Re: [geo] Re: [CDR] Tiresome nomenclature squabbles

['Francis Micheal Ludlow' via geoengineering]

Dear Ken,

I appreciate the time taken to set out your perspective here, and I do
appreciate that there are meaningful differences between CDR and SRM, which
are important to set out. But at the same time some of the distinctions you
are making here come across as special pleading for the purposes of
avoiding the labelling of geoengineering.

Best wishes

Francis

On Thu 2 Feb 2023, 17:05 Ken Caldeira, 
wrote:

> Carbon dioxide removal is an activity, or a tool, and can be fully
> described without reference to intent.
>
> In contrast, geoengineering involves specific intention to alter Earth's
> climate.  CDR is a tool that is not typically applied to this intention,
> but could be.
>
> If the intention of using CDR is to avoid climate change from
> concurrent CO2 emissions, the intent is to prevent the alteration of
> climate, not to alter climate.
>
> If the intention of using CDR is to bring atmospheric CO2 levels down
> below pre-industrial levels, then that application of CDR technologies
> might be considered geoengineering.
>
>
> On Thu, Feb 2, 2023 at 6:21 AM Andrew Lockley 
> wrote:
>
>> Michael, as always, I'm very keen to avoid entering an extended
>> discussion with you - but I'm writing to correct your false statements:
>> *The geoengineering list was focussed specifically on SRM only after the
>> CDR list was established.
>> *As should be obvious, I'm talking only about the branding of the
>> services I'm personally involved in branding: Reviewer 2, the
>> geoengineering Google group and @geoengineering1. Plainly, I don't get
>> naming rights beyond this.
>>
>> As a note of caution, anyone using the geoengineering Google group to
>> disparage individuals or make false statements about them can expect to be
>> blocked or banned.
>>
>> I will not reply further, and I hope you will not either.
>>
>> Andrew Lockley
>>
>> On Thu, 2 Feb 2023, 01:20 Michael Hayes, 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> [...] My original message had two purposes
>>> A) to offer a full, citable explanation as to why I'm *not* planning on
>>> rebranding all my scicomm to suit anyone's doublespeak - any more than
>>> Coca-Cola will rebrand, now it's got no cocaine in
>>> B) an appeal to stop the petty politics associated with these attempts
>>> to factionalise academia. [...]
>>>
>>> MH]
>>>
>>> 1) Your single person 'branding' ability over such discussions should be
>>> questioned. No single person should have 'branding' rights to such a large
>>> field of study.
>>>
>>> 2) Academia has already split largely due to the early GE discussion
>>> being 'branded' as only about SAI. Your single person 'branding' of the GE
>>> subject as only being about SAI as the GE group moderator triggered the
>>> formation of a seperate CDR group. Bombarding the stratosphere with sulfur
>>> loaded artillery rounds was your 'hobby horse' for years as the GE group
>>> moderator, and the totality of the early GE discussions within that GE had
>>> to revolve around your personal 'branding' desires. Years were wasted, IMO.
>>>
>>> Channeling expert level discussions through your personal GE 'SAI biased
>>> branding' efforts within the old GE group has now been largely made moot,
>>> the petty personal politics at this expert level of discussion are now
>>> largely over. You're free to object to my historical account and insist
>>> upon your personal 'branding' rights over climate disruption mitigation and
>>> adaptation expert discussions. Please keep it within 3 short paragraphs.
>>>
>>> Best regards
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, Feb 1, 2023, 11:02 AM Andrew Lockley 
>>> wrote:
>>>
 Michael, nobody is complaining about hurt feelings. This issue at hand
 is the practical problems created by an attempted redefinition of
 established terminology - apparently to precipitate a disciplinary schism
 (as others have pointed out). This situation has seemingly been
 manufactured by a small subset of CDR supporters - apparently to
 disassociate themselves from SRM, despite historical, definitional and
 personnel links between the two fields.

 While I understand the politics perfectly well, it's absurd to try to
 redefine dictionary words to whitewash the politics of a discipline. I'm
 far from the only one affected by this, hence the desire to raise the issue
 in public - a rare personal message, on my part.

 Let's be clear: CDR *is* geoengineering - and always has been. It's
 literally in the dictionary. Just because CDR *isn't* SRM, doesn't mean
 that it is free of the same moral hazard issues - as the overshoot
 scenarios attest. Any attempt to invoke piety by shunning supposedly
 morally-impure colleagues (or their work) is uncivil, unwarranted, and
 ultimately unproductive. Let he who is without moral hazard cast the first
 stone! 

 My original message had two purposes
 A) to offer a full, citable explanation as to why I'm *not* planning on
 

Re: [geo] Re: Tiresome nomenclature squabbles

['Francis Micheal Ludlow' via geoengineering]

Dear Pol,

I share your views here, but would note that for many the issue of intent
is important - removing CO2 intentionally seems meaningfully different (and
more akin to an act of "engineering") than inadvertently (even if now
knowingly) affecting change by releasing the CO2.

All best wishes,

Francis

On Tue, Jan 31, 2023 at 10:58 PM Pol Knops
https://orcid.org/-0003-3308-3896  wrote:

> Hello Andrew,
>
> Some remarks:
> First of all I don't let this put your valuable work down. That would be a
> pity and is not fair (and for sure not for turning down a possible job).
>
> Personally I don't like the term geo-engineering.
> About a decade ago Solar Radiation Management and Carbon Removal
> Management were usually mixed and described in the general term
> geo-engineering.
> But since then it has been accepted that Solar Radiation Management is
> completely different from Carbon Dioxide Removal.
> From a physical point of view nobody considers the current CO2 emissions
> as geo-engineering. So the reverse removing this CO2 is just as same as
> emitting CO2.
>
> Best regards,
> Pol Knops
>
>
> Op dinsdag 31 januari 2023 om 01:06:13 UTC+1 schreef Andrew Lockley:
>
>> Hi Geo/CDR lists,
>>
>> I say very little personally - but I feel it's time to confront a
>> problem, which has been building up for a while.
>>
>> I'm noticing increasingly ill-tempered nomenclature egg-throwing in this
>> community. It's affecting my work - and it's probably harming other
>> people's work, too. I'm therefore cross-posting, in an attempt to get the
>> problem under control.
>>
>> Most particularly, the eggs are being thrown by a few select CDR folk,
>> who refuse to cooperate with people/projects describing the field as
>> geoengineering (or related terms). Sorry if that's blunt, but them's the
>> facts. I'm declining to name names - but I have the receipts, if
>> anyone needs them.
>>
>> Before addressing the core argument being (incorrectly) made, here's some
>> background on my scicomm work. This context is relevant, as the scicomm
>> reaches broadly across this field (2k twitter followers, 10k podcast
>> downloads, ~3k email readers).
>> I've always worked on SRM and CDR, in both academic publications and
>> scicomm.
>>
>> As a matter of historical fact, the CDR list (which I don't moderate) was
>> spun out from the geoengineering Google group (which I do moderate), and as
>> a matter of convenience the residual list focussed on SRM. This was done to
>> manage comms in a practical way, not as some ideological schism. Plenty of
>> people cross both lists, and I've seen no reason to rebrand.
>>
>> The other information services I operate (@geoengineering1 twitter,
>> Reviewer 2 Does Geoengineering podcast) use the same generic geoengineering
>> branding, and have done for a decade or more. This is partly as a matter of
>> historic consistency, and partly because the word is being used correctly -
>> as I'll explain below. I don't therefore feel that this wording choice is
>> any justification for people to attack me or my work.
>>
>> How bad has it got? Well, I'm reliably informed that I've had my CV
>> binned for at least 1 job because I use the word "geoengineering" to
>> describe the field. I've recently had several people (without exception CDR
>> types) refuse to cooperate with my scicomm work - because I use the word
>> "geoengineering" as a convenient, dictionary-accurate, and
>> historically-relevant way to describe my work. That's denying their work an
>> audience, based on a squabble over historic branding. Coca-Cola doesn't
>> even have cocaine in anymore, but people don't argue with bar staff about
>> it. So why argue with me, when my work is much more accurately described?
>>
>> People are free to use whatever words they like to describe what they do;
>> my beef isn't with the string of related terms for the same things
>> (geoengineering vs climate intervention; solar radiation modification vs
>> solar radiation management; carbon removal vs CDR vs GGR; etc.). The
>> problem I have is with the petty personal sniping and factionalism that's
>> increasingly creeping in to the discipline, as a result.
>>
>> For the avoidance of doubt: I'm not rebranding everything I do just
>> because a few CDR fans won't play nicely with their SRM counterparts. And
>> I'm not going to jump into a silo, just because other people think I
>> should.
>>
>> Notwithstanding the objectionable pettiness of this behaviour, I don't
>> believe the core argument bears any real scrutiny. So let's get to that.
>>
>> With a quick Google I have found both present and historical references
>> to the term "geoengineering" (relatedly climate engineering/intervention)
>> being used to encompass CDR.
>>
>> Here's the OED
>>
>> https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095848469;jsessionid=8F01D3B289E2BB2911C69F51B5050E01#:~:text=Geoengineering%20is%20the%20intentional%20large,of%20reducing%20undesired%20climatic%20.

Re: [geo] What scares you most about SRM?

[Francis Micheal Ludlow]

Dear Douglas, and All,

Thank you for the ongoing discussion, which is always very informative.

May I just ask in relation to the statement below, whether there has been
any modelling yet done on scenarios in which one or more massive eruptions
quickly inject large volumes of SO2 into the stratosphere at a time when
SAI has already been "fully" enacted (recognizing that fully enacted could
mean many things).

"I don’t agree that a 1-2 year return constitutes a “limited” reversibility
to be terrified by.  If on day one of deployment you suddenly put in some
massive amount of aerosols enough to get significant cooling, that would be
a pretty stupid thing to do – as well as a pretty difficult thing to do
from an engineering perspective.  If you’ve only gradually ramped the
forcing up over a period of years, then it’s hard to imagine a scenario
where you suddenly discover something so bad that you’d rather the forcing
goes away in a week rather than a year"

Many thanks,

Francis Ludlow

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 at 21:25, Douglas MacMartin  wrote:

> Agree that they aren’t equivalent in detailed impacts, but none of Andy’s
> concerns were with regards to those details.
>
>
>
> Agree that Paulo is making a claim that I don’t think is supported by the
> modeling evidence for any approach, including for SAI.  (Agree that it is
> certain that any approach, whether it be SAI or MCB, will result in changes
> in the hydrological cycle, and therefore if the forcing is large enough,
> those changes will be large, but the changes from not having that forcing
> are likely to be much larger still, so his sentence is incorrect without a
> lot more caveats on what the large changes are with respect to… I think we
> can be certain that for any quantified definition of “large”, then one can
> define deployment scenarios in which his statement is unequivocally false.)
>
>
>
> Agree that people – including yourself in the email you just typed – don’t
> generally appreciate that **any** of these approaches, whether it be MCB
> or SAI, aren’t just “one thing”, but have the potential for spatial
> tailoring and seasonal adaptation, albeit to different degrees.  Given the
> length of the responses here, though, it would seem that the ability to
> tune SAI or MCB isn’t the first-order thing to insist that they mention.
>
>
>
> I don’t agree that a 1-2 year return constitutes a “limited” reversibility
> to be terrified by.  If on day one of deployment you suddenly put in some
> massive amount of aerosols enough to get significant cooling, that would be
> a pretty stupid thing to do – as well as a pretty difficult thing to do
> from an engineering perspective.  If you’ve only gradually ramped the
> forcing up over a period of years, then it’s hard to imagine a scenario
> where you suddenly discover something so bad that you’d rather the forcing
> goes away in a week rather than a year.  And, perhaps more relevant, the
> climate doesn’t respond instantly anyway, so the difference between turning
> the forcing off in a week and turning it off gradually over a year or two
> isn’t going to be so big.  (Indeed, I’d suspect that ramping it down over a
> year or two would be much better than instantly turning it off, due to the
> different rates of warming of land vs sea and the ensuing impact on
> monsoonal flows if you impose an abrupt perturbation.  So personally, to
> the extent that it is possible to tell the difference, I suspect that the
> more gradual termination associated with SAI is better than the more sudden
> one from MCB.)
>
>
>
> Localized forcing has some potential advantages (of limiting the influence
> over the rest of the planet and enabling some local impact reduction), but
> if, as Andy said, the question is one of affecting **global**
> temperatures, then a more spatially uniform forcing is likely to have
> better outcomes than a highly spatially heterogeneous forcing.  So
> localized forcing could be much worse in that context.
>
>
>
> So yes – at the high level, the sorts of concerns Andy mentioned apply to
> all of the methods, but as soon as you get into the details, there’s going
> to be lots of differences between methods, most of which we don’t know
> enough about right now.
>
>
>
> *From:* Renaud de RICHTER 
> *Sent:* Saturday, April 25, 2020 1:46 PM
> *To:* Douglas MacMartin 
> *Cc:* apark...@gmail.com; geoengineering 
> *Subject:* Re: [geo] What scares you most about SRM?
>
>
>
> I can't consider as equivalent, or as comparable a full portfolio of very
> very different technologies, and talk about them indistinctly.
>
>
>
> Some are all over the entire world and show limited reversibility (SAI, 2
> years to come back to initial if something unexpected and wrong happens),
> and others are localized and can be stopped in a couple of days if
> necessary. Some can be "fine tuned" in order *not to induce* " *Large
> changes in the hydrological cycle and in the ecosystems functioning*"
>
>
>
> *Why the studies 

Re: [geo] Here's a published article demanding "humanity must: (1) Abruptly halt tropospheric particulate geoengineering"

[Francis Micheal Ludlow]

I find it useful to keep track of such papers, including for teaching
purposes in highlighting potentially misleading / biased / agenda-driven
research.

Francis

On Sat, 24 Aug 2019 at 20:03, Ronal Larson 
wrote:

> Alan:
>
> The ones I was referring to are in your “refereed” (as opposed to
> refereed) category - so I’m going to pass on referring.
>
> Ron
>
>
> On Aug 24, 2019, at 12:53 PM, Alan Robock 
> wrote:
>
> If there are plenty of such "refereed" journal articles out there, I think
> it would be good to know about them.
>
> Alan
>
>
> On 8/24/2019 2:51 PM, Ronal Larson wrote:
>
> Alan,  cc “Geo”
>
> I can see why you referred this - but hope you won’t do another like it
> (and there are plenty - I found out)..
>
> Ron
>
>
>
> On Aug 24, 2019, at 9:42 AM, Alan Robock 
> wrote:
>
> Journal of Geography, Environment and Earth Science International
>
> http://journaljgeesi.com/index.php/JGEESI/article/view/30157
>
> *Geophysical Consequences of Tropospheric Particulate Heating: Further
> Evidence that Anthropogenic Global Warming is Principally Caused by
> Particulate Pollution*
>
> J. Marvin Herndon
> Transdyne Corporation, 11044 Red Rock Drive, San Diego, CA 92131, USA.
>
> Mark Whiteside
> Florida Department of Health in Monroe County, 1100 Simonton Street, Key
> West, FL 33040, USA.
>
> Abstract
> The climate science community and the United Nations’ Intergovernmental
> Panel on Climate Change have misinformed world governments by failing to
> acknowledge tropospheric particulate geoengineering that has been ongoing
> with ever-increasing duration and intensity for decades, and by treating
> global warming solely as a radiation-balance issue, which has resulted in a
> seriously incomplete understanding of the fundamental factors that affect
> Earth’s surface temperature. Here we review the consequences of
> tropospheric particulate heating by absorption of short- and long-wave
> solar radiation and long-wave radiation from Earth’s surface. Generally,
> black carbon absorbs light over the entire solar spectrum; brown carbon
> absorbs near-UV wavelengths and, to a lesser extent, visible light; iron
> oxides are good absorbers, the most efficient being magnetite. Pyrogenic
> coal fly ash, both from coal burning and from tropospheric jet-spraying
> geoengineering (for military purposes and/or climate engineering), contains
> carbon and iron oxides, hematite and magnetite. The recently published
> climate-science paradigm shift discloses that the main cause of global
> warming is not carbon dioxide heat retention, but particulate pollution
> that absorbs radiation, heats the troposphere, and reduces the efficiency
> of atmospheric-convective heat removal from Earth’s surface. In addition to
> the World War II data, three other independent lines of supporting evidence
> are reviewed: (1) Passage overhead of the Mt. St. Helens volcanic plume;
> (2) Radiosonde and aethalometer investigations of Talukdar et al.; and, (3)
> convection suppression over the tropical North Atlantic caused by the
> Saharan-blown dust. The risks associated with the placement of aerosol
> particulates into the stratosphere, whether lofted naturally,
> inadvertently, or deliberately as proposed for solar radiation management,
> poses grave risks, including the destruction of atmospheric ozone. To solve
> global warming humanity must: (1) Abruptly halt tropospheric particulate
> geoengineering; (2) Trap particulate emissions from coal-fired industrial
> furnaces (especially in India and China) and from vehicle exhaust; and, (3)
> Reduce particulate-forming fuel additives.
>
> --
> Alan
>
> Alan Robock, Distinguished Professor
>   Associate Editor, Reviews of Geophysics
> Department of Environmental Sciences Phone: +1-848-932-5751
> Rutgers UniversityE-mail: rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu
> 14 College Farm Roadhttp://people.envsci.rutgers.edu/robock
> New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8551  USA  ☮ http://twitter.com/AlanRobock
>
>
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Re: [geo] Fwd: Geoengineering and Capitalism

[Francis Micheal Ludlow]

Dear All,

Thank you for this interesting and important discussion.

A related query: I have been searching the literature for any information
on what industries are likely to be involved in producing the chemical
species needed to enact any potential SAI geoengineering. Pointers in this
direction would be appreciated.

I have heard it said in passing at workshops / conferences that this is
likely to involve, and offer significant profit opportunity to, the
petrochemical industry, but haven't yet seen any detailed discussion of
this in the literature (though I assume I am just overlooking this).

Francis

On 2 February 2018 at 13:16, Douglas MacMartin 
wrote:

> Hi Ryan, and all,
>
>
>
> Thanks for all of this.  I agree (and I think everyone is aware of the
> concern) that there is the potential for vested fossil fuel interests to
> seize on SRM as an excuse to avoid regulation – we saw that in Lamar
> Smith’s comments before the hearing last year (I don’t recall that he
> actually stayed to listen to the hearing, since all 4 of us repeated the
> fact that you can’t do that anyway, but I doubt that would have mattered).
>
>
>
> There were certainly a few connections people mentioned that I was unaware
> of (Shell funding some CDR) or had forgotten about (like Steve Koonin, my
> former provost, who had some passing interest and also had a brief stint at
> BP).  But all incredibly minor contributors to the subject.  I was simply
> reacting, as is Jesse, to the assertion in the email thread that they “fund
> many GE supporters” *in the present tense*.  Indeed, I think it is far
> more striking observation that the precise opposite is true – that at least
> as far as SRM is concerned, within a rounding error 100% of the interest,
> and even without a rounding error 100% of the research funding comes from
> people committed to mitigation.  Indeed, given that history, that might
> give some of us more hope for the future interests as well.
>
>
>
> As a minor point, Jesse already pointed out that Tillerson’s comment
> wasn’t about GE, but I’d also point out that you can’t use the fact that
> Ken and Bala used to work at Livermore as some mysterious connection to
> vested interests; Livermore has a great climate group that has been
> instrumental in CMIP and hence in IPCC, so by that argument you’d also have
> to assert that fossil fuel interests support climate science.
>
>
>
> doug
>
>
>
> *From:* Gunderson, Ryan [mailto:gunde...@miamioh.edu]
> *Sent:* Friday, February 02, 2018 7:29 AM
> *To:* Reynolds, J.L. (Jesse) 
> *Cc:* m...@clivehamilton.com; Daniel B Kirk-Davidoff ;
> Douglas MacMartin ; geoengineering <
> geoengineering@googlegroups.com>; brian.peter...@nau.edu;
> diana.stu...@nau.edu
>
> *Subject:* Re: [geo] Fwd: Geoengineering and Capitalism
>
>
>
> Dear Jesse,
>
> I assume and hope that the majority GE scientists also support
> mitigation.  Certainly the most prominent do.
>
> Regarding the comment about GE as a "project of the right": As I mentioned
> in one of the emails with Dan, the concrete intentions (and I'd include
> political priorities here) of GE scientists may be relatively unimportant.
> What is more consequential, in my opinion, is what happens to GE in social,
> political, and economic context.  And why GE will likely pick up steam due
> to this context.  Our paper tries to highlight these social conditions as
> well as the types of justifications that appeal to powerful interests.  If
> the fossil fuel industry, climate change denialists like the Heartland
> Institute, and the GOP embrace GE, for example, it's worth asking why this
> is the case. (This does not mean that only the right supports GE research
> or deployment, or that something is "bad" just because the right supports
> it.  The right here is just meant to signify a group that best represents
> captial's interest in $ > burn fossil fuels > $$ > burn fossil fuels >
> $$$.)  I assume that the majority of GE scientists would argue that GE
> without mitigation is a problematic way forward (ocean acidification
> etc.).  Despite this, one should still try to understand the large appeal
> GE has to those who have a vested interest in burning fossil fuels to
> accumulate capital.  To me, the issue is "structural" - our paper is not an
> attempt to blame GE scientists for the prospects of deployment.
>
>
>
> Take care,
>
> Ryan
>
>
> --
> Ryan Gunderson, Ph.D.
>
> Assistant Professor
> Department of Sociology & Gerontology
> Miami University
>
> rgsoc.blogspot.com
>
>
>
> On Fri, Feb 2, 2018 at 2:47 AM, Reynolds, J.L. (Jesse) 
> wrote:
>
> Folks:
>
>
>
> That “infamous statement by Exxon's Rex Tillerson” was about adaptation,
> not geoengineering: “And as human beings as a — as a — as a species, that’s
> why we’re all still here. We have spent our entire existence adapting, OK?
> So we will adapt to this.  Changes to weather