Dear Ronald, Thank you for reading my paper and providing comments.
I mentioned in my paper that its content applies primarily to large scale SRM methods (e.g. stratospheric aerosol, marine cloud brightening) but that some aspects of it could be extended to other climate engineering proposals, both SRM and CDR. I personally find it more useful to think of CDR as mitigation methods, albeit novel ones with some novel risks. Indeed, traditional mitigation measures at sufficient scales will have negative secondary effects, economic and/or environmental, often on other actors. The adoption of biochar practices may or may not impact crop insurance. I am not qualified to comment on that. Insurance was relevant in my paper as insurance economics is the source of the term and behavior of 'moral hazard'. Obtaining or increasing insurance causes one's incentives to change, and this may have socially suboptimal results. As I argue, though, this is a weak model for thinking about what we commonly call the moral hazard of climate engineering. Ocean acidification specifically is not relevant to my paper. It presents only one of the many advantages and disadvantages of the various response options to climate change, which in turn impact the shapes of the various supply and demand curves. It is clearly a problem but not fundamentally different in type than, let's say, the risks of storing CO2 underground, the land use changes required by some CDR methods, the waste disposal problem of increasing nuclear power as a means of mitigation, the potential impact of stratospheric sulfur on ozone, etc. (Except that addressing acidification through CDR or mitigation may be better conceptualized in the demand curve than the supply curve, although this will not have a significant impact on the conclusions.) Best wishes, -Jesse ----------------------------------------- Jesse L. Reynolds European and International Public Law Tilburg Sustainability Center Tilburg University, The Netherlands Book review editor, Law, Innovation, and Technology email: j.l.reyno...@uvt.nl<mailto:j.l.reyno...@uvt.nl> http://works.bepress.com/jessreyn/<http://bit.ly/1pa26dY> http://twitter.com/geoengpolicy<http://bit.ly/1oQBIpR> From: Ronal W.Larson [mailto:rongretlar...@comcast.net] Sent: 18 September 2014 05:03 To: J.L. Reynolds Cc: Geoengineering Subject: Re: [geo] Reynolds, Jesse (2014): A Critical Examination of the Climate Engineering Moral Hazard and Risk Compensation Concern Dr. Reynolds cc list: 1. Thanks for a new and useful view on (mostly) the SRM part of Climate Engineering (CE) - and especially making the whole paper available to us without a paywall. I fought it well reasoned and well written. 2. In your nice useful discussions of insurance, I was hoping for a few sentences on crop insurance - as possibly related to biochar as a CDR approach. I conclude that CE approaches that do not require insurance or lessened insurance should be preferred; would you agree? 3. I found no mention of "ocean acidification" in your paper and so wonder how you feel this common concern might influence your final conclusions. We interested in CDR use this as a/the primary reason for needing CDR (independent of whether SRM is needed). 4. Here is the final paragraph of the concluding section, which seems to summarize the paper well (where MH and RC are defined in your paper's title - given below - Moral Hazard and Risk Compensation.) "We should not assume that the CE MH-RC concern is warranted and that any substitution of climate engineering for mitigation would be negative. Even in the cases of the potential mechanisms which might cause deleterious mitigation reduction-mechanisms which go beyond the scope of the CE MH-RC concern and which are also present in many other policy choices- we should not assume that optimal mitigation is always the victim. Policy should be rationally designed and based upon the central goal of minimizing net climate risks to humans and the environment in accordance with society's preferences. I assert that those who argue that consideration of and research into climate engineering should be restricted due to the CE MH-RC concern have the burden to demonstrate that such effects are likely and would be harmful, and that humans and the environment would be better protected by foregoing this option. Until then, this concern should not be grounds for restricting or prohibiting climate engineering research. 5. Dr. Reynold's paper was attached to the following. Ron On Sep 16, 2014, at 3:01 AM, J.L. Reynolds <j.l.reyno...@uvt.nl<mailto:j.l.reyno...@uvt.nl>> wrote: The link to my paper (below) on "A Critical Examination of the Climate Engineering Moral Hazard and Risk Compensation Concern" is inactive. I removed it from SSRN and Berkeley Press Digital Works because it has been accepted for publication and there is a 12 month embargo against hosting it on such sites. I attach the paper here. By the way, the journal in which it will be published-The Anthropocene Review-is a relatively new multidisciplinary title on Sage. The editors appear keen on publishing papers on climate engineering. http://anr.sagepub.com/ -Jesse ----------------------------------------- Jesse L. Reynolds European and International Public Law Tilburg Sustainability Center Tilburg University, The Netherlands Book review editor, Law, Innovation, and Technology email: j.l.reyno...@uvt.nl<mailto:j.l.reyno...@uvt.nl> http://works.bepress.com/jessreyn/<http://bit.ly/1pa26dY> http://twitter.com/geoengpolicy<http://bit.ly/1oQBIpR> From: geoengineering@googlegroups.com<mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com> [mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Andrew Lockley Sent: 16 September 2014 09:09 <snip> -- 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/d/optout.
