The Royal Society Proposes First Framework For Climate Engineering Experiments 174
Jason Koebler writes The Royal Society of London, the world's oldest scientific publisher, has unveiled a proposal to create the first serious framework for future geoengineering experiments. It's a sign that what are still considered drastic and risky measures to combat climate change are drifting further into the purview of mainstream science. The scientific body has issued a call to create "an open and transparent review process that ensures such experiments have the necessary social license to operate."
What could possibly go wrong? (Score:5, Interesting)
Instead of potentially dangerous experiments, may I suggest the oldest known and proven solution to global warming?
This is extremely complicated, so please bear with me for a minute or two:
Plant. More. Trees.
Don't believe me? Fine, don't take my word for it. [arborday.org] Heck, even that bastion of free enterprise, The Economist [economist.com] got behind that idea!
So, why is not implemented on a large scale? Because planting trees is not techonologically "sexy" - it is well known, has been well known for centuries, and, for maximum effect, would require rich countries to invest serious money in poorer countries, to save the rainforest (which is where tree-planting would have maximum impact). And we cannot allow these natives to get money to do something as simple as plant a tree, right?
In other words, the wealthiest have decided it is a lot more fun to throw money at dangerous or even foolish and ineffectual solutions rather than provide for jobs and development in the poorest countries of the world -- precisely the countries that will suffer the most due to global warming. Make of that what you will.
Re:What could possibly go wrong? (Score:4, Interesting)
Rainforests are CO2 neutral.
It is often quoted that rain forests absorb buttloads of CO2, but they give off equal amounts. Unless a swamp/jungle is laying down geological CO2 (there are a very few left, Okefenokee is the example that springs to mind) it is just absorbing it, short term. While the rot at the base of the tree is giving off an equal amount.
Re:Durrrr. (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh yeah, that sweet sweet grant money. Everyone knows scientists who support global warming are all riding around on their private yachts paid for with the grant money they lied in their research to get, whereas the poor defenseless honest scientists who are sceptical of global warming are all broke and starving because no one will pay them a dime.
No, they are not running around on their yachts. They are fighting for a living share of a dwindling supply of cash. They are coming out of the woodwork trying to protect their livelihoods and paychecks for fear they might have to get an industry job where there is accountability for results, not just being able to get grant money. They are fighting to stay relevant, so they can keep their PHD students in subjects do develop and defend, right or wrong.
You see, this is academia we are discussing, not business. If this was a business venture, we would have had our answer years ago and wouldn't need another round of National Science Foundation funding to investigate this, or come up with another model that disagrees with the 20 we already have which are not good enough. We certainly wouldn't need a "frame work" to more fairly dole out the funds.
What we really have is survival of the fittest, capitalistic, style. A bunch of these folks will be taking up new avenues of research, getting other jobs, or just retiring without their Nobel Peace Prize. The question is who will make the cut and what will they do when they get desperate.
Re:Transparent? (Score:4, Interesting)
Besides, if anything I think we've been far TOO consultative through this process. We spent what? 30 years listening to denialists and waiting for them to produce some evidence for their theory (that anthropogenic CO2 does not cause warming unlike natural CO2 which is mysteriously different). This is probably 25 years too long compromising to an alternate hypothesis with all the scientific credentials of a guy screaming "A witch did it!".
In general geoengineering makes it worse (Score:3, Interesting)
You have to keep the flow up as the environment gets worse, and at some point you run out of the resources to geoengineer, which causes a kickback effect that is a large multiple of the geoengineered impact.
Think of it as applying the brakes lightly at the same time that you're flooring the accelerator.
Then you take your foot off the brake while you're going down a steep decline, where you started at a mild decline.
Suddenly you're careening down the hill, out of control.
The best thing to do is stop subsidizing bad behavior that increases it (e.g. fossil fuels) and start requiring all new construction to meet new energy codes (half of all energy use is to heat and cool buildings, and passive solar and insulation can cut that dramatically) while you retrofit any existing fossil fuel plants (e.g. using cogeneration for all pre-2000 coal plants, and phasing out the dirtiest plants by expiring reauthorizations for permits when they come due.
People like to pretend massive change is needed. Energy is not a Binary On/Off thing - a partial change by the largest consumers (e.g. China) causes massive change. Air travel is the largest personal behavior change for people who live in cities (replace old jets with 787s and turboprops and build high speed rail).
There, that's half your carbon impact.
Now stop whining.
Time to revoke fossil fuel's social licence (Score:3, Interesting)
Harvard currently holds substantial investments in fossil fuel. The past is no longer prologue for this asset class.
The scientific community—including Harvard’s distinguished climate-related faculty—assert the world must hold global temperatures to no more than 2 degrees C above the preindustrial figure. Governments agree. And, yet, we have already gone half the distance to this ceiling, and are actually accelerating our rapid approach to it. We face an existential planetary threat.
By investing in fossil fuel companies that cling to the outdated business model of measuring success by discovery of new reserves, Harvard is encouraging (and expecting to profit from) the search for more fossil fuel—which will become unburnable if we stabilize global temperatures at levels necessary to sustain life as we know it. When the lid is put on, and carbon emissions are severely limited—as they must be—Harvard will be left holding stranded and devalued assets that can never be burned. (Proven reserves are three to four times what’s needed to transition to renewables by 2050.)
Across the country, hundreds of student organizations work to persuade their institutions’ endowments to divest. Sooner or later, as in the case of companies doing business in apartheid South Africa, divestment from fossil fuel companies will occur. Harvard should be among the first to do so. There are strong, independently sufficient arguments beyond the financial one of stranding to justify divestment. They include the moral (it is repugnant to profit from enterprises directly responsible for carbon emissions or to allow shareholder funds to be deployed in searching for more fossil fuel), the practical (a well-led institution should not wound itself by permitting endowment holdings to demoralize faculty and students, with adverse effects on quality of education, enrollment, and campus environment) and, in Harvard’s case, the unique opportunity (and corresponding duty) it has, as one of a handful of world leaders in education, to lead on this planetary issue.
We support these other arguments for divestment. However, we wanted to bring the financial argument, in particular, to Harvard’s attention. Over the past three years, equities in the coal industry declined by over 60 percent while the S&P 500 rose by some 47 percent. Coal, we submit, is the “canary in the oil well.” Disinvestment now, before this opinion becomes commonplace, is just sound, risk-averse investment judgment, fitting well within the duties of a fiduciary.
Bevis Longstreth, J.D. ’61
Retired partner, Debevoise & Plimpton; former member, Securities and Exchange Commission
Timothy E. Wirth ’61
Former U.S. Senator, president of the United Nations Foundation, and Harvard Overseer
http://harvardmagazine.com/201... [harvardmagazine.com]
Re:What could possibly go wrong? (Score:5, Interesting)
Beginning of the End due to lack of knowledge (Score:4, Interesting)
We simply do not know enough about the planet to 'engineer' it.
Every past effort to 'engineer' nature, even the simplest, has discovered things it failed to take in to account eg. introduction of 'control' species that became 'invasive'.
On top of which, we don't have to engineer our way out of this. The clear solutions arepresent albeit mundane: more trees, less waste.
'Engineering' the planet simply means finding a way to allow us (humans) to continue to make inefficient or wasteful use of our resources.
So this is where I personally opt out.
I will deny climate change simply in an effort to keep people from screwing with the planet and to encourage others to protest experiments.
My next house will have two airconditioners, four cars (all SUV's), two pools, and as much 'always on' electronic gadgetry as I can stuff in it.
All my future purchases will be quadruple wrapped in plastic, all my food processed, and I'll no longer recycle.
If you're going to engineer the planet, I'm going to make it worth your while.