[geo] Re: Wrapping glaciers and painting mountains - slippery slopes?

2018-03-20 Thread Jonathan Marshall 

Must have been kept quiet so no one would know

jon

From: Greg Rau 
Sent: Tuesday, 20 March 2018 8:19 AM
To: Geoengineering
Cc: Jonathan Marshall; Sean Hernandez
Subject: Wrapping glaciers and painting mountains - slippery slopes?

Some examples of geoengineering that apparently are not deterred by moral 
hazards are Swiss glacier wrapping: 
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/03/swiss-residents-are-wrapping-glaciers-in-blankets-to-keep-them-from-melting
   and Peruvian mountain whitewashing: 
http://foreignpolicy.com/2010/06/17/painting-the-andes-white/ Were is the 
moral outrage? Perhaps it has to do with scale; these are not (yet) going to 
alter global climate/effects at the scales currently practiced so the moral 
hazards police and magical thinking monitors can cut them some slack(?). But 
then there are those slippery slope arguments; This needs to be nipped in the 
bud because before you know it we'll be wrapping and painting the entire 
planet. Unclear what the CO2 footprint is of wrapping a glacier or painting a 
mountain; that plastic has to come from and go to somewhere, and the paint: 
lime, eggs and water isn't exactly CO2-emissions free, though the 
CO2-reabsorbing qualities of the lime is a nice touch, as is World Bank 
sponsorship. No one seems to be talking about the downstream impacts of plastic 
and paint leaching, not to mention the effects on ecosystems that inhabit 
glacier and rock surfaces - acceptable casualties?
Greg


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[geo] Re: Wrapping glaciers and painting mountains - slippery slopes?

2018-03-20 Thread Sean Hernandez 
Wow. I read further about the glacier wrapping. It was called "Polar
Geoengineering
,"
which I liked. In the Royal Society report from years ago, there were some
back of the envelope calculations that whitening the surfaces of buildings
and urban areas wouldn't be large enough magnitude. But clearly with
glacier wrapping there could be a higher sensitivity on global climate or
have large "local" benefit to sea level rise. Based on those and other
potential points that could be made, I could imagine people believing
strongly in the moral hazard against aerosols, space mirrors, and
substitute-like types of Carbon Dioxide Removal such as olivine mining and
other source capturing or ambient air capturing. It was also interesting
how the glacier wrapping was used only to reduce the seasonality of the
glacier melt, they deployed it in the summer. I wonder how the strategy
contributed to the environmental benefits.

On Mon, Mar 19, 2018 at 2:19 PM, Greg Rau  wrote:

> Some examples of geoengineering that apparently are not deterred by moral
> hazards are Swiss glacier wrapping: https://www.weforum.org/
> agenda/2018/03/swiss-residents-are-wrapping-glaciers-in-blankets-to-keep-
> them-from-melting   and Peruvian mountain whitewashing:
> http://foreignpolicy.com/2010/06/17/painting-the-andes-white/ Were is
> the moral outrage? Perhaps it has to do with scale; these are not (yet)
> going to alter global climate/effects at the scales currently practiced so
> the moral hazards police and magical thinking monitors can cut them some
> slack(?). But then there are those slippery slope arguments; This needs to
> be nipped in the bud because before you know it we'll be wrapping and
> painting the entire planet. Unclear what the CO2 footprint is of wrapping a
> glacier or painting a mountain; that plastic has to come from and go to
> somewhere, and the paint: lime, eggs and water isn't exactly CO2-emissions
> free, though the CO2-reabsorbing qualities of the lime is a nice touch, as
> is World Bank sponsorship. No one seems to be talking about the downstream
> impacts of plastic and paint leaching, not to mention the effects on
> ecosystems that inhabit glacier and rock surfaces - acceptable casualties?
> Greg
>
>
>


-- 
Sean J. Hernandez

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[geo] Re: Wrapping glaciers and painting mountains - slippery slopes?

2018-03-19 Thread Christopher Preston 
I'm not sure how seriously to take the prospect of large scale 
glacier-wrapping, ice covering, or rock painting.  But, thinking 
optimistically about it, perhaps the increasing recent coverage of such 
schemes can provide a *reverse* moral hazard.  As seen in this post 

 from 
a week ago, that is one of the few good things that might come out of it.
 
https://plastocene.com/2018/03/13/solar-power-nerdiness-and-the-terrifying-problem-of-albedo


On Monday, March 19, 2018 at 3:25:36 PM UTC-6, Greg Rau wrote:
>
> Some examples of geoengineering that apparently are not deterred by moral 
> hazards are Swiss glacier wrapping: 
> https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/03/swiss-residents-are-wrapping-glaciers-in-blankets-to-keep-them-from-melting
>
> and Peruvian mountain whitewashing: 
> http://foreignpolicy.com/2010/06/17/painting-the-andes-white/ Were is 
> the moral outrage? Perhaps it has to do with scale; these are not (yet) 
> going to alter global climate/effects at the scales currently practiced so 
> the moral hazards police and magical thinking monitors can cut them some 
> slack(?). But then there are those slippery slope arguments; This needs to 
> be nipped in the bud because before you know it we'll be wrapping and 
> painting the entire planet. Unclear what the CO2 footprint is of wrapping a 
> glacier or painting a mountain; that plastic has to come from and go to 
> somewhere, and the paint: lime, eggs and water isn't exactly CO2-emissions 
> free, though the CO2-reabsorbing qualities of the lime is a nice touch, as 
> is World Bank sponsorship. No one seems to be talking about the downstream 
> impacts of plastic and paint leaching, not to mention the effects on 
> ecosystems that inhabit glacier and rock surfaces - acceptable casualties?
> Greg   
>
>
>

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