Olaf, I have a couple of issues with your text:
1. While you are formally correct that any attempt to remove CO2 from the atmosphere will have some global effect, that effect may be tiny if not undetectable for a small-scale CO2 removal operation or experiment. That seems to me to be stretching things much too far and would include activities that inadvertently remove CO2 - unless you incorporate 'intent' into your definition. Your definition is also inconsistent with the Royal Society, CBD and London Convention/Protocol definitions that refer to large-scale, not global scale activities. 2. I was not making any assumptions about 'geoengineering' being necessarily the same thing as 'climate engineering' or necessarily affecting CO2 concentrations. The term 'geoengineering' is after all widely used for other things e.g. http://www.geoengineer.org/ and http://casehistories.geoengineer.org/ . In those cases, it is not possible argue that the "end-effect is always global"! I think this all illustrates that 'geoengineering' is not a very useful term, although difficult to move away from now! Chris. From: Schuiling, R.D. (Olaf) [mailto:r.d.schuil...@uu.nl] Sent: 12 July 2013 14:34 To: Chris Vivian (Cefas); geoengineering@googlegroups.com Cc: geoengineeringourclim...@gmail.com; nua...@gmail.com Subject: RE: [geo] Re: Oli Morton with Opinion Article on "Nitrogen Geoengineering" Formally you are right, but in practice a geoengineering solution is often something that affects the whole Earth. When we remove locally the CO2 from the atmosphere, the effect is nevertheless global, because the atmosphere is a well-mixed reservoir. You can see all kinds of gradations on the scale of my attempts to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, but the end-EFFECT is always global (see attachment), Olaf Schuiling From: geoengineering@googlegroups.com<mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com> [mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Chris Vivian Sent: vrijdag 12 juli 2013 15:09 To: geoengineering@googlegroups.com<mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com> Cc: geoengineeringourclim...@gmail.com<mailto:geoengineeringourclim...@gmail.com>; nua...@gmail.com<mailto:nua...@gmail.com> Subject: [geo] Re: Oli Morton with Opinion Article on "Nitrogen Geoengineering" Bhaskar, The prefix 'geo' has NO implication of 'global scale'. It comes from Greek and means 'of the earth'. For example, geology is the study of the solid earth and geochemistry the study of the Earth's chemistry, without any scale being implied - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology. Thus, geoengineering does not necessarily deal with planetary scale interventions. Geoengineering literally means 'engineering the earth' and I am told that is the Chinese translation of 'geoengineering'. Chris. On Thursday, July 11, 2013 11:50:02 AM UTC+1, M V Bhaskar wrote: Andrew There is a difference between Engineering and Geoengineering. The examples you gave are simple engineering solutions not Geoengineering. The Geo in Geoengineering means that BEFORE action is started (research or deployment) there is an INTENT to use on global scale. An engineering solution is not Geoengineering merely because it impacts the whole world, the intent to impact the whole world should be explicitly be present and stated. The person who discovered fire did not INTEND to set fire to the whole world, they just wanted to cook a hot meal. The person who first cleared a forest with an axe did not INTEND to cut down ALL the forests in the world, they just wanted to clear a small patch of land to grow enough food for themselves, etc. It is only incidental that all the people in the world adopted these solutions and caused global impact. N fixation started AFTER the WHOLE world was surveyed and the TOTAL amount of Nitrate deposits worldwide was quantified and it was computed that this would be inadequate to kill or feed the world after a few decades. regards Bhaskar On Thursday, 11 July 2013 12:09:00 UTC+5:30, O Morton wrote: @ Andrew -- There is a continuum here, but i would distinguish "large-scale" and "global", and note that global effects of clearance on climate (as opposed to homogocene issues) not large, or even necessarily noticeable @ Fred -- method might be nice -- but read Crookes, the key document here, and the scientific method is not obvious. The fact that he was speaking to and trying to speak for a scientific elite matters, I think. Remember a key part of Bolin's plan for IPCC was to get global buy in to elite scientific view. Also note that I do not see elite in this context as pejorative, merely descriptive @ David -- Not quite sure why the existing political order is irrelevant, but in general i agree with Phil's informal definition -- except that I don't think limate is the only thing that can be geoengineered/ "Change to teh way the earth system works made deliberately not carelessly" would suit me fine. And I don't think introduction of agriculture was intended deliberately to change the earth system, while nitrogen was, to a significant extent. Green revolution is, after all, an expression of global geopolitics, named is specific opposition to the "red revolution" On Wednesday, 10 July 2013 17:38:45 UTC+1, David Lewis wrote: I wonder why it should matter who identified the problem or who thought of the solution, i.e. a member or members of the scientific elite. Why should it matter whether the perceived problem is obvious to the person on the street? And whether the proposed solution or any solution other than the proposed geoengineering scheme can be implemented easily by the existing political order or not seems irrelevant. Phil Rausch recently gave a talk entitled Geoengineering at the AGU Chapman conference on Communicating Climate Science (available here<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coa3VFcMCIA>) where he referred to geoengineering as "the introduction of climate change deliberately rather than carelessly", which seems to be at the heart of what the word means to actively researching contemporary climatologists. Bringing the nitrogen cycle up while discussing geoengineering seems useful as a way to talk about the fact that humans have had an impact on the planet for some time, but the question is, does it advance the debate to include it as geoengineering now? On Wednesday, July 10, 2013 3:43:49 AM UTC-7, O Morton wrote: David (and also Andrew),-- if you look at "Morton's reasoning" as expressed in the text, you'll find that I don't agree. The technology required for the industrial takeover of the nitrogen cycle did not appear through an unguided process of innovation, nor was it deployed that way; the foresight involved is part of what makes it a geoengineering technology in a way that other agricultural innovations, and indeed agriculture itself, are not. Nitrogen fixation was developed purposefully in response to a threat, which, while not obvious in everyday life, had been identified by the scientific elite. Like climate change today, that threat was seen as being of global significance and to have no easily attainable political solution. That justified a concerted effort to develop a technological response. Though people working in the climate arena may not immediately recognize this response as geoengineering, some of those working on the nitrogen cycle have no problem seeing it as such. -- 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<mailto:geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com>. To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com<mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com>. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. This email and any attachments are intended for the named recipient only. 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