You have to click on Comment at the top of the comments section and if your name appears in light print it won't work. If your contact name is dark it will work. Terrible and frustrating situation.
I think the Russians will block geo over the Arctic but I sincerely hope you are right. I am not sure how a world body stops a private experiment not sponsored by a nation. From: geoengineering@googlegroups.com [mailto:geoengineer...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Alvia Gaskill Sent: Friday, September 11, 2009 10:24 AM To: anr...@nytimes.com; geoengineering@googlegroups.com Subject: [geo] Re: Will Russia resist geo-eng efforts now? I submitted this one and it appears it went through. The blog doesn't tell you if your comment has been submitted. I learned this after repeatedly hitting the submit key until it told me I would have to wait to submit another comment. Another gliche for the seer of computer science at NYT to solve. BTW, at realclimate, you can review and edit your comment before posting, so maybe adding that feature would help. ----- As I commented on a related article the other day at the geoengineering group, http://www.adn.com/news/environment/warming/story/924593.html, the opening up of the NW passage(s) is still only a benefit to the petroleum and mining industries, regional trade and tourism. The opening of these passages are of minor significance to international commerce, but of more importance to Russia. You asked at the geo group for comments about whether Russia would object to attempts to control or restore Arctic sea ice by geoengineering. You didn't specify sea ice, but that's what you meant. The greater benefit to Russia from reduced sea ice is access to petroleum and minerals below the sea floor. So there might be some resistance on their part decades from now if these resources become important to them. Nations will always make decisions that they believe are in their self interest. In the case outlined above, Russia and perhaps Canada and the U.S. would find benefits in reduced sea ice. But the risks and downsides of unmitigated global warming will be much greater. If the food supply is impacted by climate change that could be prevented by restoring the sea ice, the answer is easy. You can't eat oil. Not in Russia. Not in Canada. And definitely not in the U.S. Any geoengineering strategy will have to be approved and I believe will be approved by international consensus and will include the support of Russia. Climate change has the potential to destabilize nuclear armed nations on Russia's borders and that alone represents a greater threat to them than inconvenience in shipping or access to oil. The groups or people that keep arguing much to the delight of leftwing bloggers and reporters that unilateral attempts at geoegineering are possible or likely, either don't understand the complexity of the technologies involved or do and and are simply scaremongering. The most prominent of these early trick or treaters has been the Council on Foreign Relations which assembled a scare panel last year for this purpose. Say, didn't the CFR help George and Dick warn us of the dangers of WMD in Iraq? Like the chimps and the million typewriters, I guess they will eventually produce some Shakespeare if given enough time. And enough chimps. And enough typewriters. Your question, though, dealt with the opposite scenario. What if all the other countries agreed on a geoengineering strategy and the Russians didn't. This is the argument that Alan Robock keeps making, that geoengineering could never be used because countries could never agree on a global temperature. I guess Alan et al. never heard of Kyoto and the 2 degrees goal for 2050. The Russians, however, I am sure have heard of India, Pakistan and China. Original Message ----- From: Andrew Revkin <mailto:anr...@nytimes.com> To: geoengineering@googlegroups.com Sent: Friday, September 11, 2009 8:53 AM Subject: [geo] Will Russia resist geo-eng efforts now? The big question remains, who gets to set the planet's (or even Arctic's) temperature. Given this news, will Russia resist? http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/11/science/earth/11passage.html comments welcome here: http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/10/asia-europe-voyage-via-arctic-n early-done/ -- Andrew C. Revkin The New York Times / Environment 620 Eighth Ave., NY, NY 10018 Tel: 212-556-7326 Mob: 914-441-5556 Fax: 509-357-0965 http://www.nytimes.com/revkin <BR --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---