John, In attempting to move ahead politically, it is neither necessary nor desirable that we speak with a unified voice.
I believe that I have had some limited impact in pushing forward a publicly-funded climate engineering research and development program. (That fact that no such program exists helps define what is meant by "limited".) Insofar as I have been effective, I believe that calling for sober, impartial assessment in the open, peer-reviewed literature -- advocating research and development, while withholding advocacy for deployment until we understand more -- has contributed to this effectiveness. I think it would be counterproductive for me to advocate now for early deployment, in large part because I do not think we really know how well climate engineering will work. I am not just adopting a rhetorical posture when I say that I believe climate energy may have the potential to reduce overall risk, but we do not yet know if it would really deploy overall risk (taking into consideration complex social and political systems as well as the complexities of Earth's climate and chemical systems). It is somewhat amusing to me that I am now being criticized from both sides: criticized for advocating climate engineering research and development, and criticized for not advocating it strongly enough. To answer John Gorman's question: I do not seriously believe that we will avoid serious consequences without geoengineering. It is just that I am not sure that we will avoid serious consequences with geoengineering, either. Nevertheless, I think the potential for risk reduction is great and that is why we need to do the underlying science and technology development. Best, Ken PS. I repeat a story (including embedded errors) that went out over the UPI wire. I leave the reader to decide if I am being too milquetoast: World needs CO2 emergency backup plan LONDON, Nov. 11 (UPI) -- U.S. climate scientist Ken Caldeira<http://www.upi.com/topic/Ken_Caldeira/>of the Carnegie Institution has told the British Parliament the world needs a carbon dioxide emergency backup plan. In submitted testimony, Caldeira said while steep cuts in carbon emissions are essential to stabilizing global climate, there also needs to be a backup plan should emissions cuts be insufficient to stave off catastrophic warming. "Prudence demands we consider what we might do in the face of unacceptable climate damage, which could occur despite our best efforts to rein in greenhouse gas emissions," Caldeira said. He said climate engineering, or geoengineering, refers to controversial proposals to deliberately modify the Earth's environment to counteract greenhouse warming. One plan would cool the planet by injecting dust into the upper atmosphere to scatter incoming sunlight. Other possibilities include enhancing cloud cover over the oceans. "Science is needed to address critical questions, among them: How effective would various climate engineering proposals be at achieving their climate goals? What unintended outcomes might result? How might these unintended outcomes affect both human and natural systems?" Caldeira asked. "Engineering is needed both to build deployable systems and to keep the science focused on what's technically feasible." His testimony was heard Tuesday in the House of Commons. [NOTE: It was Monday (10 Nov) before a Parliamentary Innovation, Universities, Science & Skills Select Committee.] On 11/12/08, John Gorman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > To John Nissen and Colin Forrest. > > As three amateurs who put a great deal of time into preparing > submissions, I think we should jointly express our disappointment and > phrase a question that we would like him to put to each of the witnesses in > the way that he did last monday. > > Maybe "Do you sincerely believe we will avoid serious consequences without > geoengineering?" if so please explain. > > John N is good at phrasing ! > > john g > > > > -- =============================== Ken Caldeira Department of Global Ecology Carnegie Institution 260 Panama Street Stanford, CA 94305 USA +1 650 704 7212; fax: +1 650 462 5968 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://dge.stanford.edu/DGE/CIWDGE/labs/caldeiralab/ *** Please don't read this line of text unless you really need to *** --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
