[geo] Lohafex results
Does anyone know where the final results from Lohafex were published (or indeed if they were published?) There were, I think, some preliminary results published within a year or so, but there doesn't seem to be a big synoptic publication anywhere, or a special issue, or anything like that. Am I missing something? -- 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] new article by Clive Hamilton
I kind of object to the idea that the SPM process constitutes tampering by politicians. First: it's the process, an intergovernmental process, that gives the IPCC heft. It was baked into the design by Bert Bolin in order to create a document that would fulfill politcal functions. If you don't want a consensus document with heft that's fine. But if you do want one, you have to explain how that could be achieved without having governments in the process. Second: it sort of assumes that only the politicians bring the politics. there's politics throughout the process of various sorts. The politicians' are more overt. But they also remove politics (cf the removal of preliminary matter in WGIII about ethics) best, o On Thursday, 24 April 2014 07:25:10 UTC+1, kcaldeira wrote: These figures should appear in the underlying chapters, which, unlike the Summary for Policy Makers, is not tampered with by politicians. The underlying chapters can be found here: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg3/ It would be interesting to do a comparison of the initial draft of the SPM and the draft as finally approved by governments, with some documentation for who objected to what and why. ___ Ken Caldeira Carnegie Institution for Science Dept of Global Ecology 260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA 94305 USA +1 650 704 7212 kcal...@carnegiescience.edu javascript: http://dge.stanford.edu/labs/caldeiralab https://twitter.com/KenCaldeira Assistant: Dawn Ross dr...@carnegiescience.edu javascript: On Thu, Apr 24, 2014 at 1:18 AM, Ronal W. Larson rongre...@comcast.netjavascript: wrote: Ken, Alan, List: Thanks for the lead on the “*Science”* story. I learned a little more. Apparently the week’s political negotiations resulted in the deletion of five figures and considerable text. It sure would be interesting to have a separate “pirate” publication that only showed these deletions. Even better would be an added guide to which countries were most responsible for these changes. Anyone already done this? Ron On Apr 23, 2014, at 3:04 AM, Ken Caldeira kcal...@carnegiescience.edujavascript: wrote: As far as I can tell, Hamilton provides no citation in this work to support the following assertion, other than his own book: *Already, conservative forces in the United States are promoting it as a substitute for emissions reductions.* I further note the incongruity of reading a section titled A world controlled by scientists the same day that Science magazine publishes an article about how the politicians ignore the recommendations of scientists when it comes to climate change: http://news.sciencemag.org/climate/2014/04/scientists-licking-wounds-after-contentious-climate-report-negotiations ___ Ken Caldeira Carnegie Institution for Science Dept of Global Ecology 260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA 94305 USA +1 650 704 7212 kcal...@carnegiescience.edu javascript: http://dge.stanford.edu/labs/caldeiralab https://twitter.com/KenCaldeira Assistant: Dawn Ross dr...@carnegiescience.edu javascript: On Wed, Apr 23, 2014 at 9:47 AM, Alan Robock rob...@envsci.rutgers.edujavascript: wrote: Geoengineering and the politics of science, by Clive Hamilton Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, April 16, 2014, doi: 10.1177/0096340214531173 http://bos.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/04/15/0096340214531173.abstract.html The latest reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) include an assessment of geoengineering—methods for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, or cooling the Earth by reflecting more of the sun’s radiation back into space. The IPCC assessment signals the arrival of geoengineering into the mainstream of climate science, and may normalize climate engineering as a policy response to global warming. Already, conservative forces in the United States are promoting it as a substitute for emissions reductions. Climate scientists are sharply divided over geoengineering, in much the same way that Manhattan Project scientists were divided over nuclear weapons after World War II. Testing a geoengineering scheme, such as sulfate aerosol spraying, is inherently difficult. Deployment would make political decision makers highly dependent on a technocratic elite. In a geoengineered world, experts would control the conditions of daily life, and it is unlikely that such a regime would be a just one. A disproportionate number of scientists currently working on geoengineering have either worked at, or collaborated with, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The history of US nuclear weapons laboratories during the Cold War reveals a belief in humankind’s right to exercise total mastery over nature. With geoengineering, this kind of thinking is staging a powerful comeback in the face of climate crisis. Hamilton correctly explains my arguments against a
Re: [geo] TERRA FUTURA 2013: INTERVIEW WITH VANDANA SHIVA ABOUT GEOENGINEERING | NoGeoingegneria
Dear David When you're responding to my arguments, how do you get from carefully and thoughtfully, in the quotation Ron offers, to in all ways the human imagination can conceive? To me, and I suspect most readers, carefully and thoughtfully means precisely what you say is required: that people should asses specific climate geoengineering proposals on their merits -- as they should assess other responses to the carbon/climate crisis -- and pass over some that they find unsupportable On humans are of course part of nature; I don't think there's any of course about it. How much and in what ways humans are part of nature seems to me to be the question which anthropocene politics attempt to answer, not an agreed ground from which people start. Best as ever Oliver On Sunday, 27 October 2013 21:01:22 UTC, David Hawkins wrote: Without making an argument that we should never pursue any form of geoengineering, let me note an obvious response to Oliver's arguments quoted below. The fact that we are already manipulating nature in many ways does not support an argument that we should therefore manipulate it in all ways that human imagination can conceive. Our job is to exercise good judgement in deciding where to go and where to stop. So purely as an intellectual matter, the option of not doing some forms of geoengineering cannot be rejected. It is not a valid argument to respond to criticisms of specific forms of geoengineering by saying we already manipulate nature a lot. (I put nature in quotes to start because humans are of course part of nature. We don't act on nature; we act in nature. But our capacity to change the functioning of many ecosystems previously largely uninfluenced by humans, is enormous. The fact that we are a part of nature does mean we can argue that we should be comfortable with any actions we take because they are natural. That stance conveniently would discard any responsibility we have for considering the impacts of our actions.) Sent from my iPad On Oct 27, 2013, at 3:34 PM, Ronal W. Larson rongre...@comcast.netjavascript: mailto:rongre...@comcast.net javascript: wrote: List cc Andrew This interview is of course not good news; Dr. Shiva has a pretty strong following in environmental circles. I add a few comments here for three reasons First because she has said all of the same things about biochar (not mentioned in the transcript below) on several occasions. She wrote a very confused forward (as though she hadn't read it) to a major biochar book by Albert Bates (at his invitation) - should anyone want to see more on her CDR/biochar views. Albert, a leader in both fields, says that mostly the Permaculture movement is behind biochar, not listening to her. Her views on biochar are the same as given below. Second, because I have today read the following in Oliver Morton’s excellent book (“Eating the Sun”) on photosynthesis. He comments on views like hers in the last chapter where he reports (pages 389ff) on the views of (former “Geo list member) Peter Read. a. Oliver wrote p 392: “What’s more, we are rearranging the world……. in a decentralized, slapdash way. The idea we might do it better should not be rejected for an unworkable if understandable desire that we not do it at all.” b. A paragraph later: “We can’t let a romantic idea that nature should be free to carry on regardless dominate our thinking; nature is everywhere under our influence already. c. One more paragraph later. We are on the flight deck, and we are alone. We are at the controls and we have no option but to use them. And we know where we want to go. The fact that we have only a dim idea of how to fly means we must act carefully and thoughtfully, not that we must not act. All of Oliver’s book was written before the name “biochar” was selected (in 2007 at a biochar conference - because of Peter). Dr. Shiva’s views were probably the same then and I feel are refuted nicely above in these three excerpts. These apply as well to George Monbiot, whose similar views are on p 389. They were also given recently even more strongly in an e-mail response to Albert Bates, saying: On Oct 25, 2013, at 6:05 PM, Andrew Lockley andrew@gmail.comjavascript: mailto:andrew@gmail.com javascript: wrote: http://www.nogeoingegneria.com/interviste/terra-futura-2013-interview-with-vandana-shiva-about-geoengineering/ TRANSCRIPT OF THE INTERVIEW NoGeoingegneria: So, first, thank you very much for your time because you’re an incredible woman and you always have so much time for everybody. and it’s great. We wanted to speak a little bit about geoengineering with you. It’s something that embraces everything: food and water and what is happening now in the world in a situation of climate change, and great change,
Re: [geo] TERRA FUTURA 2013: INTERVIEW WITH VANDANA SHIVA ABOUT GEOENGINEERING | NoGeoingegneria
Dear David Though obviously you couldn't know this, in the context of the preceding paras, it should be fairly clear that the flight deck metaphor applies to a range of choices of which climate geoengineering options are only a subset (new energy sources, new farming practices etc) The subsequent paras make the case that considering things carefully and thoughtfully will lead people not to wish to press the button marked OIF. So I still don't see how your response differs from what I said. The nature discussion is probably a long one for another place; my basic point is that there is nothing more socially constructed than what gets counted as natural. On another topic, I can't speak to Vandana Shiva's publication record, but those wanting to know more about her thought and rhetoric may find this interesting: http://carboncounter.wordpress.com/2013/01/05/vandana-shiva-fanatic-or-fantasist/ Best Oliver On Monday, 28 October 2013 11:02:15 UTC, David Hawkins wrote: Oliver, I was reacting principally to the sentences that preceded the carefully and thoughtfully modifiers: We are on the flight deck, and we are alone. We are at the controls and we have no option but to use them. And we know where we want to go. For me, this comes too close to saying if we have buttons in front of us we must push them; no option but to use them seems in conflict with carefully and thoughtfully. For some buttons, the only careful and thoughtful posture may be not to push them. Again, I am not making this argument for all types of geo-engineering concepts; only disagreeing with the idea that if we can conceive of a button we must push it. I am interested in hearing more about how humans may not be a part of nature. If we are talking biologically, I can't see any answer but of course. Perhaps you are talking about anthropological concepts and the perceptions humans have about their relationships with the rest of nature. There I would agree there is no of course about any aspect of that terrain. best, David -- 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] University of Sussex geoengineering event
We need to do more research on geoengineering -- in Hove, Thursday 7th November, 19:00 -- Free non-ticketed Featuring Helena Paul, http://www.econexus.info/who-we-are, Matt Watson http://thereluctantgeoengineer.blogspot.co.uk/, Andy Stirling http://www.sussex.ac.uk/spru/people/peoplelists/person/7513 and me http://heliophage.worpress.com Details http://www.theoldmarket.com/ai1ec_event/engineering-the-climate/?instance_id= -- 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] Climate Engineering Conference 2014
Dear Ron Your expertise would obviously be valuable. I strongly suggest that you offer to organise one or more sessions. It may be that the advisory board (which I'm on) could do with more CDR expertise, and I see no reason why, in principle, more could not be added. I'll raise the question with the organisers. best, Oliver On Thursday, 24 October 2013 01:00:19 UTC+1, Ron wrote: Ben and ccs Thanks for the full response. I do hope you can bring the CDR folk in, as there are few opportunities for hearing what is happening in CDR compared to what is happening (or not) in SRM. My concern is that no-one I recognize with expertise on biochar is in the long list of likely attendees. If the planners want CDR representation, I urge not waiting for session ideas, but make some invitations to those active in CDR. More specifically to those in specific approaches - as I see very few (maybe there is no one) with deep insights into more than their own favorite CDR/GRR approach. There is one (and only one) biofuel-biochar company with major near-term plans (and a lot of money) that your attendees should hear from (as the most likely leader in CDR in 2014). If I were them at this point I would see no reason to attend without a special invitation for a plenary. Ron On Oct 23, 2013, at 1:36 PM, Ben Kravitz ben.krav...@gmail.comjavascript: wrote: Hi Ron - I think I understand your question, but please let me know if I've misunderstood or misrepresented your points. Also, please keep in mind that although I'm a member of the steering committee of this conference, I'm not writing on behalf of anyone other than myself. I've tried to say things that I believe are in line with the many hours of discussions the members of the steering committee have already had, but anyone else who may have a better or different sales pitch is certainly welcome to offer one. Our purpose in this conference is to encourage a discussion of climate engineering that is as all-encompassing as possible. We wish to be inclusive, leaving the session proposals open to whoever may wish to organize a coherent set of presentations. Of course, such a broad list cannot be fully represented by a short list of the people who are on the advisory group, but I do hope the message of the conference on the website is very clear, in that we want participation from as many different perspectives of climate engineering as possible. Interactions between the different communities interested in climate engineering are crucial to the success of this conference. In my opinion, as well as according to my recollection of discussions with the rest of the steering committee, CDR/GGR is an important part of the discussion of climate change and climate engineering. Our purpose is not to focus the entire conference on any one particular technology or aspect of climate engineering, so I do think the topics under this wide umbrella can and should have a critical role to play, both in the presentation of disciplinary ideas, as well as what they add to the discussion of climate engineering as a whole. By attending, each presenter or session proposer will ensure that his/her views and research are being adequately represented at the conference. If you would like to participate, we would be delighted to include the perspectives of your community as well. Any conference has the tradeoff of engaging in knowledge exchange versus time and expense; such a decision is, of course, a personal one. I believe that the broader the participation, the more rewarding the conference will be for all of the attendees. Best, Ben On Oct 23, 2013, at 10:27 AM, Ronal W. Larson rongre...@comcast.netjavascript: wrote: Ben, Andrew and list: I see so little on CDR/GRR that I couldn't in good conscience recommend friends from the biochar community to submit anything. I include the membership lists in the various organizing and advisory panels, where you have many (maybe all) well known names - a few on ocean technologies, but none I think from the CDR earth-bio side. Can you provide a sales pitch on why any person interested only in CDR/GGR (with examples for biochar) should want to attend? Two weeks ago, I was overwhelmed with what was new at a biochar conference. With four parallel sessions over 3 days, I missed over half of what went on. I now can't see your bringing in more than one or two panels of interest to me - not enough to justify the time and expense. Am I wrong? Hope I am. Ron On Oct 23, 2013, at 10:36 AM, Ben Kravitz ben.krav...@gmail.comjavascript: wrote: Hi Andrew - That's entirely up to you and the rest of the people on this list. If you feel the list is a good place to coordinate ideas, discuss session proposals, and divide up responsibilities, that's great. If you would prefer to keep your
[geo] Re: When enhanced weathering is a bad thing?
Dear Greg I really value much of what you post to this group, but could you possibly start new threads when you post interesting new papers, rather than slipping them into existing threads, as here? It would make getting stuff out of these discussions a little easier, at least for me... Very best o On Wednesday, 23 October 2013 22:17:02 UTC+1, Greg Rau wrote: As earth's climate warms, due to the sun's natural increase in luminosity, says Kasting, weathering of continental silicate rocks will speed up; causing CO2 to be removed from the atmosphere and, in turn, put back into the earth in the form of carbonate sediments. Greg http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/technology/chi-nsc-life-on-earth-to-hit-brick-wall-in-500-million-20131023,0,4003446.story Life On Earth To Hit Brick Wall In 500 Million YearsBruce Dorminey Forbes 2:05 a.m. CDT, October 23, 2013 Complex life here on earth will hit a habitability wall in only 500 million years time; not in an almost languorous 1.75 billion years, as reported in a recent global media flap. The flap - spurred by a paper in the journal *Astrobiology* - failed to cover earth's future carbon dioxide (CO2) compensation limit, says James Kasting, a prominent planetary scientist at Penn State University, whose own models were used by the paper's authors. The CO2 compensation point, says Kasting, is the crucial limit at which the net rate of plant respiration exceeds that of oxygenic photosynthesis. Once this limit is crossed, its immediate effect would be to essentially render as much as 95 percent of earth's plant life with an inability to grow. Kasting says the *Astrobiology* paper's lead author Andrew Rushby, a doctoral candidate in environmental science at the University of East Anglia in the U.K., and colleagues simply didn't account for this expected drawdown of atmospheric CO2 which would be caused by longterm increases in earth's surface temperatures. That's an integral part of the lifetime of the biosphere calculation, said Kasting. As earth's climate warms, due to the sun's natural increase in luminosity, says Kasting, weathering of continental silicate rocks will speed up; causing CO2 to be removed from the atmosphere and, in turn, put back into the earth in the form of carbonate sediments. This atmospheric Rubicon will be brought on by the sun's natural increase in luminosity as it expands and ages - a continuing process by which our own star's brightness spikes upward by roughly ten percent every one billion years. Thus, as the sun's luminosity grows and earth's CO2 concentrations fall towards 150 parts per million (ppm), says Kasting, most of the world's plants and trees will likely disappear. He says it's possible that some of the biotic slack might be taken up by plants - such as corn, sugar cane and tropical grasses - that are able to function under such low CO2 concentrations. But it will be a very different planet, said Kasting. Kasting's models point to the remaining plants going extinct 900 million years from now when CO2 levels falls below 10 parts per million (ppm). Despite all the press coverage, said Rushby, our main intention was to determine how extrasolar planets stacked up in terms of habitability [timescales] when compared to earth. As Rushby and colleagues point out in their *Astrobiology* paper, the solar system's circumstellar habitable zone - roughly defined as an orbital Goldilocks region at which an earthlike planet can harbor liquid water at its surface - is hardly static in time or space. The authors correctly note that such habitable zones are proportional to increases in luminosity over the lifetime of a given star. But, in fact, Kasting says the inner edge of the habitable zone is actually not that easy to find, since it depends on clouds and relative humidity, neither of which, he says, can be easily calculated in a one-dimensional climate model. Yet, in any case, he notes this precipitous drop in earth's atmospheric CO2 should occur at about the same projected rate. So, the lifespan of our biosphere will not change, and this new [* Astrobiology*] paper is simply misleading on this question, said Kasting. Although the sun won't envelope earth for at least another five billion years, or long after our star turns into an expanding Red Giant, Kasting says the punchline is that earth won't remain habitable through to the sun's own end. Bad things start to happen much earlier than that, said Kasting. Kasting suggests one alternative would be to geo-engineer our way around our sun's luminosity increase by constructing space-based solar shield. Would earthlike planets around the locally ubiquitous Red M dwarf stars have a different habitable zone lifetime? Kasting says because M stars age so slowly and brighten at a very slow rate, earthlike planets in their midst would likely remain unaffected by any
Re: [geo] proposed definition of geoengineering, suitable for use in an international legal context (version 25 Sep 2013)
I think there's a problem with intentended. It defines the act in terms of the mental stance of the actor, which is not open to objective scrutiny, This opens the possibility of large climate manipulations which are geoengineering to some but not to others, which I think is what you're trying to avoid. FWIW, I prefer a definition for climate geoengineering along these lines: large-scale technological interventions aimed at decoupling climate outcomes from cumulative greenhouse emissions. On Wednesday, 25 September 2013 07:45:15 UTC+1, Ken Caldeira wrote: Taking Ron Larson's comments into account, and also comments made separately by Fred Zimmerman and Mike MacCracken, a candidate definition now reads: *Geoengineering refers to activities * *(1) intended to modify climate* *(2) and that has a material effect on an international commons or across international borders * *(3) and where that material effect occurs through environmental mechanisms other than a removal of anthropogenic aerosols and/or greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.* Note that this covers SRM approaches, CDR approaches that have direct effects on an international commons or across international borders, plus novel ideas that do not fall neatly into the SRM/CDR dichotomy. Again, the goal is to carve out things that pose no special risks and can be regulated nationally or locally, such as biochar, BECCS, DAC, afforestatoin/reforestation, etc. -- 1. In response to Ron Larson's comment, I would lump biochar in with BECCS and DAC as approaches which in general pose no novel risks, so in most cases I would not consider them geoengineering under this definition. I think this would help the development of biochar, BECCS, DAC, and other carbon dioxide removal methods that pose no novel risks or governance issues. I like Ron's suggestion of removal of a material rather than reduction of a concentration. Removal is usually locally verifiable whereas verifying a reduction in concentration could be difficult. Happy to have lawyers argue over this phrase. The from the atmosphere may be considered limiting. I would be fine with including ocean removal, but I would like to keep things as simple as possible. We don't care whether we actually remove the same molecules, we just want to decrease the concentrations, so anthropogenic aerosols or greenhouse gases would need to be understood in terms of concentration. In this case: *Anthropogenic aerosols and greenhouse gases are by definition those in excess of natural background concentrations.* 2. Agree with Fred Zimmerman that I would be fine with lawyers arguing over greater than *de minimis* vs material. As a non-lawyer, I read material effect to be equivalent to greater than *de minimis* effect. Happy to have lawyers argue over this phrase. In contrast to Fred, I like the specification of across international borders. Purely national effects that have no material (or no greater than *de minimis*) effects across international borders can be dealt with under national legislation. I see no reason to invoke any international governance. Also this trans-border/commons approach also gets around the whole can of worms around defining what large scale means, which is a prominent term in many other proposed definitions of geoengineering. 3. To respond to Mike MacCracken's comment, CDR techniques act on concentrations, not on emissions. In any case, the current definition avoids use of both concentrations and emissions. --- Thanks everybody for these comments. I think we are pretty close to a definition that I would like to see broadly accepted. Things like biochar, BECCS, DAC, afforestation/reforestation do not deserve to be tarred with the same brush that tars injection of sulfur into the stratosphere. Most of these approaches bear more in common with mitigation approaches than they do with sunlight reflection methods. We are doing a disservice to potentially valuable technologies if we, by our imprecision of language, give the impression that these potentially valuable methods bear large and unprecedented kinds of risks. Best, Ken ___ Ken Caldeira Carnegie Institution for Science Dept of Global Ecology 260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA 94305 USA +1 650 704 7212 kcal...@carnegiescience.edu javascript: http://dge.stanford.edu/labs/caldeiralab @kencaldeira On Tue, Sep 24, 2013 at 8:22 PM, Ronal W. Larson rongre...@comcast.netjavascript: wrote: Ken cc List: 1. I like your starting point. Thanks for providing it. Re de minimis, I prefer it over material. 2. My concern is that you have two (separate, distinctly different) criteria in a relatively long sentence, where some readers may think the two are coupled or dependent. How about this rephrasing (changes all underlined): Geoengineering
Re: [geo] proposed definition of geoengineering, suitable for use in an international legal context (version 25 Sep 2013)
Ooops. I did what I was compaining about. Aimed at is as bad as intended. What i should have said: large-scale technological interventions that act to decouple climate outcomes from cumulative greenhouse-gas emissions. On Wednesday, 25 September 2013 11:56:06 UTC+1, O Morton wrote: I think there's a problem with intentended. It defines the act in terms of the mental stance of the actor, which is not open to objective scrutiny, This opens the possibility of large climate manipulations which are geoengineering to some but not to others, which I think is what you're trying to avoid. FWIW, I prefer a definition for climate geoengineering along these lines: large-scale technological interventions aimed at decoupling climate outcomes from cumulative greenhouse emissions. On Wednesday, 25 September 2013 07:45:15 UTC+1, Ken Caldeira wrote: Taking Ron Larson's comments into account, and also comments made separately by Fred Zimmerman and Mike MacCracken, a candidate definition now reads: *Geoengineering refers to activities * *(1) intended to modify climate* *(2) and that has a material effect on an international commons or across international borders * *(3) and where that material effect occurs through environmental mechanisms other than a removal of anthropogenic aerosols and/or greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.* Note that this covers SRM approaches, CDR approaches that have direct effects on an international commons or across international borders, plus novel ideas that do not fall neatly into the SRM/CDR dichotomy. Again, the goal is to carve out things that pose no special risks and can be regulated nationally or locally, such as biochar, BECCS, DAC, afforestatoin/reforestation, etc. -- 1. In response to Ron Larson's comment, I would lump biochar in with BECCS and DAC as approaches which in general pose no novel risks, so in most cases I would not consider them geoengineering under this definition. I think this would help the development of biochar, BECCS, DAC, and other carbon dioxide removal methods that pose no novel risks or governance issues. I like Ron's suggestion of removal of a material rather than reduction of a concentration. Removal is usually locally verifiable whereas verifying a reduction in concentration could be difficult. Happy to have lawyers argue over this phrase. The from the atmosphere may be considered limiting. I would be fine with including ocean removal, but I would like to keep things as simple as possible. We don't care whether we actually remove the same molecules, we just want to decrease the concentrations, so anthropogenic aerosols or greenhouse gases would need to be understood in terms of concentration. In this case: *Anthropogenic aerosols and greenhouse gases are by definition those in excess of natural background concentrations.* 2. Agree with Fred Zimmerman that I would be fine with lawyers arguing over greater than *de minimis* vs material. As a non-lawyer, I read material effect to be equivalent to greater than *de minimis*effect. Happy to have lawyers argue over this phrase. In contrast to Fred, I like the specification of across international borders. Purely national effects that have no material (or no greater than *de minimis*) effects across international borders can be dealt with under national legislation. I see no reason to invoke any international governance. Also this trans-border/commons approach also gets around the whole can of worms around defining what large scale means, which is a prominent term in many other proposed definitions of geoengineering. 3. To respond to Mike MacCracken's comment, CDR techniques act on concentrations, not on emissions. In any case, the current definition avoids use of both concentrations and emissions. --- Thanks everybody for these comments. I think we are pretty close to a definition that I would like to see broadly accepted. Things like biochar, BECCS, DAC, afforestation/reforestation do not deserve to be tarred with the same brush that tars injection of sulfur into the stratosphere. Most of these approaches bear more in common with mitigation approaches than they do with sunlight reflection methods. We are doing a disservice to potentially valuable technologies if we, by our imprecision of language, give the impression that these potentially valuable methods bear large and unprecedented kinds of risks. Best, Ken ___ Ken Caldeira Carnegie Institution for Science Dept of Global Ecology 260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA 94305 USA +1 650 704 7212 kcal...@carnegiescience.edu http://dge.stanford.edu/labs/caldeiralab @kencaldeira On Tue, Sep 24, 2013 at 8:22 PM, Ronal W. Larson rongre...@comcast.netwrote: Ken cc List: 1. I like your starting point. Thanks for providing it. Re de minimis, I prefer
Re: [geo] Linking solar geoengineering and emissions reduction
Ken As always (I am a stuck record on this, for those old enough to remember stuck records) surely it depends on the weasel word we Imagine a world in which *Bad Stuff, maybe Very Bad Stuff, is happening *Research, including some field research, strongly suggests that sunshine geoengineering could greatly reduce the level of Bad Stuff, and there are parties capable of deploying it who are also capable of doing without any further emitting devices. *There are other parties/jurisdictions/countries, maybe just a few, which are adamant that they won't stop building emitting devices Should the parties capable of geoengineering forego the option because there will still be new emitting devices being built, permitting lots of Bad Stuff that they could have stopped? Should they force the other parties to stop building emitting devices by force of arms? Or should they deploy anyway? Perhaps it depends on the size of the recalcitrant fraction. If 10% of the world is still building emitters, is it ok to geoengineer? But if 10%, why not 20%... Alternatively, on teh basis that you can't make people be good and shouldn't willingly allow Bad Stuff to happen when it might be avoided, maybe it is *only* the parties that do the geoengineering who should feel obliged to give up building emitting devices. But the parties capable of geoengineering might themselves just be 10% of the world... ever o On Wednesday, 11 September 2013 18:51:53 UTC+1, Ken Caldeira wrote: Note that I did not require decarbonization of the economy as a pre-requisite for deployment as my proposal allows existing CO2-emitting devices to continue being used. I merely required that we stop building new CO2-emitting devices. My point is that if climate change is enough of an emergency to require rapid deployment of solar geoengineering then it is also enough of an emergency to stop building devices that will exacerbate that emergency. If we are doing solar geoengineering at the same time as we are building new fossil-fueled power plants that use the atmosphere as a waste dump, how do you assure that the solar geoengineering system does not facilitate continued production of those devices? ___ Ken Caldeira Carnegie Institution for Science Dept of Global Ecology 260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA 94305 USA +1 650 704 7212 kcal...@carnegiescience.edu javascript: http://dge.stanford.edu/labs/caldeiralab @kencaldeira On Wed, Sep 11, 2013 at 1:25 PM, Andrew Lockley andrew@gmail.comjavascript: wrote: Ken We need to control temperatures far more quickly than we can hope to decarbonise the economy. Are you seriously trying to argue that every car factory in the world needs to close before we can do any SRM at all? That seems entirely implausible. Perhaps more sensible to suggest that emissions growth be capped (possibly at zero) before geoengineering starts. As I see it the 'buy time' argument for SRM is a strong one. We need to stop temperatures increasing *whilst * we decarbonise. A On Sep 11, 2013 5:36 PM, Ken Caldeira kcal...@carnegiescience.edujavascript: wrote: We do not want to be in a situation where a solar geoengineering system is used to enable continued increases in CO2 emissions. Therefore, a reasonable demand is that no new smokestacks or tailpipes be built after a solar geoengineering system is deployed. Another way of phrasing this is to demand that new construction of all new CO2-emitting devices cease prior to any solar geoengineering system deployment. This would help address the concern that solar geoengineering could provide cover for continued expansion of CO2-emitting industries. Norms that would prevent simultaneous solar geoengineering deployment and increasing CO2 emissions would help diminish the likelihood of bad outcomes and could help broaden political support for solar geoengineering research. -- This would limit deployment of solar geoengineering systems to the case of catastrophic outcomes and would not permit use of solar geoengineering for peak shaving amid promises of future reductions in CO2 emissions. Thus, this proposal does have a substantive implications for peak shaving strategies. -- *I am floating this idea without being certain that the formulation presented here is the best possible formulation.* ___ Ken Caldeira Carnegie Institution for Science Dept of Global Ecology 260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA 94305 USA +1 650 704 7212 kcal...@carnegiescience.edu javascript: http://dge.stanford.edu/labs/caldeiralab @kencaldeira -- 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 geoengineerin...@googlegroups.com javascript:. To post to this group, send email to geoengi...@googlegroups.comjavascript: .
[geo] Re: Oli Morton with Opinion Article on Nitrogen Geoengineering
One very minor thing about this thread. Though I am happy for friends and I suppose others to call me Oli, for professional work I do prefer Oliver On Tuesday, 9 July 2013 12:16:29 UTC+1, geoengineeringourclimate wrote: Dear colleagues, Oli Morton of The Economist has penned an Opinion Article for the 'Geoengineering Our Climate?' series titled Nitrogen Geoengineering, in which he examines how previous interventions in the nitrogen cycle might hold some conceptual value for how we scope climate engineering. You can find this article here: http://geoengineeringourclimate.com/2013/07/09/nitrogen-geoengineering-opinion-article/ Best wishes, Sean Low -- 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] Re: Oli Morton with Opinion Article on Nitrogen Geoengineering
@ Andrew -- There is a continuum here, but i would distinguish large-scale and global, and note that global effects of clearance on climate (as opposed to homogocene issues) not large, or even necessarily noticeable @ Fred -- method might be nice -- but read Crookes, the key document here, and the scientific method is not obvious. The fact that he was speaking to and trying to speak for a scientific elite matters, I think. Remember a key part of Bolin's plan for IPCC was to get global buy in to elite scientific view. Also note that I do not see elite in this context as pejorative, merely descriptive @ David -- Not quite sure why the existing political order is irrelevant, but in general i agree with Phil's informal definition -- except that I don't think limate is the only thing that can be geoengineered/ Change to teh way the earth system works made deliberately not carelessly would suit me fine. And I don't think introduction of agriculture was intended deliberately to change the earth system, while nitrogen was, to a significant extent. Green revolution is, after all, an expression of global geopolitics, named is specific opposition to the red revolution On Wednesday, 10 July 2013 17:38:45 UTC+1, David Lewis wrote: I wonder why it should matter who identified the problem or who thought of the solution, i.e. a member or members of the scientific elite. Why should it matter whether the perceived problem is obvious to the person on the street? And whether the proposed solution or any solution other than the proposed geoengineering scheme can be implemented easily by the existing political order or not seems irrelevant. Phil Rausch recently gave a talk entitled Geoengineering at the AGU Chapman conference on Communicating Climate Science (available *here*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coa3VFcMCIA) where he referred to geoengineering as the introduction of climate change deliberately rather than carelessly, which seems to be at the heart of what the word means to actively researching contemporary climatologists. Bringing the nitrogen cycle up while discussing geoengineering seems useful as a way to talk about the fact that humans have had an impact on the planet for some time, but the question is, does it advance the debate to include it as geoengineering now? On Wednesday, July 10, 2013 3:43:49 AM UTC-7, O Morton wrote: David (and also Andrew),-- if you look at Morton's reasoning as expressed in the text, you'll find that I don't agree. The technology required for the industrial takeover of the nitrogen cycle did not appear through an unguided process of innovation, nor was it deployed that way; the foresight involved is part of what makes it a geoengineering technology in a way that other agricultural innovations, and indeed agriculture itself, are not. Nitrogen fixation was developed purposefully in response to a threat, which, while not obvious in everyday life, had been identified by the scientific elite. Like climate change today, that threat was seen as being of global significance and to have no easily attainable political solution. That justified a concerted effort to develop a technological response. Though people working in the climate arena may not immediately recognize this response as geoengineering, some of those working on the nitrogen cycle have no problem seeing it as such. -- 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] Re: Oli Morton with Opinion Article on Nitrogen Geoengineering
David (and also Andrew),-- if you look at Morton's reasoning as expressed in the text, you'll find that I don't agree. The technology required for the industrial takeover of the nitrogen cycle did not appear through an unguided process of innovation, nor was it deployed that way; the foresight involved is part of what makes it a geoengineering technology in a way that other agricultural innovations, and indeed agriculture itself, are not. Nitrogen fixation was developed purposefully in response to a threat, which, while not obvious in everyday life, had been identified by the scientific elite. Like climate change today, that threat was seen as being of global significance and to have no easily attainable political solution. That justified a concerted effort to develop a technological response. Though people working in the climate arena may not immediately recognize this response as geoengineering, some of those working on the nitrogen cycle have no problem seeing it as such. On Tuesday, 9 July 2013 16:47:30 UTC+1, David Lewis wrote: If inventing a way to convert nitrogen from air into chemicals qualifies as geoengineering, it isn't even close to being the first example. I.e. when the first hominid moved the first rock out of the way to get into the first cave, according to Morton's reasoning, geoengineering began. See: Wilkinson B. H. *Geology 33, 161 - 164 (2005)* *Humans as geologic agents: A deep-time perspective.* From the abstract: Humans are now an order of magnitude more important at moving sediment than the sum of all other natural processes operating on the surface of the planet. On Tuesday, July 9, 2013 4:16:29 AM UTC-7, geoengineeringourclimate wrote: Dear colleagues, Oli Morton of The Economist has penned an Opinion Article for the 'Geoengineering Our Climate?' series titled Nitrogen Geoengineering -- 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] SRM and droughts in the Sahel
Asymmetric forcing from stratospheric aerosols impacts Sahelian rainfall - Jim M. Haywoodhttp://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate1857.html#auth-1 , - Andy Joneshttp://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate1857.html#auth-2 , - Nicolas Bellouinhttp://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate1857.html#auth-3 - David Stephensonhttp://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate1857.html#auth-4 Nature Climate Change (2013) doi:10.1038/nclimate1857Received 23 October 2012 Accepted 22 February 2013 Published online 31 March 2013 Article tools The Sahelian drought of the 1970s–1990s was one of the largest humanitarian disasters of the past 50 years, causing up to 250,000 deaths and creating 10 million refugees1http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate1857.html#ref1. It has been attributed to natural variability2http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate1857.html#ref2 , 3http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate1857.html#ref3 , 4http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate1857.html#ref4 , 5http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate1857.html#ref5, over-grazing6http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate1857.html#ref6 and the impact of industrial emissions of sulphur dioxide7http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate1857.html#ref7 , 8http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate1857.html#ref8. Each mechanism can influence the Atlantic sea surface temperature gradient, which is strongly coupled to Sahelian precipitation2http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate1857.html#ref2 , 3http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate1857.html#ref3. We suggest that sporadic volcanic eruptions in the Northern Hemisphere also strongly influence this gradient and cause Sahelian drought. Using de-trended observations from 1900 to 2010, we show that three of the four driest Sahelian summers were preceded by substantial Northern Hemisphere volcanic eruptions. We use a state-of-the-art coupled global atmosphere–ocean model to simulate both episodic volcanic eruptions and geoengineering by continuous deliberate injection into the stratosphere. In either case, large asymmetric stratospheric aerosol loadings concentrated in the Northern Hemisphere are a harbinger of Sahelian drought whereas those concentrated in the Southern Hemisphere induce a greening of the Sahel. Further studies of the detailed regional impacts on the Sahel and other vulnerable areas are required to inform policymakers in developing careful consensual global governance before any practical solar radiation management geoengineering scheme is implemented. Full article at http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate1857.html Blogpost by me at http://heliophage.wordpress.com/2013/03/31/climate-geoengineering-for-natural-disasters/ Extract: One implication is that climate geoengineering deployed in just the northern hemisphere looks like a very bad idea. Programmes in just the north have been considered and studied, in part because of the worries people have about something suddenly going wrong in the Arctic, something that needs “fixing” quickly. This research makes such approaches look dangerous. More interesting, and more novel, is the implication that geoengineering might be used to avert a Sahelian drought caused by a volcano. If the stratospheric sulphates released in a major northern eruption were promptly countered by a deliberate release of sulphates into the southern hemisphere, both hemispheres would cool. The ITCZ would stay put, and a drought might well be averted. For a major drought, that would be a big win. The drought in the 1980s, which followed on the 1982 eruption of El Chichon in Mexico, killed about a quarter of a million people and turned millions more into refugees. ... And if the Earth is left to its own devices, such droughts will happen again. Last century there were two eruptions that cooled the north and were followed by drought in the Sahel. The north is better endowed with volcanoes than the south, since the Pacific “ring of fire” is more a horseshoe of fire, with a gap in the south but a continuous arc in the north. The odds of at least one eruption in the Pinatubo-to-Krakatoa range somewhere of the Earth in this century are better than even. The chances of one happening in the north are obviously lower; but the odds are hardly long. If humans had had the technological wherewithal to stop the 1980s Sahel drought in its tracks, would people have wanted to use it? It seems likely that there would have been a constituency for it, not least in the Sahel. And many of the reasons people have for objecting to
[geo] Re: Asymmetric forcing from stratospheric aerosols impacts Sahelian rainfall : Nature Climate Change
Sorry, Andrew, I seem to have thoughtlessly double threaded -- feel free to put my recent post into this thread if that is within your moderating remit... On Monday, 1 April 2013 11:17:28 UTC+1, andrewjlockley wrote: Posters note: a discussion of the policy implications of this paper can be found at http://m.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/mar/31/earth-cooling-schemes-global-signoff, pasted below. http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate1857.html Asymmetric forcing from stratospheric aerosols impacts Sahelian rainfall Jim M. Haywood, Andy Jones, Nicolas Bellouin David Stephenson Nature Climate Change (2013) doi:10.1038/nclimate1857 Received 23 October 2012 Accepted 22 February 2013 Published online 31 March 2013 The Sahelian drought of the 1970s–1990s was one of the largest humanitarian disasters of the past 50 years, causing up to 250,000 deaths and creating 10 million refugees. It has been attributed to natural variability, over-grazing and the impact of industrial emissions of sulphur dioxide. Each mechanism can influence the Atlantic sea surface temperature gradient, which is strongly coupled to Sahelian precipitation. We suggest that sporadic volcanic eruptions in the Northern Hemisphere also strongly influence this gradient and cause Sahelian drought. Using de-trended observations from 1900 to 2010, we show that three of the four driest Sahelian summers were preceded by substantial Northern Hemisphere volcanic eruptions. We use a state-of-the-art coupled global atmosphere–ocean model to simulate both episodic volcanic eruptions and geoengineering by continuous deliberate injection into the stratosphere. In either case, large asymmetric stratospheric aerosol loadings concentrated in the Northern Hemisphere are a harbinger of Sahelian drought whereas those concentrated in the Southern Hemisphere induce a greening of the Sahel. Further studies of the detailed regional impacts on the Sahel and other vulnerable areas are required to inform policymakers in developing careful consensual global governance before any practical solar radiation management geoengineering scheme is implemented. Comment piece below, http://m.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/mar/31/earth-cooling-schemes-global-signoff Guardian, Sunday 31 March 2013 17.59 BST AIan Sample, science correspondent Earth-cooling schemes need global sign-off, researchers say World's most vulnerable people need protection from huge and unintended impacts of radical geoengineering projects. Controversial geoengineering projects that may be used to cool the planet must be approved by world governments to reduce the danger of catastrophic accidents, British scientists said.Met Office researchers have called for global oversight of the radical schemes after studies showed they could have huge and unintended impacts on some of the world's most vulnerable people.The dangers arose in projects that cooled the planet unevenly. In some cases these caused devastating droughts across Africa; in others they increased rainfall in the region but left huge areas of Brazil parched.The massive complexities associated with geoengineering, and the potential for winners and losers, means that some form of global governance is essential, said Jim Haywood at the Met Office's Hadley Centre in Exeter.The warning builds on work by scientists and engineers to agree a regulatory framework that would ban full-scale geoengineering projects, at least temporarily, but allow smaller research projects to go ahead.Geoengineering comes in many flavours, but among the more plausible are solar radiation management (SRM) schemes that would spray huge amounts of sun-reflecting particles high into the atmosphere to simulate the cooling effects of volcanic eruptions.Volcanoes can blast millions of tonnes of sulphate particles into the stratosphere, where they stay aloft for years and cool the planet by reflecting some of the sun's energy back out to space.In 2009, a Royal Society report warned that geoengineering was not an alternative to cutting greenhouse gas emissions, but conceded the technology might be needed in the event of a climate emergency.Writing in the journal Nature Climate Change, Haywood and others show that moves to cool the climate by spraying sulphate particles into the atmosphere could go spectacularly wrong. They began by looking at the unexpected impacts of volcanic eruptions.In 1912 and 1982, eruptions first at Katmai in Alaska and then at El Chichón in Mexico blasted millions of tonnes of sulphate into northern skies. These eruptions preceded major droughts in the Sahel region of Africa. When the scientists recreated the eruptions in climate models, rainfall across the Sahel all but stopped as moisture-carrying air currents were pushed south.Having established a link between volcanic eruptions in the
[geo] Re: SRM and droughts in the Sahel
Please post follow ups on earlier thread: Asymmetric forcing from stratospheric aerosols impacts Sahelian rainfall -- 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?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
[geo] Artificial volcano - Budyko?
Does anyone know where the term artificial volcano first came from? I think it was Budyko, but I can't find hard evidence... -- 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?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: [geo] Nature eifex report
The reported ratio of C:Fe for IEFEX is 10,000:1. The redfield C:P ration is about 100:1. So you'd need your 100 tankers to be carrying pure phosphate, not sewage, no? On Thursday, 19 July 2012 09:13:22 UTC+1, M V Bhaskar wrote: Ken You are right to a certain extent when you say - So, to some extent, iron fertilization concentrates productivity in space and in time. However the facts are as follows - Human action has increased the amount of N and P in water. The Nitrogen (and Phosphorus) cycles have been both speeded up and increased in volume. About 100 million tons of urea is manufactured and used as fertilizer in agriculture, most of this is made by the Haber-Bosch process of capturing Nitrogen from atmosphere and converting it into ammonia and then into urea. Thus we are adding more N into water. Phosphate fertilizer is made by mining rock phosphate and converting this into phosphoric acid and then into super phosphate, etc. Thus insoluble rock phosphate and N2 gas in atmosphere are being converted into soluble N and P in water. Another way to calculate the increase in N and P due to human action is to compute the average food intake of people and the N and P content of this and multiply with the population. If we consume about 1 kg of food (wet weight) per day, this may contain say 50 mg of N and 10 mg of P. Multiply with the population of 1 billion 200 year ago, 7 billion today and projected population of 9 billion by 2050 and you can get the total increase in N and P in food and sewage input into lakes, rivers and oceans. I am not attempting to quantify the actual numbers, since there are too many variables and averages, the concept is adequate for the present. What is the consequence of this? 1000s of eutrophic lakes and 500+ dead zones in the coastal waters. This is the N and P that will be used up to sequester carbon when oceans are fertilized with iron. So there is no need to worry about depletion of macro nutrients in oceans. :) Once we run out of oil, we can use the defunct Oil tankers to transport sewage to Southern Ocean to provide the macro nutrients required. Prof John Martin's recommended dose of half a tanker load of iron can be matched with a 100 tanker loads of sewage. :) I guess physicists always get lost in space and time. regards Bhaskar On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 1:04 PM, Ken Caldeira kcalde...@carnegiescience.edu wrote: Recall that this fertilization is using up macronutrients such as N and P that may have been used elsewhere at a later date. So, to some extent, iron fertilization concentrates productivity in space and in time. An important question is: how much of the P that was in the fertilized water would have been mixed downward as phosphate and how much of it would have been transported downward biologically at a later date somewhere else. It is only the fract of P that would not have been used biologically somewhere else at a later date that represents the increase in biological export. On top of this, there are additional questions of how the C/P ratio and remineralization depth of this carbon that would have been naturally exported differs from the C/P ratio and remineralization depth of the carbon that was exported in the experiment. So, two difficulties in analyzing these results are (1) Determining effects that are distal in space and time associated with the local (in space and time) consumption of macronutrients (1) establishing the counterfactual baseline that could be subtracted from the experimental case to determine the delta, taking into consideration effects that are distal in space and time (see previous point) On Wed, Jul 18, 2012 at 10:59 PM, Rau, Greg r...@llnl.gov wrote: So 1 tone of added Fe captures 2786 tones of C or 10,214 tones of CO2 (?) Then the issue is how much of this stays in the ocean for how long. I'll have to read the fine print. -Greg From: Mick West m...@mickwest.com Reply-To: m...@mickwest.com m...@mickwest.com To: andrew.lock...@gmail.com andrew.lock...@gmail.com Cc: geoengineering geoengineering@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: [geo] Nature eifex report It says 13,000 atoms, not tonnes: Each atom of added iron pulled at least 13,000 atoms of carbon out of the atmosphere by encouraging algal growth which, through photosynthesis, captures carbon. On Wed, Jul 18, 2012 at 12:54 PM, Andrew Lockley andrew.lock...@gmail.com wrote: Personally I find the claims of 13000 tonnes to 1 atom of iron somewhat difficult to comprehend! A - Nature doi:10.1038/nature.2012.11028 Dumping iron at sea does sink carbon Geoengineering hopes revived as study of iron-fertilized algal blooms shows they deposit carbon in the deep ocean when they die. Quirin Schiermeier 18 July 2012 In the search for methods to limit global warming, it seems that stimulating the growth of algae in the oceans
[geo] Re: Geoengineering experiment cancelled amid patent row
http://thereluctantgeoengineer.blogspot.de/2012/05/testbed-news.html SPICE personal statement. It is with some regret that today the SPICE team has announced we’ve decided to call off the outdoor ‘1km testbed’ experiment that was scheduled for later this year. The reasons for this are complex and I will try to explain the decision here. It should be noted that these views are my own and do not necessarily imply consensus within SPICE. Where a range of opinions exist I will try to make that clear. Importantly however, the decision to call of the experiment was made by all the project partners in agreement. Firstly, there are issues of *governance*. Despite receiving considerable attention no international agreements exist. Whilst it is hard to imagine a more environmentally benign experiment, which sought to only pump 150 litres (2 bath loads) of pure water into the atmosphere to a height of one kilometre over a deserted field, in terms of SRMGI nomenclature, it represented a transition from stage 2 to stage 3 research. Most experts agree that governance architecture is needed and, to me personally, a technology demonstrator, even a benign 1/20 scale model, feels somewhat premature, though many in SPICE would disagree. Counter to my personal feelings is the argument that technologies that could inject SO2 into the stratosphere, particularly aircraft, already exist and that process could, but obviously should not, begin tomorrow. It is therefore wrong to consider the tested experiment as an enabling technology and that various delivery mechanisms should be tested given there is minimal, well managed proximal (e.g. health and safety) risk and no impacts on climate or biodiversity. Secondly, there are issues of *intellectual property*. SPICE, as a team, is committed to researching climate engineering carefully with the profound belief that all such research should be done, as per the Oxford Principles, for the greater good. We have all agreed, through a partner-wide collaboration agreement to (a) put all results into the public domain in a timely manner and (b) not to exploit (i.e. profit from or patent) results from the SPICE project. However, a patent application exists that was filed prior to the SPICE project being proposed, describing the delivery technology, presenting a potentially significant conflict of interest. The details of this application were only reported to the project team a year into the project and caused many members, including me, significant discomfort. Information regarding the patent application was immediately reported to the research councils, who have initiated an external investigation. Efforts are underway to make the patent application’s intentions unambiguous: to protect intellectual property and not for commercial purposes. Thirdly, it will take time to explore these issues through *deliberation* and *stakeholder engagement*. This means that any postponement of the 1km tested would be a *de facto*cancellation as the experiment’s value, to elucidate balloon and tether dynamics to inform computer models, diminishes over the project lifetime. The SPICE team sincerely hopes that this decision will facilitate rational, unrushed discussion on issues that include both governance and intellectual property but span broader issues surrounding SRM. Posted by matt watson http://www.blogger.com/profile/14583012320357403299 at 00:43http://thereluctantgeoengineer.blogspot.de/2012/05/testbed-news.html On Wednesday, 16 May 2012 03:13:47 UTC+1, Sam Carana wrote: Nature News - 15 May 2012 - by Daniel Cressey Geoengineering experiment cancelled amid patent row. Balloon-based ‘testbed’ for climate-change mitigation abandoned. http://www.nature.com/news/geoengineering-experiment-cancelled-amid-patent-row-1.10645 Let me also repeat my April 2012 contribution to this discussion, which one of the moderators of this group didn't want groupmembers to read: David Keith, a Harvard University professor and an adviser on energy to Microsoft founder Bill Gates, said he and his colleagues are researching whether the federal government could ban patents in the field of solar radiation, according to a report in Scientific American. Some of his colleagues last week traveled to Washington, D.C., where they discussed whether the U.S. Patent Office could ban patents on the technology, Keith said. We think it's very dangerous for these solar radiation technologies, it's dangerous to have it be privatized, Keith said. The core technologies need to be public domain. As suggested by Sam Carana, a declaration of emergency, as called for by the Arctic Methane Emergency Group (AMEG), could be another way to deal with this issue. A declaration of Emergency could give governments the power to overrule patents, where they stand in the way of fast-tracking geo- engineering projects proposed under emergency rules.Thus,
[geo] Re: Ethics of Geoengineering (anything new?)
I agree with Ninad; philosophy feeds on novelty in its continual reassessments; it doesn't assimilate it in a serial model of progress. Many philosophical problems are not solved (though they may be moved outside the realm of philosophy by other developments), and few are novel. There's a relevant quotation from Wittgenstein: “Philosophy has made no progress? If somebody scratches where it itches, does that count as progress? If not, does that mean it wasn’t an authentic scratch? Not an authentic itch? Couldn’t this response to the stimulus go on for quite a long time until a remedy for itching is found?” Geoengineering may be a new itch for philosophy to scratch, and scratching is not an inappropriate response to itches. And again as Ninad said, changes in the way science views the world may change the way we philosophise. Parfitt's notion of intergeneratonal justice (which is clearly relevant to geoengineering and climate issues) clearly rests on seeing what makes a person through a particular biological lens (see http://ijdb.auzigog.com/concept/parfit%E2%80%99s-paradox ) On Apr 7, 10:47 pm, Michael Hayes voglerl...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Folks, I have often found my thoughts on the ethics issue streaming back to the issue of the definition of GE. In short, the difference between '*intentional' *modification of the climate and *'unintentionaly',* yet knowingly, causing such at the second order (global) effect level seems to be a distinction without a difference. Clearly, the use of FFs is causing climate change and we know that to a high degree of certainty. Is not the further use of FFs an act of GE in of itself? The legal concepts of Indifference to Risk(1) and Deliberate Indifference Law(2) seems to adversely addresses, show a flaw in, the use of the word intentional as it is used to define GE. Simply put: With the current understanding of the role FF use has on our climate, should not the continued use of FFs be accepted as a true form of GE? 1: Indifference to Risk Law:http://definitions.uslegal.com/i/indifference-to-risk/ 2: Deliberate Indifference Law:http://definitions.uslegal.com/d/deliberate-indifference/ This overall ethics issue must first be looked at from the perspective of Metaethics. In simplistic terms, Metaethics is, first and foremost, the * 'art'* of reaching agreed upon definition(s). Only after the definition(s) are agreed upon can the relationship between the subject and society be illuminated. That is the only way a Venn Diagram, concerning GE or apples and oranges, can be built. Only after this stage is thoroughly debated (yes..both pro and conand so far there has been little ethical defence of GE) can the fields of normative and applied ethics be properly applied. For those just exploring the finer details of the ethical issue, Stanford's Encyclopedia has a good primer on the foundational nature of Metaethics: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/metaethics/ I have yet noticed any work, by those who have taken up the challenge of GE ethics, which addresses the fundamental issue of *validating* the current/basic definition of GE. It appears to me that the word * 'Intentional'*, used within the standard definition of GE, has blinded the ethics debate to the cogent and apparent 900lb (FF) gorilla sitting upon our collective chest. Is not the large scale use of FFs changing our environment? Intentionally or unintentionally? Is this Intentional/unintentional distinction a false distinction that make little real world difference? Being indifferent to the reality that *FF based anthropogenic GE* is a current and substantial real world fact must be rejected. Due to the highly dangerous nature of the continued FF use to our environment, our only collective hope of survival is to immediately reject FF use or design ways to substantially mediate the damage caused by continued global FF usage. The first option will not be even remotely realistic for many decades. The second option is thus our only *'ethical'* option if we wish to avoid collective suicide. At this time in our global social development, collective suicide is widely considered *'unethical'*. And thus, the reasonable means to avoid such a suicidal situation (GE) *must* be considered *'ethical'*. I personally find the ethical issue somewhat straight forward. We either collectively accept large scale mitigation of the environmental damage of continued FF usage (until a non-FF economy becomes real) or we parish while debating the obvious mitigation alternative(s), i.e. GE. Freedom which comes with having many options is widely viewed as the 'sweetest' and most desirable form of freedom. Unfortunately, until a renewable energy economy is widely developed and used upon this planet, we collectively have very few viable options for surviving the FF economy. Ignoring the real world aspects of our FF addiction (knowingly changing the environment and being
[geo] Presentations from Direct Air Capture summit
Some of these have now been posted here http://www.iseee.ca/DACS/ by the excellent Mark Lowey -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups geoengineering group. To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en.
[geo] Re: Calgary meeting on Direct Air Capture - thoughts?
A few points as someone at the meeting and, it appears, a gusher... As Tim Fox pointed out in Calgary, the lack of any near-term likelihood of large carbon markets paying substantial prices has changed the terms of discussion. If DAC is to have any chance near term (and my feeling was that the consensus of the people on the APS panel that I talked to remains that it really doesn't) then it needs to be able to sell carbon dioxide into a market that both values the product fairly highly and actually exists. That is what the companies are looking with EOR and algae. The hope is that if the companies can get established in one of these niches, learning-by-doing effects and increased resources for RD can drive the cost of capture low enough to be applicable more widely to climate issues.I would judge that for most of the guys working on this the selling CO2 is a means to an end, and if the climate relevant end were to disappear, so would their interest in and commitment to the technology. That said, we all know that people can get into a biz for idealistic reasons and stay out of inertia after those reasons dissipate. An exception here is Peter Eisenberger. Peter sees DAC and fuel-making as providing a new anthropic loop in the carbon cycle, and seems to have little interest in eventual sequestration. I think that's an interesting idea if somewhat ahead of its time, for a fairly high value of somewhat. When Greg says: Why start with a highly artificial and expensive process of concentrating molecular CO2 when nature provides much lower cost and less risky examples that are already in global scale operation? it seems to me that there are two answers. One is No one says you have to. Enhanced weathering is very interesting and I applaud that you work on it. But there should be a strong ex ante supposition that looking at more methods and technological development pathways is a better idea than looking at fewer, and if some people are looking at different things then that's their right. The other is that concentrated carbon dioxide is a sellable product. I'm not sure how hard it would be to get an enhanced weathering scheme certified in a way that it could get carbon credits even for a VER market. It will obviously never be applicable to a market where having concentrated carbon dioxide to sell is part of the point. As the meeting was about DAC, not negative-emission techs more generally, doesn't seem that surprising that weathering wasn't an issue there. (There was a very interesting poster about direct seawater capture.) Dave's point that: If DAC earns a reputation as just another industrial gas production technique it will encounter well-deserved opposition. Is perhaps incomplete. I don't think industrial gas production companies in general face a lot of opposition. if DAC becomes an industrial gas production enterprise *which trades on climate claims it can't back up*, then opposition seems likely to be strong (cf biofuels). If it just does its thing, then it's not clear anyone would care that much one way or another. All this said, it does seem to me, as I wrote, that if through brilliance today's enthusiasts confound the expectations of other engineers and bring DAC costs down far enough for some quasi- commercial niches those niches are likely to be self limiting. If DAC can meet them profitably and they are of any significant size then carbon capture approaches applied to high-CO2 point-sources will move in and outcompete them. This seems to help in answering Greg's question why is venture capital interested. I don't think it is, very much. Marc Gunther's book reports that Arch, the VCs who bought into Lackner's technology, are looking into selling the IP and moving on. The other firms seem to depend more on angels than VC. Angels have different motives, lack the same need for exit strategies, and are more easily moved by non- commercial motives. And the risk profile is likely too high for a lot of VC types. Remember that a) a significant number of people see the APS costs as too low and b) the companies have to beat them by more than a factor of four to stand a chance. Hope that helps, o On Mar 23, 2:19 pm, Hawkins, Dave dhawk...@nrdc.org wrote: I participated in the Calgary DAC meeting and in my remarks my primary message was the need to resist the pressure to morph the technology into a commodity CO2 production technique. If DAC earns a reputation as just another industrial gas production technique it will encounter well-deserved opposition. As to whether DAC has a future as a genuine carbon-negative technology, this is an economic proposition. Currently, it seems pretty expensive but as has been pointed out, the actual costs won't be known until someone tries it in a real-world context and there may be a role for it to address remaining emissions after all the less expensive options have been deployed. In my view, this argues for a modest RD program to build a few demo
[geo] Re: Our group's discussion themes in NewScientist
I'm pretty sure that in Fred Pohl's early 1980s energy and climate change novel The Cool War the fundamental heating issue is waste heat, rather than greenhousing On Jan 28, 7:42 am, Andrew Lockley andrew.lock...@gmail.com wrote: A few months back we discussed a controversial set of papers which considered the effect of 'renewable' energy on the climate system. NewScientist is a popular and respected UK magazine, and has covered the issue in detail, including discussions with group members. http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21328491.700-power-paradox-clea... reqd, pasted) A Power paradox: Clean might not be green forever 25 January 2012 by Anil Ananthaswamy and Michael Le Page Magazine issue 2849. Subscribe and save As energy demand grows, even alternative energy sources such as wind, solar and nuclear fusion could begin to affect the climate A better, richer and happier life for all our citizens. That's the American dream. In practice, it means living in a spacious, air-conditioned house, owning a car or three and maybe a boat or a holiday home, not to mention flying off to exotic destinations. The trouble with this lifestyle is that it consumes a lot of power. If everyone in the world started living like wealthy Americans, we'd need to generate more than 10 times as much energy each year. And if, in a century or three, we all expect to be looked after by an army of robots and zoom up into space on holidays, we are going to need a vast amount more. Where are we going to get so much power from? It is clear that continuing to rely on fossil fuels will have catastrophic results, because of the dramatic warming effect of carbon dioxide. But alternative power sources will affect the climate too. For now, the climatic effects of clean energy sources are trivial compared with those that spew out greenhouse gases, but if we keep on using ever more power over the coming centuries, they will become ever more significant. While this kind of work is still at an early stage, some startling conclusions are already beginning to emerge. Nuclear power - including fusion - is not the long-term answer to our energy problems. Even renewable energies such as wind power will have to be used with caution, because large-scale extraction could have both local and global effects. These effects are not necessarily a bad thing, though. We might be able to exploit them to geoengineer the climate and combat global warming. There is a fundamental problem facing any planet-bound civilisation, as Eric Chaisson of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, points out. Whatever you use energy for, it almost all ends up as waste heat. Much of the electrical energy that powers your mobile phone or computer ends up heating the circuitry, for instance. The rest gets turned into radio waves or light, which turn into heat when they are absorbed by other surfaces. The same is true when you use a mixer in the kitchen, or a drill, or turn on a fan - unless you're trying to beam radio signals to aliens, pretty much all of the energy you use will end up heating the Earth. We humans use a little over 16 terawatts (TW) of power at any one moment, which is nothing compared with the 120,000 TW of solar power absorbed by the Earth at the same time. What matters, though, is the balance between how much heat arrives and how much leaves (see Earth's energy budget). If as much heat leaves the top of the atmosphere as enters, a planet's temperature remains the same. If more heat arrives, or less is lost, the planet will warm. As it does so, it will begin to emit more and more heat until equilibrium is re-established at a higher temperature. Over the past few thousand years, Earth was roughly in equilibrium and the climate changed little. Now levels of greenhouse gases are rising, and roughly 380 TW less heat is escaping. Result: the planet is warming. The warming due to the 16 TW or so of waste heat produced by humans is tiny in comparison. However, if humanity manages to thrive despite the immense challenges we face, and keeps on using more and more power, waste heat will become a huge problem in the future. If the demand for power grew to 5000 TW, Chaisson has calculated, it would warm the planet by 3 °C. This waste-heat warming would be in addition to the warming due to rising CO 2 levels. What's more, since this calculation does not take into account any of the feedbacks likely to amplify the effect, well under 5000 TW may produce this degree of warming. Such colossal power use might seem implausible. Yet if our consumption continues to grow exponentially - it has been increasing by around 2 per cent per year this century despite rising prices - we could reach this point around 2300. Chaisson describes his work as a back of the envelope calculation done in the hope someone would prove him wrong. So far no one has. On the
[geo] Re: White roof snag
Stephen (or John, or Phil, or anyone else) have any of your modellings of cloud brightening looked at this effect? If you were to brighten clouds under a dark aerosol (eg Asian Brown Cloud or equivalent off west africa) might you not be trading warming at the surface for warming at the dark aerosol layer above the cloud, and thus a) getting less of an effect in terms of overall cooling and b) contributing to an increased stability in the amtopsheric column that would suppress convection (thus perhaps having an effect on the clouds themselves?) Doesn't seem obvious how this would net out -- if warming the atmosphere above made the clouds more stable i suppose this might increase the cooling for a given seeding. Is it something you've looked at? On Oct 28, 5:37 pm, David Keith david_ke...@harvard.edu wrote: Greg et al There are a number of reasons why white roofs might cause heating that are well explained in the paper. Among them local suppression of convection and the correlation between where the roofs are and absorbing dust particles. The roofs we plan to whiten tend to be in places with dirty air, and so the problem of absorption is much more pronounced than if we scattered the whitening randomly over the planet. Your analogy to large-scale albedo changes is false because both the interaction with convection and the correlation with dirty air are not present in that case. I think it will take more papers to really nail this down but there's nothing impossible about this result and at a glance the paper seems sensible and serious. Http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/Others/HeatIsland+White... David -Original Message- From: geoengineering@googlegroups.com [mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Rau, Greg Sent: Friday, October 28, 2011 10:40 AM To: s.sal...@ed.ac.uk; geoengineering@googlegroups.com Subject: RE: [geo] White roof snag A worldwide conversion to white roofs, they found, could actually warm the Earth slightly due a complex domino effect. Although white surfaces are cooler, the increased sunlight they reflect back into the atmosphere by can increase absorption of light by dark pollutants such as black carbon, which increases heating. So by analogy, increased snow/ice cover would actually warm the Earth slightly ? I don't think so, but please clue me in. - Greg From: geoengineering@googlegroups.com [geoengineering@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Stephen Salter [s.sal...@ed.ac.uk] Sent: Friday, October 28, 2011 4:22 AM To: geoengineering@googlegroups.com Subject: [geo] White roof snag Hi All See http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/oct/27/white-roofs-global-... and Jacobson, M., Ten Hoeve, J. (2011). Effects of Urban Surfaces and White Roofs on Global and Regional Climate. Journal of Climate DOI: 10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00032.1http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00032.1 Stephen Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design Institute for Energy Systems School of Engineering Mayfield Road University of Edinburgh EH9 3JL Scotland Tel +44 131 650 5704 Mobile 07795 203 195www.see.ed.ac.uk/~shshttp://www.see.ed.ac.uk/~shs -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups geoengineering group. To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group athttp://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups geoengineering group. To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en.
[geo] Re: Relocate the moon to Earth Sun L1
also, lower tides means less risk from raised sea level... On Feb 5, 6:22 pm, BradGuth bradg...@gmail.com wrote: It's not as hard as you might think, and we'd get up to 3.5% shade, although that could easily be adjusted to suit, and there are a few other benefits besides terrific job security for at least a century. http://translate.google.com/# Brad Guth, Brad_Guth, Brad.Guth, BradGuth, BG / “Guth Usenet” -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups geoengineering group. To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en.
