Well said, Mike! I dont know why yr critical point is so often overlooked.
Actually, I think I do know. But it's so hard to accept that we can be so obtuse, and also fail to deliver clearly your crucial message,. All Best, John. John Latham Address: P.O. Box 3000,MMM,NCAR,Boulder,CO 80307-3000 Email: lat...@ucar.edu or john.latha...@manchester.ac.uk Tel: (US-Work) 303-497-8182 or (US-Home) 303-444-2429 or (US-Cell) 303-882-0724 or (UK) 01928-730-002 http://www.mmm.ucar.edu/people/latham ________________________________________ From: geoengineering@googlegroups.com [geoengineering@googlegroups.com] on behalf of Mike MacCracken [mmacc...@comcast.net] Sent: 17 June 2013 19:27 To: gh...@sbcglobal.net; bstah...@gmail.com; Geoengineering Subject: Re: [geo] Climate talk shifts from curbing CO2 to adapting Hi Greg—I share all your concerns. I would just note that to fit into the three-option analysis of the problem (mitigation, adaptation, or suffering) used by John Holdren, I count CDR and the second (for reforestation, etc.) and third (for carbon scrubbing) stages of mitigation, and SRM as the second (for regional climate engineering—assuming it is possible) and (for global SRM) third stages of adaptation. I do this because it seems to me continually overlooked in the discussion of geoengineering that what is appropriate is not a risk-benefit analysis of geoengineering (of any type) on its own, but a risk-benefit analysis of global warming with or without geoengineering. Mike On 6/17/13 2:04 PM, "Greg Rau" <gh...@sbcglobal.net> wrote: Thanks, all, for your words of wisdom re my original post. However, my feelings of doom are not assuaged. If Bill's "emerging preparedness/adaptation consensus" is in fact an incremental step toward SRM/CDR then where is this mentioned in NYC's or especially PCAST's and IPCC's roadmaps stating the "concensus" view, and thus locking in policy, R&D, and modes of action for decades? Starting with the Stern Report, the costs and consequences of going down the preparedness/adaptation road are pretty clear and bleak. Yes, we need to consider this path just in case we fail otherwise. But to have this as item #1 in the PCAST report, and then to fail to mention anything about the possibility of post-emissions CO2 management or SRM is what I find very disturbing, especially considering what is at stake and the narrowing time window in which to act. Yes, Mike, we must be able to walk and chew gum at the same time; we must redouble our efforts to reduce emissions while also very actively soliciting and considering all other alternatives. What I find dangerously shortsighted and narrow-minded is the listing of preparedness/adaptation as the only alternative worth supporting, while intentionally ignoring all of the other possibilities that have been voluminously discussed on this list and in many other public, S&T and policy venues. I conclude that a decision has been made at very high levels that GE and related technologies are off the table, and we are stuck with failed policies and technologies to reduce CO2 emission (in time) and/or with preparing for the consequences. Any thinking, planning, and R&D on alternatives will continue to be relegated to the backwaters of S&T and policymaking, insuring that if Plan A and preparedness/adaptation don't go so well, we will be forced to take measures that are poorly tested and whose risks are therefore poorly understood. I welcome any evidence that would allay this concern. Meantime, why not party like it's 1750, because, thanks to PCAST, we are now going to be oh so prepared to live in the aftermath? Greg ________________________________ From: Bill Stahl <bstah...@gmail.com> To: geoengineering@googlegroups.com Cc: Geoengineering <Geoengineering@googlegroups.com> Sent: Monday, June 17, 2013 8:41 AM Subject: Re: [geo] Climate talk shifts from curbing CO2 to adapting I wonder if this emerging preparedness/adaptation consensus is not an alternative to geoengineering but an incremental step toward it. Governments are quantifying their expected costs, which they will eventually weigh against the costs of, for example, high-latitude SRM. Assuming (and I realize that's assuming a lot) that high-latitude SRM more or less works as suggested by some on this list (slowing Greenland icemelt, stopping permafrost melting), How high would its pricetag have to be for it not to be about the highest ROI on money spent imaginable? The preparedness/adaptation pricetag will answer that question. Of course framing it as an investment is odd- does a sailor on a sinking ship think of a lifejacket as an 'investment'? - but those are the terms in which governments must think. On Sunday, June 16, 2013 9:17:26 PM UTC-6, Lou Grinzo wrote: I strongly agree. If we fall into the trap of a viewing this situation as a false dichotomy, then we're making it much worse and dramatically reducing our chances of dealing with it as optimally as is still possible, given the current carbon content of the atmosphere, our infrastructure, etc. I can't estimate how many times I've heard the message that we will have no choice but to mitigate and adapt and (very likely; a full-on certainty, IMO) geoengineer. The only questions are how soon we get serious about it, which mixtures of those three elements will still be viable, and how we'll implement it all. Once our climate change challenge is seen as having immense economic, political, and psychological components and not "merely" the scientific one, it becomes quite clear what a broad range of outcomes is still possible. You can argue, as I have repeatedly for years, that almost none of those paths forward is "good", but some are vastly preferable than others. On Sunday, June 16, 2013 11:54:29 AM UTC-4, Mike MacCracken wrote: Hi Greg—Back some years ago, F Scott Fitzgerald wrote in The Crack-Up ( 1936), "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function." One might think that we could be considering both mitigation and adaptation (preparedness) together instead of in an opposed manner. Mike -- 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 http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- 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 http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
