[geo] Sámi join call to cancel sun-dimming technology

[Andrew Lockley]

https://www.arctictoday.com/sami-join-call-to-cancel-sun-dimming-technology-test/

NewsPoliticsScience
Sámi join call to cancel sun-dimming technology test
A range in Arctic Sweden would be used to test technology related to
potential future geoengineering efforts.

ByKevin McGwin -March 15, 20216

A science balloon of the sort that would be used in the SCoPEx test is
deployed at the Esrange Space Center in Kiruna. (Esrange Space Center)
With efforts to curb the emissions causing global climate change struggling
to overcome inertia and political barriers, some observers are pushing for
a set of more dramatic measures, collectively known as geoengineering, that
would halt or reverse warming by making massive changes to the planet’s
climate system.

One such idea is the dispersion of sun-reflecting aerosols into the
atmosphere. In theory, the concept is simple: release a substance into the
atmosphere that will send some of the sun’s energy back into space.

Proponents of this approach like to point out that it is inspired by nature
itself: Volcanic eruptions eject ash into the atmosphere with the same
outcome. Indeed, the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo, in the Philippines,
is said to have lowered global temperatures by 0.5 degrees Celsius.

They also cite its relatively low cost: A 2018 report by the UN’s
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggested that solar-radiation
modification, as such processes are known, would be an effective way to
limit global temperature increases to the 1.5 degrees C target is set in
2015 at a cost of no more than $10 billion annually. By comparison, Morgan
Stanley estimated in 2019 that the cost of the alternative, reducing the
carbon pollution that causes global warming in the first place, would
require $50 trillion worth of investment by 2050.

[With glacial melt accelerating, a geoengineering movement gathers momentum]

But the idea is exceedingly controversial. The IPCC admits there are
ethical questions involved with such measures, given their potential
unknown consequences and humanity’s track record when we have intervened
with nature in the past. There are also legal hindrances to developing
them. A 2010 agreement among 193 countries outlawed geoengineering until
there was enough evidence that the benefits of tinkering with the planet
outweighed any harm it might do. That has made the issue mostly academic.

The agreement does permits lab work and “small-scale scientific research
studies” in the field. And, in June, a project named SCoPEx (short for
Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment), being carried out by the
Harvard University-affiliated Keutsch Group, is considering whether to do
just that. Pending a decision by its advisors, the group will launch a
scientific balloon from the Esrange Space Centre, in Kiruna, Sweden, that
will put the equipment that would be used in subsequent tests through its
paces.

The Keutsch Group insists the launch it is not an experiment in
geoengineering, since no sun-reflecting substances will be released during
the launch. Although, it confirms that if all systems function as designed,
a test at a later date would make sense.


But that is a false delineation, argues a group of three Swedish
conservancies and the Saami Council, which represents Sámi interests in
Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. They consider geoengineering a “moral
hazard,” given the potentially dramatic consequences is could cause, and
they oppose the experiment on the grounds that a test of equipment that
could be used in a geoengineering experiment is, in fact, an experiment in
geoengineering.

The groups have also taken the Keutsch Group to task for failing to live up
to its own guidelines, which say it should take the opinions of Swedish or
local leaders into account. This has not happened. Moreover, they point
out, there are no Swedish or Sámi representatives on the group’s advisory
board.

Had they done so, they would have learned that the experiment runs counter
to Sweden’s efforts to reduce carbon pollution, as well as the Sámi
understanding of the natural world.

“This project must stop,” Åsa Larsson-Blind, the Saami Council’s Swedish
vice-president, told SVT, a broadcaster, last week. “We do not accept the
use of Sámi territory to test and legitimize a technology we are against.”

Douglas MacMartin, an engineer at Cornell University, is a proponent of
“climate engineering” but accepts that it is not something that everyone is
keen on.

“Can we cool the Arctic? The short answer is ‘yes’,” he said during a
presentation last week about using geoengineering to prevent permafrost
from thawing. “But I phrase that deliberately as ‘can we’ rather than
‘should we’ because that’s actually a much more complicated question.”

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[geo] Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future Elizabeth Kolbert (Ken review)

[Andrew Lockley]

https://blogs.sciencemag.org/books/2021/03/15/under-a-white-sky/

Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future
Elizabeth Kolbert
Crown
2021
256 pp.
Purchase this item now
Elizabeth Kolbert’s beautifully written new book Under a White Sky reports
from the planetary front lines where modern civilization is colliding with
nature and where thoughtful people are working hard to soften the impact.
“At this point it might be prudent to scale back our commitments and reduce
our impacts,” she writes. “But there are so many of us—as of this writing
nearly eight billion—and we are stepped in so far, return seems
impracticable.” If we are unable to retreat and cannot remain where we are,
how do we advance? Kolbert is a top journalist, but she is no pundit, and
she offers no easy answers.

The book begins with a visit to the canals of Chicago. The Mississippi
River basin and the Great Lakes basin were two distinct and biologically
separate drainage basins until a little more than a century ago, Kolbert
reveals, but early in the 20th century, canals were built, connecting Lake
Michigan to a tributary of the Mississippi River.

For most of the past century, the canal was too polluted to allow much
biological transfer, but with the passage of the Clean Water Act, it has
become passable by fish in recent decades, resulting in a bidirectional
invasion of species into previously distinct habitats. To mitigate this
problem, engineers have deployed devices in the canal to create an electric
field that shocks species attempting to cross between the two waterways. A
“bubble barrier” that uses water bubbles and sound as a deterrent, with an
estimated cost of $775 million, is also in the works.

>From the canals of Chicago, Kolbert takes readers south to New Orleans and
the Mississippi River delta. Once a freely meandering river, seasonally
flooding and dropping sediment, the Mississippi was gradually tamed and its
free flows channeled. Deprived of sediment and undermined by oil and gas
drilling, coastal land now sinks into the sea. “Every hour and a half,
Louisiana sheds another football field’s worth of land,” Kolbert writes.

With much of New Orleans below sea level already, society is faced with a
stark choice: to retreat or to mount a heroic (but ultimately futile)
defense. Short-term interests all but remove the first option from
consideration.

Moving westward, we learn that lakes and streams once snaked through the
U.S. desert. Over time, as the climate dried up, many of the region’s
waterways became disconnected, leaving tiny fish isolated and evolving into
species not found anywhere else. As ranches drill for irrigating water, and
the water tables fall, caves are drying up, likely causing the extinction
of some of these evolutionary anomalies. Kolbert describes the
extraordinary effort being mounted to head off the extinction of one such
creature, the Devils Hole pupfish, which includes a $4.5 million facsimile
of the species’ isolated cave.

In Hawaii, Kolbert speaks with scientists trying to genetically engineer
coral to survive in a hotter world. In Australia, she speaks with
scientists studying genetic methods to control poisonous cane toads. Like
the book’s other examples, both of these efforts are a response to a
problem of our own making. Ocean temperatures are rising because of
humanity’s addiction to fossil fuels. Cane toads are destroying Australian
ecosystems because we introduced them to control insects on agricultural
lands.

In the last part of the book, Kolbert shifts to the global climate, with
reporting on researchers who are working to remove carbon dioxide from the
atmosphere and on scientists who hypothesize that shooting reflective
particles into the stratosphere may be key to cooling Earth. This latter
solution, she notes, “has been described as ‘dangerous beyond belief,’ ‘a
broad highway to hell,’ ‘unimaginably drastic,’ and also as ‘inevitable.’”

Science and technology have brought us this far, but they have also
contributed to the current mess in which we find ourselves, so it is only
sensible to be skeptical of our ability to engineer ourselves out of this
predicament. Most of the researchers with whom Kolbert spoke shared this
perspective. Their efforts, rather than being evidence of unmitigated
techno-optimism, were “the best [solutions] that anyone could come up with,
given the circumstances.” Nevertheless, one senses that if we do get out of
this mess, it will be because of the efforts of scientists and
technologists who are searching for solutions during a time when humanity
seems an implacable force and nature an immovable object.

About the author

The reviewer is at the Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution
for Science, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.

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[geo] FW: Report Releases and More from NASEM Climate

[Douglas MacMartin]

From: NASEM Climate 
Sent: Monday, March 15, 2021 11:00 AM
To: Douglas MacMartin 
Subject: Report Releases and More from NASEM Climate

[Facebook]
[Twitter]
[Website]
[https://gallery.mailchimp.com/18fe6f8f25ec0bc7509e65e97/images/875cc7e5-4cf1-4768-aac2-0a796fb8b873.png]
REPORT RELEASE EVENT
Reflecting Sunlight: Recommendations for Solar Geoengineering Research and 
Research Governance
March 25, 2021 | 12:00-1:00 PM ET
[https://mcusercontent.com/18fe6f8f25ec0bc7509e65e97/images/5edc4ed5-dfc3-4b7c-930d-2e8de987d488.jpg]Mark
 your calendars for a public briefing on an upcoming report that examines 
strategies to reduce global temperatures by reflecting sunlight back into 
space, known as solar geoengineering. Concerns that efforts to reduce 
greenhouse gas emissions, remove and sequester carbon, and adapt to climate 
change impacts are not on pace to avoid the worst consequences of climate 
change have led some to suggest adding solar geoengineering to the portfolio of 
response strategies. The upcoming report, to be released at 11:00 am ET on 
Thursday, March 25, 2021, examines the current understanding of the potential 
risks and benefits of three proposed solar geoengineering strategies and makes 
recommendations for how to establish a research program, a research agenda, and 
mechanisms for governing this research.

Register to 
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[geo] Newsletter of Week 11 of 2021

[i...@climate-engineering.eu]

Title: Climate Engineering Newsletter




  


 







 



Climate Engineering Newsletter
for Week 11 of 2021



 





15.-18.03.2021, Conference: GHGT-15, online
15.-18.03.2021, Event: The Economist: Climate Risk Summit: North America 2021, New York / USA
(new) 15.03.2021, Event: Current understanding of the impact of Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) approaches on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Latin America and the Caribbean, online
17.03.2021, Webinar: Greenhouse Gas Removal in the Iron and Steel Industry, online
17.03.2021, GGR Lunchtime Webinar Series: Greenhouse Gas Removal in the Iron and Steel Industry, online
17.03.2021, Event: AirMiners Event Series: 'Killer Applications' in Biochar, online
(new) 17.03.2021, Event: The Potential for Solar Geoengineering to Help Counter Climate Change, online
(new) 18.03.2021, Event: MIT Enterprise Forum of the Central Coast: Climate Change and Economic Growth, online
24.03.2021, Webinar: Harmonising and UPgrading GREENhouse gas removal consequential Life Cycle Assessment (UP-green-LCA), online
24.03.2021, GGR Lunchtime Webinar Series: Harmonising and UPgrading GREENhouse gas removal consequential Life Cycle Assessment (UP-green-LCA), online
31.03.2021, Webinar: Comparative assessment and region-specific optimisation of GGR, online
31.03.2021, GGR Lunchtime Webinar Series: Comparative assessment and region-specific optimisation of GGR, online
07.-09.04.2021, Meeting: Carbon Dioxide Utilisation: Faraday Discussion, online
07.04.2021, Webinar: Co-delivery of food and climate regulation by temperate agroforestry (CALIBRE), online
07.04. 2021, GGR Lunchtime Webinar Series: Co-delivery of food and climate regulation by temperate agroforestry (CALIBRE), online
14.04.2021, Webinar: Feasibility of Afforestation and Biomass energy with carbon capture storage for Greenhouse Gas Removal (FAB GGR), online
14.04.2021, GGR Lunchtime Webinar Series: Feasibility of Afforestation and Biomass energy with carbon capture storage for Greenhouse Gas Removal (FAB GGR), online
21.04.2021, Webinar: GGR Lunchtime Webinar - Assessing the Mitigation Deterrence Effects of GGRs, online
21. 04.2021, GGR Lunchtime Webinar Series: Assessing the Mitigation Deterrence Effects of GGRs, online
18.-20.05.2021, Event: OCEANVISIONS 2021 Summit: Towards a Global Ecosystem for Ocean Solutions, online and San Diego / USA
16.06.2021, Event: International PhD Colloquium 2021, online
21.-23.06.2021, Conference: Trondheim CCS Conference (TCCS-11), online
04.-09.07.2021, Conference: Goldschmidt2021: Session 9j: Atmospheric carbon dioxide removal by enhanced weathering to mitigate global warming, online and Lyon / France
11.-17.07.2021, IEA Greenhouse Gas R Programme 2020 Summer School, Bandung / Indonesia
05.-08.10.2021, Conference: Climate Engineering in Context 2021, location TBA
01.-12.11.2021, Conference: COP26, Glasgow / UK
04.-07.11.2021, Conference: Negative Emissions Science (scialog), AZ / USA



21.03.2021, Call for Applications: Stripe: Carbon Removal Purchase Application
21.03.2021, Call for Papers: The Regulation of New Technologies (International PhD Colloquium 2021)
29.03.2021, Call for Applications: Carbon Capture Use and Storage Development Fund (Australia)
31.03.2021, PhD Opportunity: PhD fellow in Political Ecology of Natural Climate Solutions (University of Copenhagen)
(new) 14.04.2021, Call for Proposals: AGU Fall Meeting
31.07.2022, Call for Submissions: Special Issue "Resolving uncertainties in solar geoengineering through multi-model and large-ensemble simulations" (ACP/ESD inter-journal SI)



15.03.2021, Job: Postdoc Position in Modelling Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement Strategies and Ocean Resilience Patterns from Biodiversity Data (University of Southern Denmark)
24.03.2021, Jobs: Carbon180: Various Positions
05.04.2021, Job: Post-doctoral research position on assessing solar radiation management (SRM) and carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies
(new) (no deadline), Job: ITIF: Senior Policy Analyst, Clean Energy Innovation
(no deadline), Job: Carbon Management Director
(no deadline), Job: Carbon Removal Advocacy Europe: Founding Executive Director, UK
(no deadline), Jobs: C-Capture: Various Positions
(no deadline), Job: International CCS Knowledge Centre -- President & Chief Executive Officer
(no deadline), Job: International CCS Knowledge Centre -- Vice President, Project Development & Advisory Services
(no deadline), Job: Postdoctoral Research Scientist (Columbia University)



Corbett, Charles R. (2021): “Extraordinary” and “Highly Controversial”: Federal Research of Solar Geoengineering Under NEPA
Jiang, Yuan; et al. (2021): Techno-economic comparison of various process configurations for post-combustion carbon capture using a single-component water-lean solvent
Lee, Hanna; et al. (2021): The response of terrestrial ecosystem carbon cycling under different aerosol-based radiation management geoengineering
Visioni, Daniele; et al. (2021): Identifying the sources of