[geo] Climate Tools Seek to Bend Nature’s Path - NYTimes.com
Poster's note : a well researched piece, in which many group members are quoted. A similar article appeared in the Santa Fe New Mexican. http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/11/10/science/earth/climate-tools-seek-to-bend-natures-path.html?_r=0referrer= The New York Times THE BIG FIX Climate Tools Seek to Bend Nature’s Path A playground in Arnhem, the Netherlands, with a surface of olivine, a green-tinted mineral that takes CO2 from the atmosphere. JASPER JUINEN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES By HENRY FOUNTAIN NOVEMBER 9, 2014 UTRECHT, the Netherlands — The solution to global warming, Olaf Schuiling says, lies beneath our feet. For Dr. Schuiling, a retired geochemist, climate salvation would come in the form of olivine, a green-tinted mineral found in abundance around the world. When exposed to the elements, it slowly takes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Olivine has been doing this naturally for billions of years, but Dr. Schuiling wants to speed up the process by spreading it on fields and beaches and using it for dikes, pathways, even sandboxes. Sprinkle enough of the crushed rock around, he says, and it will eventually remove enough CO2 to slow the rise in global temperatures. “Let the earth help us to save the earth,” said Dr. Schuiling, who has been pursuing the idea single-mindedly for several decades and at 82 is still writing papers on the subject from his cluttered office at the University of Utrecht. The geochemist Olaf Schuiling advocates spreading olivine to slow the rise in global temperatures. ILVY NJIOKIKTJIEN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES Once considered the stuff of wild-eyed fantasies, such ideas for countering climate change — known as geoengineering solutions, because they intentionally manipulate nature — are now being discussed seriously by scientists. The National Academy of Sciences is expected to issue a report on geoengineering later this year. That does not mean that such measures, which are considered controversial across the political spectrum, are likely to be adopted anytime soon. But the effects of climate change may become so severe that geoengineering solutions could attract even more serious consideration. Some scientists say significant research should begin now. Dr. Schuiling’s idea is one of several intended to reduce levels of CO2, the main greenhouse gas, so the atmosphere will trap less heat. Other approaches, potentially faster and more doable but riskier, would create the equivalent of a sunshade around the planet by scattering reflective droplets in the stratosphere or spraying seawater to create more clouds over the oceans. Less sunlight reaching the earth’s surface would mean less heat to be trapped, resulting in a quick lowering of temperatures. No one can say for sure whether geoengineering of any kind would work. And many of the approaches are seen as highly impractical. Dr. Schuiling’s, for example, would take decades to have even a small impact, and the processes of mining, grinding and transporting the billions of tons of olivine needed would produce enormous carbon emissions of their own. Beyond the practicalities, many people view the idea of geoengineering as abhorrent — a last-gasp, Frankenstein-like approach to climate change that would distract the world from the goal of eliminating the emissions that are causing the problem in the first place. The climate is a vastly complex system, so manipulating temperatures may also have consequences, like changes in rainfall, that could be catastrophic or benefit one region at the expense of another. Critics also worry that geoengineering could be used unilaterally by one nation, creating another source of geopolitical worries, or could aggravate tensions between rich and poor nations over who causes and who suffers from climate change. Even conducting research on some of these ideas, they say, risks opening a Pandora’s box. “There’s so much potential here for taking energy away from real responses to climate change,” said Jim Thomas of the ETC Group, a research organization that opposes geoengineering because of its potential impact on poor countries. As for experimentation to test some of the ideas, he said, “it shouldn’t happen.” But a small community of scientists, policy experts and others argue that the world must start to think about geoengineering — how it might be done and at what cost, who would do it and how it would be governed. An article about Dr. Schuiling's work inspired Eddy Wijnker to start selling olivine sand.ILVY NJIOKIKTJIEN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES “There may come to be a choice between geoengineering and suffering,” said Andy Parker of the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies in Potsdam, Germany. “And how we make that choice is crucial.” Mimicking a VolcanoIn 1991, the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines spewed the largest cloud of sulfur dioxide gas ever measured into the high atmosphere. The gas quickly formed tiny droplets of sulfuric acid, which acted like
[geo] The Wickedness and Complexity of Decision Making in Geoengineering
Are these guys from upstate Maine? No, Austria... Wicked! Another for the policy wonks. http://www.mdpi.com/2078-1547/5/2/390/htm The Wickedness and Complexity of Decision Making in Geoengineering Yanzhu Zhang 1,2,* and Alfred Posch 1 1 Institute of Systems Sciences, Innovation and Sustainability Research, University of Graz, Graz 8010, Austria 2 MIND Education Program in Industrial Ecology, European Commission Erasmus Mundus Coordination Institute, Graz 8010, Austria * Author to whom correspondence should be addressedExternal Editor: Andreas Manz Received: 26 May 2014; in revised form: 29 October 2014 / Accepted: 30 October 2014 / Published: 6 November 2014 Abstract*:* Geoengineering, the deliberate large-scale manipulation of the planetary environment to counteract anthropogenic climate change, has been more widely considered as an accompanying strategy to conventional climate change mitigation measures to combat global warming. However, this approach is far from achieving agreements from different institutional domains. Geoengineering, intended to be deployed on a planetary scale, would cause fundamental interventions to the human-environment system and create new risks and problems with high uncertainty and uneven distribution around the globe. Apart from the physical effects, conflicting attitudes appear from social, economic, and environmental worldviews in the international community. The intertwined sociotechnical complexity and conflicting attitudes make geoengineering a wicked and complex issue. This article elaborates the wickedness and complexity from a system perspective, primarily for an interdisciplinary, policy-oriented audience. -- 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/d/optout.
[geo] Article in Toronto Star quoting Jim Fleming and me
http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2014/11/09/many_experts_say_technology_cant_fix_climate_change.html Many experts say technology can't fix climate change There are several geoengineering schemes for fixing climate change, but so far none seems a sure bet. *By:* Joseph Hall http://www.thestar.com/authors.hall_joe.html News reporter, Published on Sun Nov 09 2014 As scientific proposals go, these might well be labelled pie in the sky. Indeed, most of the atmosphere-altering techniques that have been suggested to combat carbon-induced global warming are more science fantasy than workable fixes, many climate experts say. I call them Rube Goldberg http://www.rubegoldberg.com/ideas, says James Rodger Fleming, a meteorological historian at Maine's Colby College, referring to the cartoonist who created designs for gratuitously complex contraptions. I think it's a tragic comedy because these people are sincere, but they're kind of deluded to think that there could be a simple, cheap, technical fix for climate change, adds Fleming, author of the 2010 book /Fixing the Sky: The Checkered History of Weather and Climate Control./ Yet the idea that geoengineering --- the use of technology to alter planet-wide systems --- could curb global warming has persisted in a world that seems incapable of addressing the root, carbon-spewing causes of the problem. And it emerged again earlier this month with a brief mention in a United Nations report on the scope and imminent perils of a rapidly warming world. That Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report http://www.ipcc.ch/, which seemed to despair of an emissions-lowering solution being achieved --- laid out in broad terms the types of technical fixes currently being studied to help mitigate climate catastrophe. First among these proposed geoengineering solutions is solar radiation management, or SRM, which would involve millions of tons of sulphur dioxide (SO2) being pumped into the stratosphere every year to create sun-blocking clouds high above the Earth's surface. Anyone Canadian who remembers the unusually frigid summer of 1992, caused by the volcanic eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines a year earlier, grasps the cooling effects that tons of stratospheric SO2 can have on the planet. And because such natural occurrences show the temperature-lowering potential of the rotten-smelling substance, seeding the stratosphere with it has gained the most currency among the geoengineering crowd. One method put forward for getting the rotten-smelling stuff into the stratosphere could well have been conceived by warped cartoonist Goldberg. You could make a tower up into the stratosphere, with a hose along the side says Alan Robock, a top meteorologist at New Jersey's Rutgers University who has long studied SRM concepts. The trouble is that any stratosphere-reaching tower built in the tropics, where the SO2 would have to be injected for proper global dispersal, would need to be at least 18 kilometres high. Other stratospheric seeding suggestions include filling balloons with the cheap and readily available gas --- it's routinely extracted from petroleum products --- and popping them when they get up there. But Robock says the most obvious way to go would be to fly airplanes up and then spray SO2 into the stratosphere. Once up there, the sulphur dioxide particles would react with water molecules and form thin clouds of sulphuric acid droplets that could encircle the Earth and reflect heating sunlight back into space. Placing the cloud in the stratosphere is a must as the droplets last about a year there while they fall within a week in the lower troposphere. Still, the clouds, which would rain sulphuric acid back down on the Earth's polar regions, would require frequent replenishment, with about 5 million tons of SO2 being needed each year to maintain their reflective capacity, Robock says. Due to uncertainties about the droplet sizes that would be produced by SO2 cloud-seeding, no one is certain how much cooling the technique would create. We don't know how thick a cloud we could actually make and how much cooling there would be, Robock says. Though he's devoted much of his career to studying sun-blocking proposals, Robock is in no way convinced of their merits. I have a list of 26 reasons why I think this might be a bad idea, he says. Chief among these is that the cooling produced by SRM would be uneven around the globe, with the greatest temperature drops being seen in the tropics. And so if you wanted to stop the ice sheets from melting . . . you'd have to overcool the tropics. The scheme would also produce droughts in heavily populated areas of the world such as the Indian subcontinent, he says. Another thing on my list is unexpected consequences. I mean, we don't know what the risks would be. We only know about one planet in the entire universe that
[geo] Re: Climate Tools Seek to Bend Nature’s Path - NYTimes.com
Most of the under-developed countries are close to the equator. It would interest them to explore geoengineering methods that they can work with everyday. Regrowing areas that have been lost due to indiscriminate clearing. If these mines are close enough they can be made available to them at low cost. Solutions from these mines can be led into rivers/streams to feed on the coastal environment such as mangroves, salt marshes etc provided they are not harmful. Parminder On Monday, November 10, 2014 4:39:50 PM UTC+8, andrewjlockley wrote: Poster's note : a well researched piece, in which many group members are quoted. A similar article appeared in the Santa Fe New Mexican. http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/11/10/science/earth/climate-tools-seek-to-bend-natures-path.html?_r=0referrer= The New York Times THE BIG FIX Climate Tools Seek to Bend Nature’s Path A playground in Arnhem, the Netherlands, with a surface of olivine, a green-tinted mineral that takes CO2 from the atmosphere. JASPER JUINEN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES By HENRY FOUNTAIN NOVEMBER 9, 2014 UTRECHT, the Netherlands — The solution to global warming, Olaf Schuiling says, lies beneath our feet. For Dr. Schuiling, a retired geochemist, climate salvation would come in the form of olivine, a green-tinted mineral found in abundance around the world. When exposed to the elements, it slowly takes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Olivine has been doing this naturally for billions of years, but Dr. Schuiling wants to speed up the process by spreading it on fields and beaches and using it for dikes, pathways, even sandboxes. Sprinkle enough of the crushed rock around, he says, and it will eventually remove enough CO2 to slow the rise in global temperatures. “Let the earth help us to save the earth,” said Dr. Schuiling, who has been pursuing the idea single-mindedly for several decades and at 82 is still writing papers on the subject from his cluttered office at the University of Utrecht. The geochemist Olaf Schuiling advocates spreading olivine to slow the rise in global temperatures. ILVY NJIOKIKTJIEN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES Once considered the stuff of wild-eyed fantasies, such ideas for countering climate change — known as geoengineering solutions, because they intentionally manipulate nature — are now being discussed seriously by scientists. The National Academy of Sciences is expected to issue a report on geoengineering later this year. That does not mean that such measures, which are considered controversial across the political spectrum, are likely to be adopted anytime soon. But the effects of climate change may become so severe that geoengineering solutions could attract even more serious consideration. Some scientists say significant research should begin now. Dr. Schuiling’s idea is one of several intended to reduce levels of CO2, the main greenhouse gas, so the atmosphere will trap less heat. Other approaches, potentially faster and more doable but riskier, would create the equivalent of a sunshade around the planet by scattering reflective droplets in the stratosphere or spraying seawater to create more clouds over the oceans. Less sunlight reaching the earth’s surface would mean less heat to be trapped, resulting in a quick lowering of temperatures. No one can say for sure whether geoengineering of any kind would work. And many of the approaches are seen as highly impractical. Dr. Schuiling’s, for example, would take decades to have even a small impact, and the processes of mining, grinding and transporting the billions of tons of olivine needed would produce enormous carbon emissions of their own. Beyond the practicalities, many people view the idea of geoengineering as abhorrent — a last-gasp, Frankenstein-like approach to climate change that would distract the world from the goal of eliminating the emissions that are causing the problem in the first place. The climate is a vastly complex system, so manipulating temperatures may also have consequences, like changes in rainfall, that could be catastrophic or benefit one region at the expense of another. Critics also worry that geoengineering could be used unilaterally by one nation, creating another source of geopolitical worries, or could aggravate tensions between rich and poor nations over who causes and who suffers from climate change. Even conducting research on some of these ideas, they say, risks opening a Pandora’s box. “There’s so much potential here for taking energy away from real responses to climate change,” said Jim Thomas of the ETC Group, a research organization that opposes geoengineering because of its potential impact on poor countries. As for experimentation to test some of the ideas, he said, “it shouldn’t happen.” But a small community of scientists, policy experts and others argue that the world must start to think about
Re: [geo] The Wickedness and Complexity of Decision Making in Geoengineering
Joshua and list (and adding the two authors) 1. Thanks for this lead to what I think will be an important geoengineering comparison. Not only that there are few papers that analytically compare CDR to SRM, but state a clear preference for one or the other. Mostly Zhang-Posch compare based on ethical principles, but they discuss costs. 2. I hope SRM advocates will take this chance to rebut the Zhang-Posch stated preference for CDR. 3. My main “beef” is that CDR was treated as a single entity. I hope Zhang-Posch will now add a second paper doing the same analyses for the main CDR approaches. Not as stark differences as between SRM and CDR, but this list continually notes that CDR is not one technology. 4. I like their two figures, but feel more differences will show up when they (hopefully) modify Figure 2 for different CDR approaches (as I don’t see it adequately covering biochar - which term is never mentioned). Also hope they can distinguish on such a figure between costs and benefits (positive and negative feedbacks). The time dimension is included more than most such figures. 5. Because they emphasized the term, I looked up “minimax” on Wiki and found this new-to-me philosophic/ethical principle (my emphasis added) “In philosophy, the term maximin is often used in the context of John Rawls's A Theory of Justice, where he refers to it (Rawls (1971, p. 152)) in the context of The Difference Principle. Rawls defined this principle as the rule which states that social and economic inequalities should be arranged so that they are to be of the greatest benefit to the least-advantaged members of society.[6][7] 6. Probably would fail with Ayn Rand or the new US Congress, but might get a super majority if voted on by all 7 billion of us. Ron On Nov 10, 2014, at 4:35 AM, Joshua Jacobs joshic...@gmail.com wrote: Are these guys from upstate Maine? No, Austria... Wicked! Another for the policy wonks. http://www.mdpi.com/2078-1547/5/2/390/htm The Wickedness and Complexity of Decision Making in Geoengineering Yanzhu Zhang 1,2,* and Alfred Posch 1 1Institute of Systems Sciences, Innovation and Sustainability Research, University of Graz, Graz 8010, Austria 2MIND Education Program in Industrial Ecology, European Commission Erasmus Mundus Coordination Institute, Graz 8010, Austria *Author to whom correspondence should be addressedExternal Editor: Andreas Manz Received: 26 May 2014; in revised form: 29 October 2014 / Accepted: 30 October 2014 / Published: 6 November 2014 Abstract: Geoengineering, the deliberate large-scale manipulation of the planetary environment to counteract anthropogenic climate change, has been more widely considered as an accompanying strategy to conventional climate change mitigation measures to combat global warming. However, this approach is far from achieving agreements from different institutional domains. Geoengineering, intended to be deployed on a planetary scale, would cause fundamental interventions to the human-environment system and create new risks and problems with high uncertainty and uneven distribution around the globe. Apart from the physical effects, conflicting attitudes appear from social, economic, and environmental worldviews in the international community. The intertwined sociotechnical complexity and conflicting attitudes make geoengineering a wicked and complex issue. This article elaborates the wickedness and complexity from a system perspective, primarily for an interdisciplinary, policy-oriented audience. -- 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/d/optout. -- 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/d/optout.
Re: [geo] Article in Toronto Star quoting Jim Fleming and me
Alan cc List adding Professor Fleming 1. Interesting news release; thanks. Could you give a cite for your expanded-to-26 list? I found reference to a ppt on your website, which I could download but not open. 2. Although called a “Geoengineering” list, your 20-list is only for SRM. It would be very helpful to know if you or anyone has a similar list for CDR. 3. For those who have not seen Professor Robock’s list of 20, it is available at http://www.atmos.washington.edu/academics/classes/2012Q1/111/20Reasons.pdf 4. Professor Fleming (being cc’d) had this to say below about biochar in the article: “Others are proposing to turn the captured carbon into charcoal by burning it in oxygen-free fires and burying it underground for soil enrichment. “The problem with that one is the scale,” Fleming says. “The topsoil of the world is not large enough to capture all the carbon of industry.” 5. Minor objections to the first sentence (“burning” and “burying”), but I hope he or others could provide cites for “not large enough”. For one, a large amount (100 Gt??) of the removed carbon can appear as future additional above-ground biomass (now about 500 Gt C). But also there are numerous citations of anthropogenic removal of perhaps 400 Gt C of soil carbon - that need return. In addition, the 60 Gt C per year in flux is not obviously incapable of adding another 10% or so. Finally there is a similar increased carbon flux potential to biochar from ocean resources - and if some inadvertently returns as char, it is probably even more recalcitrant there. 6. I of course agree with his main thrust here - we need to stop, not capture, “all the capture of industry.” But the two actions can/must be concurrent. Ron Others are proposing to turn the captured carbon into charcoal by burning it in oxygen-free fires and burying it underground for soil enrichment. “ Others are proposing to turn the captured carbon into charcoal by burning it in oxygen-free fires and burying it underground for soil enrichment. “The problem with that one is the scale,” Fleming says. “The topsoil of the world is not large enough to capture all the carbon of industry.” Others are proposing to turn the captured carbon into charcoal by burning it in oxygen-free fires and burying it underground for soil enrichment. “The problem with that one is the scale,” Fleming says. “The topsoil of the world is not large enough to capture all the carbon of industry.” On Nov 10, 2014, at 8:03 AM, Alan Robock rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu wrote: http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2014/11/09/many_experts_say_technology_cant_fix_climate_change.html Many experts say technology can't fix climate change There are several geoengineering schemes for fixing climate change, but so far none seems a sure bet. By: Joseph Hall News reporter, Published on Sun Nov 09 2014 As scientific proposals go, these might well be labelled pie in the sky. Indeed, most of the atmosphere-altering techniques that have been suggested to combat carbon-induced global warming are more science fantasy than workable fixes, many climate experts say. “I call them Rube Goldberg ideas,” says James Rodger Fleming, a meteorological historian at Maine’s Colby College, referring to the cartoonist who created designs for gratuitously complex contraptions. “I think it’s a tragic comedy because these people are sincere, but they’re kind of deluded to think that there could be a simple, cheap, technical fix for climate change,” adds Fleming, author of the 2010 book Fixing the Sky: The Checkered History of Weather and Climate Control. Yet the idea that geoengineering — the use of technology to alter planet-wide systems — could curb global warming has persisted in a world that seems incapable of addressing the root, carbon-spewing causes of the problem. And it emerged again earlier this month with a brief mention in a United Nations report on the scope and imminent perils of a rapidly warming world. That Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, which seemed to despair of an emissions-lowering solution being achieved — laid out in broad terms the types of technical fixes currently being studied to help mitigate climate catastrophe. First among these proposed geoengineering solutions is solar radiation management, or SRM, which would involve millions of tons of sulphur dioxide (SO2) being pumped into the stratosphere every year to create sun-blocking clouds high above the Earth’s surface. Anyone Canadian who remembers the unusually frigid summer of 1992, caused by the volcanic eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines a year earlier, grasps the cooling effects that tons of stratospheric SO2 can have on the planet. And because such natural occurrences show the temperature-lowering potential of the rotten-smelling substance, seeding the stratosphere with it has
Re: [geo] Article in Toronto Star quoting Jim Fleming and me
The 26 reasons (and 5 benefits) are in: Robock, Alan, 2014: Stratospheric aerosol geoengineering, /Issues Env. Sci. Tech./ (special issue Geoengineering of the Climate System), *38*, 162-185. http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/RobockStratAerosolGeo.pdf See Table 2, p. 181. And it is specific not to just SRM, but stratospheric aerosol SRM. Alan Robock Alan Robock, Distinguished Professor Editor, Reviews of Geophysics Director, Meteorology Undergraduate Program Department of Environmental Sciences Phone: +1-848-932-5751 Rutgers University Fax: +1-732-932-8644 14 College Farm Road E-mail: rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8551 USA http://envsci.rutgers.edu/~robock http://twitter.com/AlanRobock Watch my 18 min TEDx talk at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsrEk1oZ-54 On 11/10/2014 3:16 PM, Ronal W. Larson wrote: Alan cc List adding Professor Fleming 1. Interesting news release; thanks. Could you give a cite for your expanded-to-26 list? I found reference to a ppt on your website, which I could download but not open. 2. Although called a Geoengineering list, your 20-list is only for SRM. It would be very helpful to know if you or anyone has a similar list for CDR. 3. For those who have not seen Professor Robock's list of 20, it is available at http://www.atmos.washington.edu/academics/classes/2012Q1/111/20Reasons.pdf 4. Professor Fleming (being cc'd) had this to say below about biochar in the article: /Others are proposing to turn the captured carbon into charcoal by burning it in oxygen-free fires and burying it underground for soil enrichment. //The problem with that one is the scale, Fleming says. The topsoil of the world is not large enough to capture all the carbon of industry./ 5. Minor objections to the first sentence (/burning/ and /burying/), but I hope he or others could provide cites for /not large enough/. For one, a large amount (100 Gt??) of the removed carbon can appear as future additional above-ground biomass (now about 500 Gt C). But also there are numerous citations of anthropogenic removal of perhaps 400 Gt C of soil carbon - that need return. In addition, the 60 Gt C per year in flux is not obviously incapable of adding another 10% or so. Finally there is a similar increased carbon flux potential to biochar from ocean resources - and if some inadvertently returns as char, it is probably even more recalcitrant there. 6. I of course agree with his main thrust here - we need to stop, not capture, /all the capture of industry. /But the two actions can/must be concurrent. Ron Others are proposing to turn the captured carbon into charcoal by burning it in oxygen-free fires and burying it underground for soil enrichment. Others are proposing to turn the captured carbon into charcoal by burning it in oxygen-free fires and burying it underground for soil enrichment. The problem with that one is the scale, Fleming says. The topsoil of the world is not large enough to capture all the carbon of industry. Others are proposing to turn the captured carbon into charcoal by burning it in oxygen-free fires and burying it underground for soil enrichment. The problem with that one is the scale, Fleming says. The topsoil of the world is not large enough to capture all the carbon of industry. On Nov 10, 2014, at 8:03 AM, Alan Robock rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu mailto:rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu wrote: http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2014/11/09/many_experts_say_technology_cant_fix_climate_change.html Many experts say technology can't fix climate change There are several geoengineering schemes for fixing climate change, but so far none seems a sure bet. *By:* Joseph Hall http://www.thestar.com/authors.hall_joe.html News reporter, Published on Sun Nov 09 2014 As scientific proposals go, these might well be labelled pie in the sky. Indeed, most of the atmosphere-altering techniques that have been suggested to combat carbon-induced global warming are more science fantasy than workable fixes, many climate experts say. I call them Rube Goldberg http://www.rubegoldberg.com/ideas, says James Rodger Fleming, a meteorological historian at Maine's Colby College, referring to the cartoonist who created designs for gratuitously complex contraptions. I think it's a tragic comedy because these people are sincere, but they're kind of deluded to think that there could be a simple, cheap, technical fix for climate change, adds Fleming, author of the 2010 book /Fixing the Sky: The Checkered History of Weather and Climate Control./ Yet the idea that geoengineering --- the use of technology to alter planet-wide systems --- could curb global warming has persisted in a world that seems incapable of addressing the root, carbon-spewing causes of the problem. And it
Re: [geo] Article in Toronto Star quoting Jim Fleming and me
Professors Robock and Fleming and list 1. Thanks for your added very recent and informative article. As I requested in a separate response today to the Zhang-Posch paper, I hope stratospheric aerosol SRM proponents will take up this chance to rebut you and Professor Fleming. I am not qualified to enter that debate, but your list of 26 risks looks reasonable. I understand that your list only relates to one non-CDR technology. 2. Three questions on the first sentence of your last paragraph (all of which I support) reads: “Even at this late date, a global push to rapid decarbonization, by imposing a carbon tax, will stimulate renewable energy, and allow solar, wind, and newly developed energy sources to allow civilization to prosper without using the atmosphere as a sewer for CO2. a. A carbon tax would stimulate all CDR as well as your list of beneficiaries. Did you mean to so include CDR? b. Almost the same question: By “decarbonization” do you include both carbon neutral (solar, wind, [also bioenergy??]) and carbon negative (CDR) technologies? c. Is a technology which has both carbon neutral and carbon negative characteristics included in the quoted sentence even if not passing the first two questions (as regards “civilization to prosper”)? 4.The last part of your final paragraph reads“Adaptation will reduce some of the negative impacts of global warming. Geoengineering does not now appear to be a panacea, and research in geoengineering should be in addition to strong efforts toward mitigation, and not a substitute. In fact, geoengineering may soon prove to be so unattractive that research results will strengthen the push toward mitigation. “ The term CDR is not included here, so I fear this final paragraph may be used against CDR, even though you elsewhere emphasize that your paper is related to a subset of geoengineering - a word used three times here. I admit to trying to get you to be supportive of at least the biochar component of CDR in the spectrum of your options that already spans mitigation and adaptation. You are clearly excluding at least one part of geoengineering, but some trying to discredit CDR will surely use this paragraph to discredit all parts of geoengineering. Hope you can clarify. 5. Apologies to the list. I had a typo in the “Fleming” part of my message below. The quoted phrase “all the capture of industry.” should have read “all the carbon of industry.” (I blame a gremlin in my computer.) Again thanks for the report on (mostly) GeoMIP. Ron On Nov 10, 2014, at 2:03 PM, Alan Robock rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu wrote: The 26 reasons (and 5 benefits) are in: Robock, Alan, 2014: Stratospheric aerosol geoengineering, Issues Env. Sci. Tech. (special issue “Geoengineering of the Climate System”), 38, 162-185. http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/RobockStratAerosolGeo.pdf See Table 2, p. 181. And it is specific not to just SRM, but stratospheric aerosol SRM. Alan Robock Alan Robock, Distinguished Professor Editor, Reviews of Geophysics Director, Meteorology Undergraduate Program Department of Environmental Sciences Phone: +1-848-932-5751 Rutgers University Fax: +1-732-932-8644 14 College Farm Road E-mail: rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8551 USA http://envsci.rutgers.edu/~robock http://twitter.com/AlanRobock Watch my 18 min TEDx talk at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsrEk1oZ-54 On 11/10/2014 3:16 PM, Ronal W. Larson wrote: Alan cc List adding Professor Fleming 1. Interesting news release; thanks. Could you give a cite for your expanded-to-26 list? I found reference to a ppt on your website, which I could download but not open. 2. Although called a “Geoengineering” list, your 20-list is only for SRM. It would be very helpful to know if you or anyone has a similar list for CDR. 3. For those who have not seen Professor Robock’s list of 20, it is available at http://www.atmos.washington.edu/academics/classes/2012Q1/111/20Reasons.pdf 4. Professor Fleming (being cc’d) had this to say below about biochar in the article: “Others are proposing to turn the captured carbon into charcoal by burning it in oxygen-free fires and burying it underground for soil enrichment. “The problem with that one is the scale,” Fleming says. “The topsoil of the world is not large enough to capture all the carbon of industry.” 5. Minor objections to the first sentence (“burning” and “burying”), but I hope he or others could provide cites for “not large enough”. For one, a large amount (100 Gt??) of the removed carbon can appear as future additional above-ground biomass (now about 500 Gt C). But also there are numerous citations of
[geo] Fwd: Climate Engineering News Review for week 46 of 2014
-- Forwarded message -- From: i...@climate-engineering.eu i...@climate-engineering.eu Date: 10 Nov 2014 23:11 Subject: Climate Engineering News Review for week 46 of 2014 To: andrew.lock...@gmail.com Cc: [image: tl_files/newsletter/NewsletterBalken.jpg] Dear Climate Engineering Group, please find below our weekly climate engineering news review. You can find daily updated climate engineering news on our news portal www.climate-engineering.eu/news.html. Thank you The Climate Engineering Editors Climate Engineering News Review for Week 46 of 2014 Upcoming Events and Deadlines - 13.11.2014 http://www.climate-engineering.eu/single-event/events/seminar-what-should-we-do-about-fossil-fuel-co2.html, Seminar: What should we do about fossil fuel CO2?, Oxford Martin School, Oxford/UK - 14.11.2014 http://www.climate-engineering.eu/single/items/job-climate-engineering-project-scientist-iass-potsdam.html (deadline), Job: Climate Engineering Project Scientist, IASS Potsdam - 02.-03.12.2014 http://www.climate-engineering.eu/single-event/events/the-world-science-summit-on-climate-engineering-future-guiding-principles-and-ethics.html, The World Science Summit on Climate Engineering: Future Guiding Principles and Ethics, Washington DC/USA - 03.12.2014 http://www.climate-engineering.eu/single/items/job-postdoctor-in-environmental-change-linkoping.html (deadline), Job: Postdoctor in Environmental Change, Linkoping - 15.-19.12.2014 http://www.climate-engineering.eu/single-event/events/conference-agu-fall-meeting.html, Conference: AGU Fall Meeting, San Francisco/USA - 04.-08.01.2015 http://www.climate-engineering.eu/single-event/events/conference-20th-conference-on-planned-and-inadvertent-weather-modification.html, Conference: 20th Conference on Planned and Inadvertent Weather Modification, Phoenix, Arizona/USA - 14.02.2015 http://www.climate-engineering.eu/single-event/events/panel-discussion-climate-intervention-and-geoengineering-albedo-modification.html, Conference Session: Climate Intervention and Geoengineering: Albedo Modification, San Jose/USA - 17.02.2015 http://www.climate-engineering.eu/single-event/events/lecture-patient-geoengineering-david-keith.html, Lecture: Patient Geoengineering (David Keith), SFJAZZ Center, San Francisco/USA - 12.-14.03.2014 http://www.climate-engineering.eu/single-event/events/srm-science-conference-2015.html, SRM Science Conference 2015, Cambridge/UK New Publications - Zhang, Yanzhu; Posch, Alfred (2014) http://www.climate-engineering.eu/single/items/zhang-yanzhu-posch-alfred-2014-the-wickedness-and-complexity-of-decision-making-in-geoengineering.html: The Wickedness and Complexity of Decision Making in Geoengineering - Fuglestvedt, Jan S.; et al. (2014) http://www.climate-engineering.eu/single/items/fuglestvedt-jan-s-et-al-2014-counteracting-the-climate-effects-of-volcanic-eruptions-using-short-lived-greenhouse-gases.html: Counteracting the climate effects of volcanic eruptions using short-lived greenhouse gases - Li, Tongyan; et al. (2014) http://www.climate-engineering.eu/single/items/li-tongyan-et-al-2014-carbon-dioxide-removal-by-using-mgoh2-in-a-bubble-column-effects-of-various-operating-parameters.html: Carbon dioxide removal by using Mg(OH)2 in a bubble column: Effects of various operating parameters Selected Media Responses - New York Times http://www.climate-engineering.eu/single/items/new-york-times-climate-tools-seek-to-bend-natures-path.html: Climate Tools Seek to Bend Nature’s Path - thestar.com http://www.climate-engineering.eu/single/items/thestarcom-many-experts-say-technology-cant-fix-climate-change.html: Many experts say technology can't fix climate change - the guardian http://www.climate-engineering.eu/single/items/the-guardian-geoengineering-could-prevent-climate-effects-caused-by-giant-volcanic-eruptions.html: Geoengineering could prevent climate effects caused by giant volcanic eruptions - the guardian http://www.climate-engineering.eu/single/items/the-guardian-geoengineering-the-ethical-problems-with-cleaning-the-air.html: Geoengineering: the ethical problems with cleaning the air Political Papers - Stiftung Risiko-Dialog (2014) http://www.climate-engineering.eu/single/items/stiftung-risiko-dialog-2014-climate-engineering-the-taboo-in-climate-policy.html: Climate Engineering: The Taboo in Climate Policy * To unsubscribe please send short message to **i...@climate-engineering.eu* i...@climate-engineering.eu* or use the web interface.* -- 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.
Re: [geo] Article in Toronto Star quoting Jim Fleming and me
Thanks, Ron. Just to expand on your comments on Prof. Fleming's CDR statements at http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2014/11/09/many_experts_say_technology_cant_fix_climate_change.html All the [CDR] plans, however, would likely entail huge costs, the use of dangerous chemicals and uncertain storage prospects, Fleming says. “There are chemical means that would use some very alkaline, harsh chemicals.” GR - Thank goodness most of the earth and ocean is alkaline and hence will eventually absorb and neutralize all of the CO2 we care to emit, no dangerous, harsh chemicals required, and did I say for free? Is is inconceivable that we can safely and cost effectively help Mother Nature speed up her CDR, while we also try to reduce emissions? He notes that there are also thermodynamic means — kind of the way they make dry ice and they just suck it out and condense it (into a liquid or solid).” But thermodynamic removal and compression techniques, Fleming says, are prohibitively expensive and require the use of large amounts of carbon-producing energy. This is largely due to the increased weight carbon acquires by combining with oxygen during the burning process. A ton of coal, for example, produces more than three tons of carbon dioxide because of the added oxygen load, Fleming says. “To make it really effective you’d have to have about a 30-per-cent increase in world energy use. But it would have to come from renewable (sources), which are not in the offing right now.” Other removal plans would employ membrane filters that are permeable to all the air’s component molecules except carbon. “This seems viable on a small scale, but the question is, as in all these projects: how do you make it a very large and very viable and economically feasible?” Fleming says. GR – Couldn't agree more. Making highly concentrated CO2 from air is a non-starter. It is also unnecessary, see my first point. Mother Nature does 18GT of CDR /yr without making conc CO2, so why should we? Most plans would see the captured CO2 turned back into a burnable fuel by removing the oxygen component, or have it condensed into a liquid form and pumped into underground caverns or ocean trenches. But the fuel idea would also requite massive energy inputs to crack the molecule into its two elements, and the storage scheme would likely produce leakage. GR - All true, and hence so far irrelevant to cost effective and safe CDR. Others are proposing to turn the captured carbon into charcoal by burning it in oxygen-free fires and burying it underground for soil enrichment. “The problem with that one is the scale,” Fleming says. “The topsoil of the world is not large enough to capture all the carbon of industry.” GR – Fine, whatever the soil can't handle, thankfully the ocean easily can (and will), especially if the carbon is added in the form of (bi)carbonates or buryable organics, or even Ron's biochar (as long as it sinks). Bottom line: with over half of our CO2 emissions already being removed from the atmosphere each year, wouldn't the logical starting point for a discussion on and criticism of CDR costs, benefits, capacities and ethics be here, rather than on expensive and risky concepts that are entirely engineered from the ground up? Greg Rau From: Ronal W. Larson rongretlar...@comcast.netmailto:rongretlar...@comcast.net Reply-To: rongretlar...@comcast.netmailto:rongretlar...@comcast.net rongretlar...@comcast.netmailto:rongretlar...@comcast.net Date: Monday, November 10, 2014 1:16 PM To: Alan Robock rob...@envsci.rutgers.edumailto:rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu, geoengineering geoengineering@googlegroups.commailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com Cc: jflem...@colby.edumailto:jflem...@colby.edu jflem...@colby.edumailto:jflem...@colby.edu Subject: Re: [geo] Article in Toronto Star quoting Jim Fleming and me Alan cc List adding Professor Fleming 1. Interesting news release; thanks. Could you give a cite for your expanded-to-26 list? I found reference to a ppt on your website, which I could download but not open. 2. Although called a “Geoengineering” list, your 20-list is only for SRM. It would be very helpful to know if you or anyone has a similar list for CDR. 3. For those who have not seen Professor Robock’s list of 20, it is available at http://www.atmos.washington.edu/academics/classes/2012Q1/111/20Reasons.pdf 4. Professor Fleming (being cc’d) had this to say below about biochar in the article: “Others are proposing to turn the captured carbon into charcoal by burning it in oxygen-free fires and burying it underground for soil enrichment. “The problem with that one is the scale,” Fleming says. “The topsoil of the world is not large enough to capture all the carbon of industry.” 5. Minor objections to the first sentence (“burning” and “burying”), but I hope he or others could provide cites for “not large enough”. For one, a large amount (100 Gt??) of the
RE: [geo] Article in Toronto Star quoting Jim Fleming and me
Jim – I’m not sure whether I’m included in the category of sincere but deluded folk… are you referring to (a) anyone who thinks SRM will cause global temperatures to decrease, or (b) people who think that SRM will so perfectly compensate for effects of greenhouse gases that we can continue to burn fossil fuels without worry? Given that position (a) is pretty much a given, I presume you mean position (b)… but is that really prevalent enough that it is worth bothering to combat it? (I can only think of 4 people on the planet that I’ve heard espouse that view in public, though I’m sure there are others, certainly no-one on this list, I’m sure… combatting that view simply isn’t one of the biggest worries I actually have about geoengineering.) Overall, I’m simply reacting to the odd tone of the article that doesn’t say much about the counterfactual if we don’t deploy any geoengineering… leaving that question out of the story makes the story rather irrelevant, since that is obviously the only reason to consider this in the first place. (No-one would take chemotherapy drugs if they didn’t have cancer.) And a quibble with Alan’s comment about stopping ice sheets from melting requiring overcooling the tropics – that is true only if (i) you want to return the poles to pre-industrial temperatures (I don’t know how far you need to go to stop ice sheet melt) and (ii) you constrain yourself to only spatially uniform solar reductions. (I know you know that… presume this was a result of a quick comment and a reporter who prefers reporting controversy to capturing detail.) doug From: geoengineering@googlegroups.com [mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Alan Robock Sent: Monday, November 10, 2014 1:03 PM To: rongretlar...@comcast.net; Geoengineering Cc: jflem...@colby.edu Subject: Re: [geo] Article in Toronto Star quoting Jim Fleming and me The 26 reasons (and 5 benefits) are in: Robock, Alan, 2014: Stratospheric aerosol geoengineering, Issues Env. Sci. Tech. (special issue “Geoengineering of the Climate System”), 38, 162-185. http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/RobockStratAerosolGeo.pdf See Table 2, p. 181. And it is specific not to just SRM, but stratospheric aerosol SRM. Alan Robock Alan Robock, Distinguished Professor Editor, Reviews of Geophysics Director, Meteorology Undergraduate Program Department of Environmental Sciences Phone: +1-848-932-5751 Rutgers University Fax: +1-732-932-8644 14 College Farm Road E-mail: rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8551 USA http://envsci.rutgers.edu/~robock http://twitter.com/AlanRobock Watch my 18 min TEDx talk at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsrEk1oZ-54 On 11/10/2014 3:16 PM, Ronal W. Larson wrote: Alan cc List adding Professor Fleming 1. Interesting news release; thanks. Could you give a cite for your expanded-to-26 list? I found reference to a ppt on your website, which I could download but not open. 2. Although called a “Geoengineering” list, your 20-list is only for SRM. It would be very helpful to know if you or anyone has a similar list for CDR. 3. For those who have not seen Professor Robock’s list of 20, it is available at http://www.atmos.washington.edu/academics/classes/2012Q1/111/20Reasons.pdf 4. Professor Fleming (being cc’d) had this to say below about biochar in the article: “Others are proposing to turn the captured carbon into charcoal by burning it in oxygen-free fires and burying it underground for soil enrichment. “The problem with that one is the scale,” Fleming says. “The topsoil of the world is not large enough to capture all the carbon of industry.” 5. Minor objections to the first sentence (“burning” and “burying”), but I hope he or others could provide cites for “not large enough”. For one, a large amount (100 Gt??) of the removed carbon can appear as future additional above-ground biomass (now about 500 Gt C). But also there are numerous citations of anthropogenic removal of perhaps 400 Gt C of soil carbon - that need return. In addition, the 60 Gt C per year in flux is not obviously incapable of adding another 10% or so. Finally there is a similar increased carbon flux potential to biochar from ocean resources - and if some inadvertently returns as char, it is probably even more recalcitrant there. 6. I of course agree with his main thrust here - we need to stop, not capture, “all the capture of industry.” But the two actions can/must be concurrent. Ron Others are proposing to turn the captured carbon into charcoal by burning it in oxygen-free fires and burying it underground for soil enrichment. “ Others are proposing to turn the captured carbon into charcoal by burning it in oxygen-free fires and burying it underground for soil enrichment. “The problem with that one is the
Re: [geo] The Wickedness and Complexity of Decision Making in Geoengineering
Mr. Zhang: (with ccs) 1. You are correct. I apologize for over simplifying on what your paper said. I try below to be more specific. You broke your analysis into six parts. # 1: 2.1. An Argument on Complex Cross-Boundary Feedbacks in Human-Environment System [RWL: Nine paragraphs. This is where the meat of this article resides. I now see this is the only place in the article where strong comparative statements are made between CDR and SRM - and where there are ideas and figures that provide new insights. I like this section. You said (emphasis added) a. Our rationale here on the superiority of CDR over SRM, however, gives an alternative philosophical argument that aids our strategic decision making. b. The rationale here argues that from the “proximity of stake to catastrophe” perspective, by analyzing the feedback system, CDR is “less proximate” than SRM to human stakes. [Less is to be preferred] c.Through a “proximity of catastrophe to stake” argument, CDR prevails over SRM because it leaves more “buffer time” for humans to take urgent remedy actions if a severe impact in a system occurs due to improper planetary intervention. (This last from the conclusions section.) #2 2.2. Can We Afford It? [RWL: 3 paragraphs. Of course, mostly this community agrees that there is a large cost advantage for SRM. But this section notes many cost downsides and warnings as well. If I were an SRM proponent, I wouldn’t use this section to claim victory. #3. 2.3. Can Cost-Benefit be the Only Criterion [RWL: 2 paragraphs. Seems to argue much more against least cost SRM, as implied by the section heading’s question. Term here is CO2 mitigation, but seems to mean CDR. #4. 2.4. Conflicting Interests and Values [RWL: 3 paragraphs. No comparisons provided, but almost everyone agrees that CDR is the less controversial of the two approaches being discussed. #5. 2.5. Lack of Central Geoengineering Governance Authority [RWL: 2 paragraphs. No definitive comparative statement, but CDR seems to be a winner here, since its governance, almost by definition, need not be “central”. #6 2.6. The Tuxedo Fallacy in Geoengineering Decision Making [RWL: 1 paragraphTuxedo refers to looking at risks as at a roulette table. I think most geoengineering analysts and this paragraph are saying that there are lower risks for CDR. No simple quote to provide, but I read this last also as favoring CDR. In sum: after a close secondary reading, I stand by my original statement on the article favoring CDR. But I did incorrectly state that there was a full comparison of CDR and SRM. That applies only to the first of the six categories. I’d like to hear from anyone agreeing with Dr. Zhang that there was no winner described. 3. Thanks for the additional leads. I found Prof. Allenby’s material somewhat helpful, but I hope his including bioethanol as geoengineering is not followed. 4. You have done an apparently excellent job in defining “wickedness”, including the phrase ..” difficult, if not impossible, to solve…” I hope this list can today reject the “impossible” part of this. This list has had similar disagreement on the term “irreversible”. Many on this list have concluded that CDR solutions will (repeat will) permit near term “ reversibility” - at least of atmospheric carbon levels and global surface temperatures (not deep ocean carbon or temperature). So. I hope this list can have arguments/dialog about topics like that, facilitated by this article. I agree on the “difficult” part of the definition. 5. Wiki on wicked problems gives a very helpful set of 10 characteristics - for those wanting to read more about wickedness.. It also talks about “super wicked”, with the standard example being climate change, the four additional characteristics also being given in the Zhang paper. Time is running out. No central authority. Those seeking to solve the problem are also causing it. Policies discount the future irrationally. I think one CDR solution (biochar) today 1) still allows enough time if we get on it, 2) does not require a central authority, 3) has “solvers” available who are not causing the problem, and 4) I don’t see irrational discounting (positive economic returns are sometimes seen even in the first year, and several cultures have used biochar practices for millennia, without a climate motivation - showing discounting has worked). 6. Further on super wickedness of the climate topic, I found this paper’s abstract helpful: “Overcoming the tragedy of super wicked problems: constraining our future selves to ameliorate global climate change” Kelly Levin, Benjamin Cashore, Steven Bernstein, Graeme Auld at:http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11077-012-9151-0 with a version possibly similar but free at
