Albert et. al., The degree of negative generalization which Dr. Shiva applies to GE and its supporters is troubling. Attacking the supporters, as opposed to the science, is simply unprofessional and highly counter productive. Such rantings would not be tolerated coming from a freshman in school. She devalues her training and maturity through such acts.
It would be interesting to get her views on the use of large scale offshore mariculture operations as both a means for climate change mitigation and meeting the accelerating need for commodities like food, biofuel, organic fertilizer and fresh water. A deep water version of the NASA OMEGA<http://blog.marinexplore.com/nasa-omega-project-the-ocean-as-a-platform-for-biofuel/> Project, which uses nutricline water as the nutrient input, has significant potential to address many concerns in this field, as well as, the global need for jobs, taxes and living space. Yet, to be offhandedly condemned as an evil empire sociopathic plot to rule the world, by the highly vocal yet scientifically challenged, would be simply childish and distracting. We need long term solution, not school yard ad hominem attacks. She needs to focus on the prior. Best, Michael On Wednesday, October 30, 2013 7:38:10 AM UTC-7, Albert Bates wrote: > > Having seen my name dropped here I thought I might make a small comment. > My thoughts are that it would be strategically ill-advised for the > geoengineering community to denigrate Dr. Shiva or challenge her to debate. > I have read her writings extensively and agree with some of the comments > about weak on the science. She is a scientist only at the margins, but she > is a public policy advocate of the greatest talent and acuity. Because I > admire her I have attempted to better inform her about soil and carbon > cycles. Given time I feel she may warm up to recalcitrant carbon and > afforestation strategies, although she will never admit to favoring > geoengineering, for the reasons she gives in the interview. > > I agree with Ron that it is unfortunate that biochar, remineralization and > reforestation/afforestation have been associated with geoengineering. These > are natural processes that have been going on since the dawn of life, and > although they are susceptible to human intervention (what isn't?), likely > will continue long after we are gone (unless we screw the pooch even > worse). > > Lines are being drawn and sides are being taken in this debate over > "natural" versus "engineered" remedies and while we can lament the > polarization and call it "anti-science" or "pro-science", chances are none > of that will change the direction or acceleration of the debate. I lean > more towards nature-driven processes as inherently safer, having the > benefit of billion-year trials, but cannot exclude the possibility they may > not be fast enough to preserve our species, to say nothing of our > civilization. We have the examples of post-Colombian encounter > reforestation, and post-Mongolian incursion reforestation, lowering > atmospheric PgC dramatically on multi-century time scales. Clearly those > are sequestration techniques having relative cost and risk advantages over > many others and I think even Naomi Klein and Vandana Shiva might buy in to > those strategies eventually. The limitation is the "multi-century" part. > > Vandana Shiva seems to think that going back to organic farming practices > can entirely solve the climate crisis. She has pounded a stake in the > ground and tied herself to that. If she is to be countered, it will be on > the issues of urgency and degrees of effectiveness, IMHO. > > -- 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.
