It is my understanding that Normative Jurisprudence Law, such as treaties
and conventions, is an exercise in political philosophy. As a layperson, I
am very concerned with any political philosophy which calls for a
non emergency response to an emergency situation.
1) The Esppo Convention model
Unfortunately, I think accepting that emissions reductions won't
happen makes this a self-fulfilling prophecy. The agreements at
Copenhagen and Cancun, at least in the maximum implementation
scenarios, get us to about 70% of what we need to avoid the 2C
guardrail; that's dramatically better than wh
I'm much more Gung Ho. We need to stop pretending that emissions reductions
will happen, in particular of co2. We need to prepare for a high co2 world.
As mike rightly points out in item 5, we need to be controlling methane
excursions (also equivalent to point 2) . However, natural emissions
incre
Dear Wil--With regard to how to get the train going, which I agree is
essential, as indicated in papers I have done in past couple of years (for
general sense of idea and reference to papers, see
http://www.climate.org/topics/climate-change/maccracken-proposal-north-south
-framework.html), I think
Thank you for the response.
As to 1); The principal aspects of SRM, in that they are
both technologically simple and cheap, makes the assumption of "failure"
seem unrealistic. The brakes system in my car is simple and cheap and so I
maintain it so as to not kill myself and others. If a deployed
Hi Mike,
As usual, a thoughtful response on this issue. I quite agree with you;
there may be a need for some level of SRM intervention in the future.
As I argue in the article, my concern is that any potential deployment
should be legally tied to step-wise redutions in emissions to
ameliorate any
Hi Michael and Wil--It is, of course, not one or the other. If the Earth's
temperature is to be limited to less than some value (2 C per the Copenhagen
Accord, and given what is happening at 0.8 C there is good reason to think
the ceiling should be lower), no one strategy will do--we need all that
Hi Michael,
Several responses here:
1. A future generation might have no choice in terminating an SRM
approach should it technologically fail; this is certainly not beyond
the pale. For example, various climatic feedback processes might
ultimately denude the effectiveness of cloud brightening or
Tom Goreau is certainly correct that the scale of any whole ocean mitigation
through this approach would require a huge effort -- an effort that is
similar in scale to that of the global energy system.
Nevertheless, it might make sense in a possibly futile attempt to protect
some isolated reefs in
