[geo] Implications of Current Developments in International Liability for the Practice of Marine Geo-engineering Activities
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=onlineaid=9083401 Asian Journal of International Law 2013 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S2044251313000283 Published online: 29 November 2013 Implications of Current Developments in International Liability for the Practice of Marine Geo-engineering Activities Jung-Eun KIM Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology, Republic of Korea ocean...@kiost.ac Abstract Ocean fertilization was first introduced as a carbon dioxide mitigation technique in the 1980s. However, its effectiveness to slow down climate change is uncertain and it is expected to damage the marine environment. Consequently, international law, including the London Convention/Protocol and the Convention on Biological Diversity, limits this activity to scientific research purposes. The applicability and scope of existing treaties for regulating this activity have been reviewed within international legal systems, in particular within the London Protocol. The establishment of a liability regime with respect to these activities has also been raised during a discussion on regulation of ocean fertilization under the London Protocol. One of the key purposes of the liability regime could be to make ocean users more cautious when exploring and exploiting the oceans through charging cleaning costs or imposing compensation for damage. This paper aims to identify such a preventative effect of the international liability regime, in particular, state liability. -- 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] Weather wars: who should be allowed to engineer our climate? | The Verge
snip Keith, who has grown into geoengineering’s leading advocate after his recent book on the topic, says the technology would be “as disruptive to the political order of the 21st century as nuclear weapons were for the 20th. snip In 1955 in a prominent article titled “Can We Survive Technology?” John von Neumann referred to climate control as a thoroughly “abnormal” industry Tinkering with the Earth’s heat budget or the atmosphere’s general circulation “will merge each nation’s affairs with those of every other more thoroughly than the threat of a nuclear or any other war may already have done.” In his opinion, climate control... could lend itself to unprecedented destruction and to forms of warfare as yet unimagined. Climate manipulation could alter the entire globe and shatter the existing political order. von Neumann, John. “Can We Survive Technology?” *Fortune*, June 1955, 106–108. On Sat, Dec 7, 2013 at 6:49 PM, Andrew Lockley andrew.lock...@gmail.comwrote: http://mobile.theverge.com/2013/12/6/5181736/who-sets-the-planets-thermostat-the-politics-of-geoengineering Weather wars: who should be allowed to engineer our climate? By Russell Brandom 12.06.2013 “The big thing nuclear weapons did wasn't all the details,” says Harvard climate scientist David Keith. “The really big thing is, they changed what it means to be a nation-state.” It’s on his mind because as the next century unfolds, Keith expects it to happen again.Scientists usually shy away from Oppenheimer comparisons, but in the case of geoengineering, they’re a given. Spend enough time at geoengineering conferences, and you’re guaranteed to hear a reference to The Bomb. Keith, who has grown into geoengineering’s leading advocate after his recent book on the topic, says the technology would be “as disruptive to the political order of the 21st century as nuclear weapons were for the 20th. It’s an exciting, dangerous idea — and it already has its opponents. In the years that he's been researching geoengineering, Keith says he's received two death threats serious enough to warrant calls to the police. The last, best hope Keith’s work is on solar radiation management, ostensibly a matter of pure atmospheric chemistry — but the potential uses for the tech make it much more dangerous than your average research project. In a world of catastrophic global warming, solar radiation management might be our only way to cool the planet and forestall the most damaging effects of climate change. The theory is simple: a plane sprays sulfate aerosols into the atmosphere, building a reflective layer that blocks a small portion of the sun’s energy, thus cooling the globe. There’s plenty of support for the theory, including a few sulfate-spewing volcanoes which have cooled the globe in the past, but it’s still unclear how it would work in practice. It’s generally accepted that the sulfates would disappear from the atmosphere within a few years, but more complex effects remain unknown. GOING ROGUE Most geoengineers think the technology should be used for a kind of soft landing as we phase out fossil fuels —but what if a country wanted to go further? The process is cheap enough that an island country like the Maldives, facing dire consequences from rising sea levels, might decide to kick off aggressive geoengineering on their own, daring other countries to stop them. The response would start with diplomacy, but it could escalate to the US shooting down their sulfur-spewing planes.The next step is to test the idea in the atmosphere with small drops over the course of a few days, but that proposal is still extremely controversial. It’s easy to see why critics are nervous. In the wrong hands, solar radiation management has the potential to destroy the planet's ecosystem entirely. The danger of a sulfate-triggered global drought or an accidental ice age is very real, and the climate is too complex to predict on a global scale. More than that, it’s still unclear exactly how governments would use this technology. Like the nuclear bomb, geoengineering would require a kind of global governance that simply doesn’t exist yet, and many climate activists see the climate-engineering cure as worse than the disease.Keith's ideal plan is simple enough: a slow ramp-up in sulfate drops over decades, giving the human race more time to quit fossil fuels and the planet's ecosystem time to adapt to higher temperatures. Once carbon emissions stopped around 2070, the sulfate drops would phase out, ending completely by 2120. Warming would still be a problem, of course, but geoengineering would let it come on slowly, giving ecosystems time to evolve and avoiding the destructive climate shocks that some studies predict. And by phasing out the action, Keith would avoid the dangers of an open-ended program in which warming worsens over centuries as geoengineering efforts face diminishing returns.The century-long
Re: [geo] Weather wars: who should be allowed to engineer our climate? | The Verge
Doesn't seem to be a logical consequence. Surely a more likely outcome is unprecedented cooperation, as each nation has much more to gain through order (predictably, compensation) than from disorder. A On Dec 8, 2013 11:51 AM, Jim Fleming jflem...@colby.edu wrote: snip Keith, who has grown into geoengineering’s leading advocate after his recent book on the topic, says the technology would be “as disruptive to the political order of the 21st century as nuclear weapons were for the 20th. snip In 1955 in a prominent article titled “Can We Survive Technology?” John von Neumann referred to climate control as a thoroughly “abnormal” industry Tinkering with the Earth’s heat budget or the atmosphere’s general circulation “will merge each nation’s affairs with those of every other more thoroughly than the threat of a nuclear or any other war may already have done.” In his opinion, climate control... could lend itself to unprecedented destruction and to forms of warfare as yet unimagined. Climate manipulation could alter the entire globe and shatter the existing political order. von Neumann, John. “Can We Survive Technology?” *Fortune*, June 1955, 106–108. On Sat, Dec 7, 2013 at 6:49 PM, Andrew Lockley andrew.lock...@gmail.comwrote: http://mobile.theverge.com/2013/12/6/5181736/who-sets-the-planets-thermostat-the-politics-of-geoengineering Weather wars: who should be allowed to engineer our climate? By Russell Brandom 12.06.2013 “The big thing nuclear weapons did wasn't all the details,” says Harvard climate scientist David Keith. “The really big thing is, they changed what it means to be a nation-state.” It’s on his mind because as the next century unfolds, Keith expects it to happen again.Scientists usually shy away from Oppenheimer comparisons, but in the case of geoengineering, they’re a given. Spend enough time at geoengineering conferences, and you’re guaranteed to hear a reference to The Bomb. Keith, who has grown into geoengineering’s leading advocate after his recent book on the topic, says the technology would be “as disruptive to the political order of the 21st century as nuclear weapons were for the 20th. It’s an exciting, dangerous idea — and it already has its opponents. In the years that he's been researching geoengineering, Keith says he's received two death threats serious enough to warrant calls to the police. The last, best hope Keith’s work is on solar radiation management, ostensibly a matter of pure atmospheric chemistry — but the potential uses for the tech make it much more dangerous than your average research project. In a world of catastrophic global warming, solar radiation management might be our only way to cool the planet and forestall the most damaging effects of climate change. The theory is simple: a plane sprays sulfate aerosols into the atmosphere, building a reflective layer that blocks a small portion of the sun’s energy, thus cooling the globe. There’s plenty of support for the theory, including a few sulfate-spewing volcanoes which have cooled the globe in the past, but it’s still unclear how it would work in practice. It’s generally accepted that the sulfates would disappear from the atmosphere within a few years, but more complex effects remain unknown. GOING ROGUE Most geoengineers think the technology should be used for a kind of soft landing as we phase out fossil fuels —but what if a country wanted to go further? The process is cheap enough that an island country like the Maldives, facing dire consequences from rising sea levels, might decide to kick off aggressive geoengineering on their own, daring other countries to stop them. The response would start with diplomacy, but it could escalate to the US shooting down their sulfur-spewing planes.The next step is to test the idea in the atmosphere with small drops over the course of a few days, but that proposal is still extremely controversial. It’s easy to see why critics are nervous. In the wrong hands, solar radiation management has the potential to destroy the planet's ecosystem entirely. The danger of a sulfate-triggered global drought or an accidental ice age is very real, and the climate is too complex to predict on a global scale. More than that, it’s still unclear exactly how governments would use this technology. Like the nuclear bomb, geoengineering would require a kind of global governance that simply doesn’t exist yet, and many climate activists see the climate-engineering cure as worse than the disease.Keith's ideal plan is simple enough: a slow ramp-up in sulfate drops over decades, giving the human race more time to quit fossil fuels and the planet's ecosystem time to adapt to higher temperatures. Once carbon emissions stopped around 2070, the sulfate drops would phase out, ending completely by 2120. Warming would still be a problem, of course, but geoengineering would let it come on slowly, giving
RE: [geo] Implications of Current Developments in International Liability for the Practice of Marine Geo-engineering Activities
From below - One of the key purposes of the liability regime could be to make ocean users more cautious when exploring and exploiting the oceans through charging cleaning costs or imposing compensation for damage. This paper aims to identify such a preventative effect of the international liability regime, in particular, state liability. Then I'm really looking forward to those liability claims for ocean cleaning costs and damage compensation aimed at current, evil ocean users (i.e. us) who are dumping of CO2 into the ocean via the atmosphere. Focussing legal actions here would likely have a more beneficial effect on the ocean than the current flurry of legal activity to aimed at those of us interested in researching potentially useful marine conservation measures*. Such unconventional conservation approaches now must be contemplated because of the catastrophic failure of the legal/policy community to pass and enforce laws aimed at reducing CO2 emissions. So I guess it's asking too much to expect a legal defense of alternative approaches to saving the ocean and the planet. * e.g., http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v2/n10/full/nclimate1555.html Greg From: geoengineering@googlegroups.com [geoengineering@googlegroups.com] on behalf of Andrew Lockley [andrew.lock...@gmail.com] Sent: Sunday, December 08, 2013 2:01 AM To: geoengineering Subject: [geo] Implications of Current Developments in International Liability for the Practice of Marine Geo-engineering Activities http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=onlineaid=9083401 Asian Journal of International Law 2013 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S2044251313000283 Published online: 29 November 2013 Implications of Current Developments in International Liability for the Practice of Marine Geo-engineering Activities Jung-Eun KIM Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology, Republic of Korea ocean...@kiost.acmailto:ocean...@kiost.ac Abstract Ocean fertilization was first introduced as a carbon dioxide mitigation technique in the 1980s. However, its effectiveness to slow down climate change is uncertain and it is expected to damage the marine environment. Consequently, international law, including the London Convention/Protocol and the Convention on Biological Diversity, limits this activity to scientific research purposes. The applicability and scope of existing treaties for regulating this activity have been reviewed within international legal systems, in particular within the London Protocol. The establishment of a liability regime with respect to these activities has also been raised during a discussion on regulation of ocean fertilization under the London Protocol. One of the key purposes of the liability regime could be to make ocean users more cautious when exploring and exploiting the oceans through charging cleaning costs or imposing compensation for damage. This paper aims to identify such a preventative effect of the international liability regime, in particular, state liability. -- 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.
[geo] CRS on GE
Apologies if this link has already been discussed: https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R41371.pdf Greg -- 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] Weather wars: who should be allowed to engineer our climate? | The Verge
I recommend the entire article, which von Neumann framed in the context of E-W tensions and militarization of technologies that could influence the world. The technology that is now developing and that will dominate the next decades seems to be in total conflict with traditional and. in the main, momentarily still valid, geographical and political units and concepts. This is the maturing crisis of technology. And he did indeed discuss CO2 (in 1955): The carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere by industry's burning of coal and oil-more than half of it during the last generation-may have changed the atmosphere's composition sufficiently to account for a general warming of the world by about one degree Fahrenheit. Von Neumann considered control of global climate a thoroughly ' abnormal ' industry that will merge each nation's affairs with those of every other, more thoroughly than the threat of a nuclear or any other war may already have done. On Sun, Dec 8, 2013 at 9:58 PM, Mike MacCracken mmacc...@comcast.netwrote: Jim--It seems to me this citation of von Neumann is taking a quote out of context. At that time the idea of geoengineering was to transform the climate to be more beneficial for mankind, such as melting Arctic sea ice. Indeed, audacious show of hubris. Today the intent of geoengineering is to keep the climate about where it is, counterbalancing the unintended consequences of fossil fuel use that is greatly transforming the climate. I’d guess von Neumann would not have said nearly the same thing about this type of potential geoengineering and would instead be applying his comment to the unconstrained climate change that will occur without climate engineering. Mike On 12/8/13 6:51 AM, Jim Fleming jflem...@colby.edu wrote: snip Keith, who has grown into geoengineering’s leading advocate after his recent book on the topic, says the technology would be “as disruptive to the political order of the 21st century as nuclear weapons were for the 20th. snip In 1955 in a prominent article titled “Can We Survive Technology?” John von Neumann referred to climate control as a thoroughly “abnormal” industry Tinkering with the Earth’s heat budget or the atmosphere’s general circulation “will merge each nation’s affairs with those of every other more thoroughly than the threat of a nuclear or any other war may already have done.” In his opinion, climate control... could lend itself to unprecedented destruction and to forms of warfare as yet unimagined. Climate manipulation could alter the entire globe and shatter the existing political order. von Neumann, John. “Can We Survive Technology?” *Fortune*, June 1955, 106–108. On Sat, Dec 7, 2013 at 6:49 PM, Andrew Lockley andrew.lock...@gmail.com wrote: http://mobile.theverge.com/2013/12/6/5181736/who-sets-the-planets-thermostat-the-politics-of-geoengineering Weather wars: who should be allowed to engineer our climate? By Russell Brandom 12.06.2013 “The big thing nuclear weapons did wasn't all the details,” says Harvard climate scientist David Keith. “The really big thing is, they changed what it means to be a nation-state.” It’s on his mind because as the next century unfolds, Keith expects it to happen again.Scientists usually shy away from Oppenheimer comparisons, but in the case of geoengineering, they’re a given. Spend enough time at geoengineering conferences, and you’re guaranteed to hear a reference to The Bomb. Keith, who has grown into geoengineering’s leading advocate after his recent book on the topic, says the technology would be “as disruptive to the political order of the 21st century as nuclear weapons were for the 20th. It’s an exciting, dangerous idea — and it already has its opponents. In the years that he's been researching geoengineering, Keith says he's received two death threats serious enough to warrant calls to the police. The last, best hope Keith’s work is on solar radiation management, ostensibly a matter of pure atmospheric chemistry — but the potential uses for the tech make it much more dangerous than your average research project. In a world of catastrophic global warming, solar radiation management might be our only way to cool the planet and forestall the most damaging effects of climate change. The theory is simple: a plane sprays sulfate aerosols into the atmosphere, building a reflective layer that blocks a small portion of the sun’s energy, thus cooling the globe. There’s plenty of support for the theory, including a few sulfate-spewing volcanoes which have cooled the globe in the past, but it’s still unclear how it would work in practice. It’s generally accepted that the sulfates would disappear from the atmosphere within a few years, but more complex effects remain unknown. GOING ROGUE Most geoengineers think the technology should be used for a kind of soft landing as we phase out fossil fuels
Re: [geo] CRS on GE
I note that the CRS falls into the same nomenclature trap as everyone else. By defining geoengineering to cover even things things that pose no novel risks, but seeking to make sweeping statements, they say things like: Nevertheless, if geoengineering technologies are deployed, they are expected to have the potential to cause significant transboundary effects. Thus, as usual, reforestation, biochar, and point source removal of CO2 with geologic storage are tarred with the same brush that stratospheric aerosols are tarred with. Isn't it time we sharpened up our language? Since geoengineering is in effect a pejorative term, isn't it time that we refine its scope so that it refers only to activities that pose novel risks? ___ 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 https://twitter.com/KenCaldeira On Sun, Dec 8, 2013 at 7:15 PM, Rau, Greg r...@llnl.gov wrote: Apologies if this link has already been discussed: https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R41371.pdf Greg -- 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.
