labs/caldeiralab @kencaldeira On Sun, Sep 15, 2013 at 7:25 PM, Rau, Greg r...@llnl.gov wrote: In situ studies predict major changes to plankton community structure and C cycling/storage as CO2 increases. As an aside, interesting to ponder the politics/ethics of adding CO2 versus iron to ocean experiments at this scale. -Greg http://www.egu.eu/news/76/tiny-plankton-could-have-big-impact-on-climate/ *As the climate changes and oceans’ acidity increases, tiny plankton seem set to succeed. An international team of marine scientists has found that the smallest plankton groups thrive under elevated carbon dioxide (CO 2) levels. This could cause an imbalance in the food web as well as decrease ocean CO2 uptake, an important regulator of global climate. The results of the study, conducted off the coast of Svalbard, Norway, in 2010, are now compiled in a special issue published in Biogeoscienceshttp://www.biogeosciences.net/, a journal of the European Geosciences Union.* * * “Time and [time] again the tiniest plankton benefits from the surplus CO2, they produce more biomass and more organic carbon, and dimethyl sulphide production and carbon export are decreasing,” -- 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 post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- 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 post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
