Re: [geo] Scientists Focused on Geoengineering Challenge the Inevitability of Multi-Millennial Global Warming

[Adam Dorr]

Post-scarcity is unintuitive, and it can be a challenge to fully unpack all
of the assumptions we normally make about production. Just to clarify the
confusion about cost, let me reiterate that I am using the term in the
*economic
*sense. A commodity that is *economically *costless is something for which
the marginal cost (i.e. the cost of producing one additional unit of the
good or service) is near-zero. The resulting supply of that good or service
is *superabundant*. That doesn't mean infinite, it simply means that the
supply is so large relative to demand that pricing and trade (i.e. markets)
for that thing would be meaningless.

Consider some examples. Air for our individual respiration needs is
economically costless because the supply is superabundant relative to
demand - and as a result, there is no market for air. Similarly,
groundwater in my home state of Michigan is economically costless relative
to individual home owners' needs, because the supply is superabundant
relative to demand: once you have an electric well in your basement, the
marginal cost of an additional gallon of water (say, 11 gallons vs. 10
gallons, or 101 vs. 100) is near-zero. And lastly, many digital goods have
just recently become superabundant as a result of key ongoing advancements
in computing. The marginal cost of an additional copy of a music file, for
example, is so low that it is near-zero, and so traditional markets for
physical copies of music (records) have disappeared because those goods
have entered a post-scarcity condition of superabundance. The entertainment
industry has been profoundly disrupted as a result of this technological
transition.

Again, economically superabundant does not mean infinite! All it means is
that the marginal cost per unit output is near-zero. There is one key
difference among the above examples, however. In the case of air, no human
involvement is needed to maintain its superabundant supply. But in the case
of groundwater and digital files, some *humans *somewhere up the supply
chain have to do the labor to build and maintain the infrastructure from
which the superabundant supply is produced. But narrowly intelligent
machine labor is poised to change that. The situation would then be more
directly analogous to the production of our air supply, which is generated
by the labor machines - albeit, biological ones (photosynthesizing plants).
Once more: air is not infinite, but it is superabundant,
meaning functionally costless.

I would encourage anyone interested to explore some of the literature - it
really is fascinating! But beyond that, I would emphasize the point I made
in my earlier message (and which I discuss at length in my recent
publications) which is that it is not possible to speak realistically about
the "long term" *without* fully understanding, appreciating, and accounting
for the full implications of technological change - of which the above
material is an important part.

Best,


Adam

--
Adam Dorr
University of California Los Angeles School of Public Affairs
Urban Planning PhD Candidate
adamd...@ucla.edu
adamd...@gmail.com

On Wed, Sep 7, 2016 at 6:26 AM, Douglas MacMartin 
wrote:

> It’s the “barring other physical limits” that is the important caveat.  I
> completely disagree with the statement that labor is the factor that makes
> CDR (and everything else) expensive.
>
>
>
> *From:* geoengineering@googlegroups.com [mailto:geoengineering@
> googlegroups.com] *On Behalf Of *Michael Trachtenberg
> *Sent:* Wednesday, September 07, 2016 9:23 AM
> *To:* adamd...@ucla.edu
> *Cc:* R. T. Pierrehumbert ; Greg Rau <
> gh...@sbcglobal.net>; bmer...@mercerenvironment.net;
> andrew.lock...@gmail.com; geoengineering ;
> Andrew Revkin ; cla...@onid.orst.edu; Oliver Morton <
> olivermor...@economist.com>; Oliver Morton 
> *Subject:* Re: [geo] Scientists Focused on Geoengineering Challenge the
> Inevitability of Multi-Millennial Global Warming
>
>
>
> While I agree with your projection please note *nothing is costless*. A
> major reason chip labor is used is that it is still cheaper than
> AI/robotics. As that changes, for better or worse, unemployment follows.
> Cost less NOT costless.
>
>
>
> *Michael Trachtenberg, PhD*
> Visiting Scientist
> Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology
> Rutgers University
> New Brunswick, NJ
> mi...@aesop.rutgers.edu
> 609-610-6227
>
>
>
> On Sep 6, 2016, at 10:52 PM, Adam Dorr  wrote:
>
>
>
> The connection is that economic cost is the CDR feasibility bottleneck.
> And barring other physical limits, labor is the factor of production that
> makes CDR (and everything else) expensive. *Machine *labor obviates this
> feasibility bottleneck.
>
>
>
> Choose any product or service, trace its supply chain to its origins, and
> this becomes obvious: a functionally unlimited supply of costless skilled
> labor 

Re: [geo] Scientists Focused on Geoengineering Challenge the Inevitability of Multi-Millennial Global Warming

[Michael Trachtenberg]

While I agree with your projection please note nothing is costless. A major 
reason chip labor is used is that it is still cheaper than AI/robotics. As that 
changes, for better or worse, unemployment follows. Cost less NOT costless.

Michael Trachtenberg, PhD
Visiting Scientist
Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology
Rutgers University
New Brunswick, NJ
mi...@aesop.rutgers.edu
609-610-6227



> On Sep 6, 2016, at 10:52 PM, Adam Dorr  wrote:
> 
> The connection is that economic cost is the CDR feasibility bottleneck. And 
> barring other physical limits, labor is the factor of production that makes 
> CDR (and everything else) expensive. Machine labor obviates this feasibility 
> bottleneck.
> 
> Choose any product or service, trace its supply chain to its origins, and 
> this becomes obvious: a functionally unlimited supply of costless skilled 
> labor straightforwardly renders all commodified goods and services 
> superabundant (though obviously not infinite). CDR is not feasible today 
> because it would cost trillions of dollars to build the tens of thousands of 
> building-sized direct air CO2 capture facilities and storage needed to draw 
> 5+ Gt of carbon out of the atmosphere. And the reason why it would cost 
> trillions of dollars is because, today, people would have to build and 
> operate those facilities. Fast-forward 50 years, and narrowly intelligent 
> machines could be tasked with the entire process, end-to-end, including their 
> own manufacture and the (costless) manufacture of their supply of energy 
> (most likely solar) and raw materials.
> 
> There is a substantial literature that has begun to explore the post-scarcity 
> implications of narrow AI, machine labor, and other disruptive technologies. 
> Among the environmental implications, CDR geoeingeering is (in my mind) a 
> particularly salient case. The specific example of self-driving cars merely 
> illustrates that the machine labor in question is not 5000 years away, or 
> 500, but - quite obviously - 50 or less.
> 
> Best,
> 
> Adam
> 
> --
> Adam Dorr
> University of California Los Angeles School of Public Affairs
> Urban Planning PhD Candidate
> adamd...@ucla.edu 
> adamd...@gmail.com 
> 
> On Tue, Sep 6, 2016 at 5:46 PM, Michael Trachtenberg  > wrote:
> HI Adam,
> 
> The majority of physical chemical processes while controlled will not be 
> accelerated greatly beyond known maxima simply by applying computing 
> capabilities. 
> 
> Mike
> 
> Michael Trachtenberg, PhD
> Visiting Scientist
> Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology
> Rutgers University
> New Brunswick, NJ
> mi...@aesop.rutgers.edu 
> 609-610-6227 
> 
> 
> 
>> On Sep 6, 2016, at 7:08 PM, Adam Dorr > > wrote:
>> 
>> As I explain in detail in the papers I attached and in my other recent work, 
>> there are two problems with this reasoning. The first hinges is how we 
>> define prudence. Ignoring a possibility until evidence guarantees that the 
>> outcome is certain is, I argue, not at all prudent. And the second is that 
>> there is already a veritable mountain of evidence that arrival of the 
>> specific technologies I described (namely, narrow artificial intelligence 
>> and machine labor) is already imminent - to say nothing of the overwhelming 
>> confidence we can have that these technologies will have arrived by, say, 
>> 2050 or 2075. Self-driving cars are the clearest prominent example, but 
>> there are many others.
>> 
>> Best,
>> 
>> 
>> Adam
>> 
>> --
>> Adam Dorr
>> University of California Los Angeles School of Public Affairs
>> Urban Planning PhD Candidate
>> adamd...@ucla.edu 
>> adamd...@gmail.com 
>> 
>> On Tue, Sep 6, 2016 at 2:16 AM, R. T. Pierrehumbert > > wrote:
>> Yeah, and maybe they’ll get controlled fusion working too.  It would be 
>> imprudent to bank on such things until there is real evidence that it will 
>> happen.
>> 
>> On Sep 6, 2016, at 12:57 AM, Adam Dorr > > wrote:
>> 
>>> 
>>> To take just one prominent example, I think that too few folks are giving 
>>> serious consideration to the explosion in CDR feasibility (and other 
>>> ecological restoration capacities) that is likely to follow the arrival of 
>>> widespread narrowly intelligent machine labor (i.e. the AI of the sort that 
>>> can drive a car, not the general sort that is self-aware and wants to take 
>>> over the world). Dismissing this as science fiction might have been 
>>> reasonable 20 years ago. But today, with cars that can drive themselves 
>>> right over the horizon, I feel very strongly that it is intellectually lazy 
>>> and socially irresponsible to continue doing so. Other 

Re: [geo] Scientists Focused on Geoengineering Challenge the Inevitability of Multi-Millennial Global Warming

[Andrew Lockley]

To counter :
Here's just one example from just this week in which the application of
computing power has yielded a leap forward in energy processes that may
readily be applied to CDR

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160901211410.htm

On 7 Sep 2016 01:47, "Michael Trachtenberg"  wrote:

> HI Adam,
>
> The majority of physical chemical processes while controlled will not be
> accelerated greatly beyond known maxima simply by applying computing
> capabilities.
>
> Mike
>
> *Michael Trachtenberg, PhD*
> Visiting Scientist
> Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology
> Rutgers University
> New Brunswick, NJ
> mi...@aesop.rutgers.edu
> 609-610-6227
>
>
>
> On Sep 6, 2016, at 7:08 PM, Adam Dorr  wrote:
>
> As I explain in detail in the papers I attached and in my other recent
> work, there are two problems with this reasoning. The first hinges is how
> we define prudence. *Ignoring *a possibility until evidence guarantees
> that the outcome is certain is, I argue, not at all prudent. And the second
> is that there is already a veritable mountain of evidence that arrival of
> the specific technologies I described (namely, narrow artificial
> intelligence and machine labor) is already imminent - to say nothing of the
> overwhelming confidence we can have that these technologies will have
> arrived by, say, 2050 or 2075. Self-driving cars are the clearest prominent
> example, but there are many others.
>
> Best,
>
>
> Adam
>
> --
> Adam Dorr
> University of California Los Angeles School of Public Affairs
> Urban Planning PhD Candidate
> adamd...@ucla.edu
> adamd...@gmail.com
>
> On Tue, Sep 6, 2016 at 2:16 AM, R. T. Pierrehumbert <
> phys1...@nexus.ox.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>> Yeah, and maybe they’ll get controlled fusion working too.  It would be
>> imprudent to bank on such things until there is real evidence that it will
>> happen.
>>
>> On Sep 6, 2016, at 12:57 AM, Adam Dorr  wrote:
>>
>>
>> To take just one prominent example, I think that too few folks are giving
>> serious consideration to the *explosion *in CDR feasibility (and other
>> ecological restoration capacities) that is likely to follow the arrival of
>> widespread narrowly intelligent machine labor (i.e. the AI of the sort that
>> can drive a car, not the *general *sort that is self-aware and wants to
>> take over the world). Dismissing this as science fiction might have been
>> reasonable 20 years ago. But today, with cars that can drive themselves
>> right over the horizon, I feel very strongly that it is intellectually lazy
>> and socially irresponsible to continue doing so. Other imminent
>> technological changes will also have a profound impact on the feasibility
>> of various CDR approaches. It would be helpful if all who are actively
>> engaged in this arena could take care to avoid some of the more common
>> general errors in reasoning about the future, so that they may think more
>> clearly about the policy, planning, and other implications of technological
>> change.
>>
>>
>>
>
> --
> 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 https://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering.
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
>
>
>

-- 
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 https://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

Re: [geo] Scientists Focused on Geoengineering Challenge the Inevitability of Multi-Millennial Global Warming

[Michael Trachtenberg]

HI Adam,

The majority of physical chemical processes while controlled will not be 
accelerated greatly beyond known maxima simply by applying computing 
capabilities. 

Mike

Michael Trachtenberg, PhD
Visiting Scientist
Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology
Rutgers University
New Brunswick, NJ
mi...@aesop.rutgers.edu
609-610-6227



> On Sep 6, 2016, at 7:08 PM, Adam Dorr  wrote:
> 
> As I explain in detail in the papers I attached and in my other recent work, 
> there are two problems with this reasoning. The first hinges is how we define 
> prudence. Ignoring a possibility until evidence guarantees that the outcome 
> is certain is, I argue, not at all prudent. And the second is that there is 
> already a veritable mountain of evidence that arrival of the specific 
> technologies I described (namely, narrow artificial intelligence and machine 
> labor) is already imminent - to say nothing of the overwhelming confidence we 
> can have that these technologies will have arrived by, say, 2050 or 2075. 
> Self-driving cars are the clearest prominent example, but there are many 
> others.
> 
> Best,
> 
> 
> Adam
> 
> --
> Adam Dorr
> University of California Los Angeles School of Public Affairs
> Urban Planning PhD Candidate
> adamd...@ucla.edu 
> adamd...@gmail.com 
> 
> On Tue, Sep 6, 2016 at 2:16 AM, R. T. Pierrehumbert  > wrote:
> Yeah, and maybe they’ll get controlled fusion working too.  It would be 
> imprudent to bank on such things until there is real evidence that it will 
> happen.
> 
> On Sep 6, 2016, at 12:57 AM, Adam Dorr  > wrote:
> 
>> 
>> To take just one prominent example, I think that too few folks are giving 
>> serious consideration to the explosion in CDR feasibility (and other 
>> ecological restoration capacities) that is likely to follow the arrival of 
>> widespread narrowly intelligent machine labor (i.e. the AI of the sort that 
>> can drive a car, not the general sort that is self-aware and wants to take 
>> over the world). Dismissing this as science fiction might have been 
>> reasonable 20 years ago. But today, with cars that can drive themselves 
>> right over the horizon, I feel very strongly that it is intellectually lazy 
>> and socially irresponsible to continue doing so. Other imminent 
>> technological changes will also have a profound impact on the feasibility of 
>> various CDR approaches. It would be helpful if all who are actively engaged 
>> in this arena could take care to avoid some of the more common general 
>> errors in reasoning about the future, so that they may think more clearly 
>> about the policy, planning, and other implications of technological change.
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> 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 https://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering 
> .
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout 
> .

-- 
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 https://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

Re: [geo] Scientists Focused on Geoengineering Challenge the Inevitability of Multi-Millennial Global Warming

[Adam Dorr]

The connection is that economic cost is the CDR feasibility bottleneck. And
barring other physical limits, labor is the factor of production that makes
CDR (and everything else) expensive. *Machine *labor obviates this
feasibility bottleneck.

Choose any product or service, trace its supply chain to its origins, and
this becomes obvious: a functionally unlimited supply of costless skilled
labor straightforwardly renders all commodified goods and services
superabundant (though obviously not infinite). CDR is not feasible today
because it would cost trillions of dollars to build the tens of thousands
of building-sized direct air CO2 capture facilities and storage needed to
draw 5+ Gt of carbon out of the atmosphere. And the reason why it would
cost trillions of dollars is because, today, *people *would have to build
and operate those facilities. Fast-forward 50 years, and narrowly
intelligent machines could be tasked with the entire process, end-to-end,
including *their own* manufacture and the (costless) manufacture of their
supply of energy (most likely solar) and raw materials.

There is a substantial literature that has begun to explore the
post-scarcity implications of narrow AI, machine labor, and other
disruptive technologies. Among the environmental implications, CDR
geoeingeering is (in my mind) a particularly salient case. The specific
example of self-driving cars merely illustrates that the machine labor in
question is not 5000 years away, or 500, but - quite obviously - 50 or less.

Best,

Adam

--
Adam Dorr
University of California Los Angeles School of Public Affairs
Urban Planning PhD Candidate
adamd...@ucla.edu
adamd...@gmail.com

On Tue, Sep 6, 2016 at 5:46 PM, Michael Trachtenberg <
mi...@aesop.rutgers.edu> wrote:

> HI Adam,
>
> The majority of physical chemical processes while controlled will not be
> accelerated greatly beyond known maxima simply by applying computing
> capabilities.
>
> Mike
>
> *Michael Trachtenberg, PhD*
> Visiting Scientist
> Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology
> Rutgers University
> New Brunswick, NJ
> mi...@aesop.rutgers.edu
> 609-610-6227
>
>
>
> On Sep 6, 2016, at 7:08 PM, Adam Dorr  wrote:
>
> As I explain in detail in the papers I attached and in my other recent
> work, there are two problems with this reasoning. The first hinges is how
> we define prudence. *Ignoring *a possibility until evidence guarantees
> that the outcome is certain is, I argue, not at all prudent. And the second
> is that there is already a veritable mountain of evidence that arrival of
> the specific technologies I described (namely, narrow artificial
> intelligence and machine labor) is already imminent - to say nothing of the
> overwhelming confidence we can have that these technologies will have
> arrived by, say, 2050 or 2075. Self-driving cars are the clearest prominent
> example, but there are many others.
>
> Best,
>
>
> Adam
>
> --
> Adam Dorr
> University of California Los Angeles School of Public Affairs
> Urban Planning PhD Candidate
> adamd...@ucla.edu
> adamd...@gmail.com
>
> On Tue, Sep 6, 2016 at 2:16 AM, R. T. Pierrehumbert <
> phys1...@nexus.ox.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>> Yeah, and maybe they’ll get controlled fusion working too.  It would be
>> imprudent to bank on such things until there is real evidence that it will
>> happen.
>>
>> On Sep 6, 2016, at 12:57 AM, Adam Dorr  wrote:
>>
>>
>> To take just one prominent example, I think that too few folks are giving
>> serious consideration to the *explosion *in CDR feasibility (and other
>> ecological restoration capacities) that is likely to follow the arrival of
>> widespread narrowly intelligent machine labor (i.e. the AI of the sort that
>> can drive a car, not the *general *sort that is self-aware and wants to
>> take over the world). Dismissing this as science fiction might have been
>> reasonable 20 years ago. But today, with cars that can drive themselves
>> right over the horizon, I feel very strongly that it is intellectually lazy
>> and socially irresponsible to continue doing so. Other imminent
>> technological changes will also have a profound impact on the feasibility
>> of various CDR approaches. It would be helpful if all who are actively
>> engaged in this arena could take care to avoid some of the more common
>> general errors in reasoning about the future, so that they may think more
>> clearly about the policy, planning, and other implications of technological
>> change.
>>
>>
>>
>
> --
> 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 https://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering.
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
>
>
>

-- 
You received this message because you 

RE: [geo] Scientists Focused on Geoengineering Challenge the Inevitability of Multi-Millennial Global Warming

[Douglas MacMartin]

I’m sorry, but I fail to see the connection between improvements in information 
technology (e.g. self-driving cars), which are solvable by virtue of faster 
computation and better algorithms, and CDR, which is limited by energetics and 
real physical and chemical processes while dealing with a large quantity 
(gigatons) of material.  Better AI or machine labour don’t help move material, 
nor help with how much energy it might take to drive a process.

 

doug

 

From: adamd...@gmail.com [mailto:adamd...@gmail.com] On Behalf Of Adam Dorr
Sent: Tuesday, September 06, 2016 7:09 PM
To: R. T. Pierrehumbert 
Cc: Greg Rau ; bmer...@mercerenvironment.net; 
andrew.lock...@gmail.com; geoengineering ; 
Andrew Revkin ; cla...@onid.orst.edu; Oliver Morton 
; Oliver Morton 
Subject: Re: [geo] Scientists Focused on Geoengineering Challenge the 
Inevitability of Multi-Millennial Global Warming

 

As I explain in detail in the papers I attached and in my other recent work, 
there are two problems with this reasoning. The first hinges is how we define 
prudence. Ignoring a possibility until evidence guarantees that the outcome is 
certain is, I argue, not at all prudent. And the second is that there is 
already a veritable mountain of evidence that arrival of the specific 
technologies I described (namely, narrow artificial intelligence and machine 
labor) is already imminent - to say nothing of the overwhelming confidence we 
can have that these technologies will have arrived by, say, 2050 or 2075. 
Self-driving cars are the clearest prominent example, but there are many others.

 

Best,

 

 

Adam




--

Adam Dorr
University of California Los Angeles School of Public Affairs
Urban Planning PhD Candidate
adamd...@ucla.edu  
adamd...@gmail.com  

 

On Tue, Sep 6, 2016 at 2:16 AM, R. T. Pierrehumbert  > wrote:

Yeah, and maybe they’ll get controlled fusion working too.  It would be 
imprudent to bank on such things until there is real evidence that it will 
happen.

 

On Sep 6, 2016, at 12:57 AM, Adam Dorr  > wrote:






To take just one prominent example, I think that too few folks are giving 
serious consideration to the explosion in CDR feasibility (and other ecological 
restoration capacities) that is likely to follow the arrival of widespread 
narrowly intelligent machine labor (i.e. the AI of the sort that can drive a 
car, not the general sort that is self-aware and wants to take over the world). 
Dismissing this as science fiction might have been reasonable 20 years ago. But 
today, with cars that can drive themselves right over the horizon, I feel very 
strongly that it is intellectually lazy and socially irresponsible to continue 
doing so. Other imminent technological changes will also have a profound impact 
on the feasibility of various CDR approaches. It would be helpful if all who 
are actively engaged in this arena could take care to avoid some of the more 
common general errors in reasoning about the future, so that they may think 
more clearly about the policy, planning, and other implications of 
technological change.

 

 

-- 
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 https://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

-- 
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 https://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

Re: [geo] Scientists Focused on Geoengineering Challenge the Inevitability of Multi-Millennial Global Warming

[Adam Dorr]

As I explain in detail in the papers I attached and in my other recent
work, there are two problems with this reasoning. The first hinges is how
we define prudence. *Ignoring *a possibility until evidence guarantees that
the outcome is certain is, I argue, not at all prudent. And the second is
that there is already a veritable mountain of evidence that arrival of the
specific technologies I described (namely, narrow artificial intelligence
and machine labor) is already imminent - to say nothing of the overwhelming
confidence we can have that these technologies will have arrived by, say,
2050 or 2075. Self-driving cars are the clearest prominent example, but
there are many others.

Best,


Adam

--
Adam Dorr
University of California Los Angeles School of Public Affairs
Urban Planning PhD Candidate
adamd...@ucla.edu
adamd...@gmail.com

On Tue, Sep 6, 2016 at 2:16 AM, R. T. Pierrehumbert  wrote:

> Yeah, and maybe they’ll get controlled fusion working too.  It would be
> imprudent to bank on such things until there is real evidence that it will
> happen.
>
> On Sep 6, 2016, at 12:57 AM, Adam Dorr  wrote:
>
>
> To take just one prominent example, I think that too few folks are giving
> serious consideration to the *explosion *in CDR feasibility (and other
> ecological restoration capacities) that is likely to follow the arrival of
> widespread narrowly intelligent machine labor (i.e. the AI of the sort that
> can drive a car, not the *general *sort that is self-aware and wants to
> take over the world). Dismissing this as science fiction might have been
> reasonable 20 years ago. But today, with cars that can drive themselves
> right over the horizon, I feel very strongly that it is intellectually lazy
> and socially irresponsible to continue doing so. Other imminent
> technological changes will also have a profound impact on the feasibility
> of various CDR approaches. It would be helpful if all who are actively
> engaged in this arena could take care to avoid some of the more common
> general errors in reasoning about the future, so that they may think more
> clearly about the policy, planning, and other implications of technological
> change.
>
>
>

-- 
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 https://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

RE: [geo] Scientists Focused on Geoengineering Challenge the Inevitability of Multi-Millennial Global Warming

[Bernard Mercer]

I agree Adam. I’m currently doing some synthesis on aspects of the potential 
implications of disruptive / exponential technologies (e.g. in relation to 
ecosystems and clean energy) and while some topics (e.g. electric cars, 
Blockchain) are now media-visible, others are not.

I think that a key problem is lack of requisite collective endeavour by 
scientists, technologists, assorted others. Where are the attempts at holistic 
overviews, syntheses, analyses?

We have done this in the past. For example, the 1955 Wenner-Gren symposium that 
produced Man’s Role in Changing the Face of the Earth, and the 1987 follow-up, 
The Earth as Transformed by Human Action. It may be the case that we assume 
there is no longer a need for such collaborations, now that we have IPCC. But 
this is wrong: IPCC has a quite different remit – it is essentially a reporting 
mechanism. For the topics covered in this thread, the need is as much for 
argument, debate, and the advancement (and debunking) of hypotheses.

To pick two examples from the thread:

Greg argued that ‘Isn't biology naturally designed to recycle rather than store 
most C and nutrients such that there has to be intervention to increase the 
photosynthesis/respiration ratio to make bio CDR area and energy efficient 
(e.g.,biochar, CROPS, BECCS, etc)? For these reasons isn't this why abiotic 
rather than bio processes dominate natural CO2 management on big time and space 
scales, and therefore shouldn't enhancing these proven, global scale processes 
take a rather large seat at the CDR table?’

There are some huge assumptions in here: do abiotic rather than bio processes 
really dominate natural CO2 management? Where in the world of publications is 
the marshalling of evidence to support this? As an aside, I think it ignores 
the fact that biotic CDR does demonstrably provide a form of permanence over 
millennia, e.g. in standing forests that renew themselves, slowly increasing 
aggregate carbon storage in the process. The implication is that we need to 
finesse definitions of ‘recycling’ and ‘cycling’, and grapple properly with 
interpretations of ‘transience’ in ways that are meaningful in the now. 
Measures to regenerate degraded forests, if continued, will in principle be 
able to ensure carbon storage over several upcoming centuries, a big slab of 
time in the context of the current CDR imperative.

Ray noted that ‘Whatever you put into the atmosphere by deforestation can (in 
principle) be taken  back on a century time scale by reforestation, if there is 
political will to do so.  Beyond that, it is extremely dicey to rely on an 
equilibrium forest to be a carbon sink.  There is very little soil carbon that 
is truly recalcitrant, and most studies of average age of soil carbon show 
rather little that is much older than a century. This is a rather unsettled 
area of the carbon cycle, though.’

Similar points to Greg; but what caught my eye is the statement that this area 
of the carbon cycle is ‘rather unsettled’. Why? And where is the report that 
provides the best possible analysis of the challenges in ways that neither 
dumb-down nor lock up knowledge in technical garb such that policymakers can 
make no sense of it?

It seems to me that we have a wealth of knowledge that should help us make the 
right calls on which abiotic and biotic interventions should be prioritised - 
when, and where, and how (and I can see, and I am sure that many others can 
too, that we need both). But if this is grappled with in a somewhat ideological 
and individualistic manner (each advocate only promoting their favoured 
solution) then it will not be surprising if policymakers turn away, throw up 
their hands, and ignore. Why should they listen if what they hear is cacophony, 
not choir?

Best,

Bernard




From: adamd...@gmail.com [mailto:adamd...@gmail.com] On Behalf Of Adam Dorr
Sent: 06 September 2016 00:57
To: Greg Rau 
Cc: R. T. Pierrehumbert ; Bernard Mercer 
; andrew.lock...@gmail.com; geoengineering 
; Andrew Revkin ; 
cla...@onid.orst.edu; Oliver Morton ; Oliver Morton 

Subject: Re: [geo] Scientists Focused on Geoengineering Challenge the 
Inevitability of Multi-Millennial Global Warming

Very interesting discussion all around! But I would add that I have my usual 
concerns about the way in which folks are thinking about future technologies. 
With few exceptions, the contributes to the discussions commit one or more of 
the general errors in reasoning about the future that I've analyzed in depth in 
my recent paper (attached). I touched on this very briefly in my response to 
Clarke et al. (2016) that Nature Climate Change published which called out 
their unspoken assumptions about future technological progress and the need to 
think seriously about it today, but given the space 

Re: [geo] Scientists Focused on Geoengineering Challenge the Inevitability of Multi-Millennial Global Warming

[Greg Rau]

Certainly adding CO2 to the ocean has been throughly discussed, but curiously 
not the safer, more secure and I think cheaper ways of first converting the CO2 
to other stable forms like bicarbonates, carbonates, and recalcitrant organics 
prior to ocean storage. No need to expensively make and riskily store 
concentrated CO2, as in (BE)CCS. As one example: biomass or f fuels > 
energy + CO2 ---> CO2 + H2O + CaCO3 > Ca2+ + 2HCO3- > large, secure 
ocean C storage + ocean acidity mitigation. Use marine biomass and you 
eliminate land, water and nutrient use issues. So rather than circling the 
wagons around (BE)CCS and in the interest of maximizing our chances of success, 
how about an open and objective solicitation of ideas, policy prescriptions, 
and R investment that goes beyond land biomass +/- making concentrated CO2, 
storing it underground and hoping it: stays there, isn't too expensive, doesn't 
cause too many seismic events or contaminates too much ground water. Certainly 
any form of CO2 management will have negatives, so let's find out which forms 
offer the best benefit/risk and capacity before crowning winners or 
losers.Regards,Greg

 
  From: R. T. Pierrehumbert 
 To: Greg Rau  
Cc: "bmer...@mercerenvironment.net" ; 
"andrew.lock...@gmail.com" ; geoengineering 
; Andrew Revkin ; 
"cla...@onid.orst.edu" ; Oliver Morton 
; Oliver Morton 
 Sent: Monday, September 5, 2016 4:57 AM
 Subject: Re: [geo] Scientists Focused on Geoengineering Challenge the 
Inevitability of Multi-Millennial Global Warming
   
Actually, there has been plenty of discussion of using oceans as a place to 
sequester CO2.  However, injecting liquid CO2 into the deep ocean does bad 
things to bottom ecosystems.  One of the more interesting proposals is to 
inject the CO2 in pore space in marine sediments.  The hold-up there seems to 
be lack of knowledge of the amount of pores space available, but I think the 
idea is still live. Note that simply injecting CO2 into the deep ocean (as 
opposed to sequestering it in sediments)  only accelerates the equilibration of 
the ocean with the atmosphere. Once you go beyond the equilibrium point, the 
ocean will start outgassing CO2  back into the atmosphere, though with a time 
lag of several centuries to a millennium.  
As for why BECCS gets most of the attention, it’s because it’s the one 
technology that has fairly predictable scaling, though even there there’s the 
question of how well you can capture the CO2 from the combustion in practice, 
which is subject to a lot of the same engineering problems as for coal.  They 
are solvable problems though, involving engineering of processes that are 
basically pretty well understood. The big question about BECCS is how much 
biomass you can really spare for BECCS while still feeding everybody (though if 
everybody becomes vegetarian that’s less of an issue).  BECCS is just a way to 
capture CO2 from the air.  It does not require that you store the CO2 on land — 
you can inject it into the deep ocean or ocean sediments.
The way I look at reforestation is that it gives you a way to “take back” the 
part of the carbon budget in the atmosphere/ocean that was due to 
deforestation; that’s why, when I think about carbon budgets in the long term, 
I usually focus on just the fossil fuel component.  Whatever you put into the 
atmosphere by deforestation can (in principle) be taken  back on a century time 
scale by reforestation, if there is political will to do so.  Beyond that, it 
is extremely dicey to rely on an equilibrium forest to be a carbon sink.  There 
is very little soil carbon that is truly recalcitrant, and most studies of 
average age of soil carbon show rather little that is much older than a 
century. This is a rather unsettled area of the carbon cycle, though.  
—Ray


On Sep 4, 2016, at 6:18 PM, Greg Rau  wrote:

 Relatedly, how and why did afforestation and BECCS come to dominate the 
discussion, and why has 70% of the Earth surface, half of the C cycle and the 
vast majority of C storage potential (the ocean) so far been largely  ignored 
in designing interventions?



   
 

-- 
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 https://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

Re: [geo] Scientists Focused on Geoengineering Challenge the Inevitability of Multi-Millennial Global Warming

[Greg Rau]

Thanks Bernard.  Am all for restoring ecosystems to their former grandeur 
(e.g., REDD+), but even if this could be perfectly and globally done 1) how 
much would this change the growth and residence time of CO2 in air with an 
extra 40GT/yr being emitted by humans and 2) where would 7.4x10^9 people get 
their food, fuel and fiber? Isn't biology naturally designed to recycle rather 
than store most C and nutrients such that there has to be intervention to 
increase the photosynthesis/respiration ratio to make bio CDR area and energy 
efficient (e.g.,biochar, CROPS, BECCS, etc)? For these reasons isn't this why 
abiotic rather than bio processes dominate natural CO2 management on big time 
and space scales, and therefore shouldn't enhancing these proven, global scale 
processes take a rather large seat at the CDR table? Relatedly, how and why did 
afforestation and BECCS come to dominate the discussion, and why has 70% of the 
Earth surface, half of the C cycle and the vast majority of C storage potential 
(the ocean) so far been largely  ignored in designing interventions?
Thanks again for stimulating the discussion.
Greg 

 
  From: Bernard Mercer 
 To: "gh...@sbcglobal.net" ; "andrew.lock...@gmail.com" 
; geoengineering  
Cc: Andrew Revkin ; "cla...@onid.orst.edu" 
; "raymond.pierrehumb...@physics.ox.ac.uk" 

 Sent: Sunday, September 4, 2016 12:31 AM
 Subject: RE: [geo] Scientists Focused on Geoengineering Challenge the 
Inevitability of Multi-Millennial Global Warming
   
#yiv6628974519 #yiv6628974519 -- _filtered #yiv6628974519 
{font-family:Helvetica;panose-1:2 11 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 4;} _filtered #yiv6628974519 
{panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;} _filtered #yiv6628974519 
{font-family:Calibri;panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;}#yiv6628974519 
#yiv6628974519 p.yiv6628974519MsoNormal, #yiv6628974519 
li.yiv6628974519MsoNormal, #yiv6628974519 div.yiv6628974519MsoNormal 
{margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;font-size:12.0pt;}#yiv6628974519 a:link, 
#yiv6628974519 span.yiv6628974519MsoHyperlink 
{color:blue;text-decoration:underline;}#yiv6628974519 a:visited, #yiv6628974519 
span.yiv6628974519MsoHyperlinkFollowed 
{color:purple;text-decoration:underline;}#yiv6628974519 p 
{margin-right:0cm;margin-left:0cm;font-size:12.0pt;}#yiv6628974519 
p.yiv6628974519msonormal0, #yiv6628974519 li.yiv6628974519msonormal0, 
#yiv6628974519 div.yiv6628974519msonormal0 
{margin-right:0cm;margin-left:0cm;font-size:12.0pt;}#yiv6628974519 
span.yiv6628974519EmailStyle19 {color:windowtext;}#yiv6628974519 
.yiv6628974519MsoChpDefault {font-size:10.0pt;} _filtered #yiv6628974519 
{margin:72.0pt 72.0pt 72.0pt 72.0pt;}#yiv6628974519 
div.yiv6628974519WordSection1 {}#yiv6628974519 Greg,    Very glad to see your 
invocation of “natural CDR”, and the figure of 50% of anthro emissions from 
air.    I attempted to synthesize some of the science findings on the component 
of natural CDR contributed by tropical forests in a report for Prince Charles’ 
International Sustainability Unit, 
http://www.pcfisu.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Princes-Charities-International-Sustainability-Unit-Tropical-Forests-A-Review.pdf.
 Richard Houghton et al subsequently published a paper in Nature Climate Change 
which extrapolates how increased tropical forest CDR could make a significant 
negative emissions contribution, 
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v5/n12/pdf/nclimate2869.pdf.     The 
latter estimates the overall potential tropical forest contribution (to 2050) 
as 5GtC per year: comprising 1GtC from stopping emissions from deforestation 
and degradation; 3GtC from current ‘gross uptake’ which must be ‘safeguarded’ 
if it is to continue; and 1GtC of ‘new natural CDR’ (e.g., afforestation, 
ensuring already logged forests are not logged again).    Unfortunately we 
mostly discuss biomass CDR in the context of BECCS. This was also the case in 
AR5. This has overshadowed the potential of measures to increase ‘natural 
biomass CDR’, e.g. by large-scale natural regeneration (of forests, woodlands, 
grasslands, wetlands, globally). More papers, probing and debate are urgently 
needed to move the pathway from neglect to prominence.    But why has it been 
neglected? I offer a tentative reflection, which is that it falls between all 
the science and policy stools.    It is not a technology in the classical sense 
so understandably has not drawn the attention of engineers; success in 
stimulating more CO2 removal by living biomass requires input from ecologists 
and conservation biologists (e.g, perhaps restoring seed dispersing animals 
where they have been locally extirpated) who, in general, are not playing a 
leading role in the CDR context; and results are hard to quantify – because of 
the large areas involved, and the fact that terrestrial biomass emits as well 
as