Thisarticle claims that "we already have an affordable solution with arelatively well-understood outcome: reducing our carbon emissions." This isa political assertion with dubious empirical basis. Their claims that global agreement on emissionreduction is “affordable” and has “relatively well understood outcomes” are tendentiousand rhetorical. It is entirely wrong tojump from the true observation that the science of climate change is settled tothe false claim that our knowledge of what to do about it is equally settled. Such a jump seems to bedevil climate debate.
Continued net positive carbon emissions will merely delay thearrival of probable dangerous environmental tipping points. And we do not know if global agreement toreduce emissions is politically feasible in the face of the power of fossil fuel industries. The likely outcomes of efforts to achieve global agreements are not wellunderstood at all, and hold planetary stability hostage to a dubious politicaltheory. The debate on climate stability needs to be reframed to includenegative emission technology such as BECCS,but this is often seen as outside the scope of the global agreement process. The upheaval that would result from a winding down of fossil fuelindustries presents highly complex technical, political and economic problems,and in any case the ambition would be crueled by optouts. Blithely asserting that these problems for emissionreduction are well understood and affordable does not serve the interests ofevidence based policy. Use of the derogatory terms “hacking” and “immoral” furtherillustrates the politically driven nature of the comments from these academics.They make the particularly weak assertion in their argument against SRM that “manyspecies are already struggling to adapt tothe current pace of change.” Surely thatis a reason to try to slow down climate change through all means available, notan argument to rule out major methods? SRM is hardly a cure-all for the climate. But putting all our eggs in the basket theypropose, “to negotiate a worldwide treaty to cut carbon emissions from nationsacross the globe”, involves extremely high stakes and is hardly well understoodand affordable. Robert Tulip From: AndrewLockley <andrew.lock...@gmail.com> To: geoengineering <geoengineering@googlegroups.com> Sent: Monday, 5 January 2015, 9:27 Subject: [geo] 'Climate hacking' would be easy – that doesn't mean weshould do it Poster's note : the site onwhich this article appears is straplined "academic rigour, journalisticflair". In my opinion, neither applies to this piece, despite itsseemingly credible authorship. http://theconversation.com/climate-hacking-would-be-easy-that-doesnt-mean-we-should-do-it-35200 ‘Climate hacking’ would beeasy – that doesn’t mean we should do it AUTHORS Erik van Sebille, ResearchFellow and Lecturer in Oceanography at UNSW Australia Katelijn Van Hende, Lecturerin Energy Law and Geopolitics at University College London Some people might argue thatthe greatest moral challenge of our time is serious enough to justifydeliberately tampering with our climate to stave off the damaging effects ofglobal warming. Geoengineering, or “climatehacking”, to use its more emotive nickname, is a direct intervention in thenatural environments of our planet, including our atmosphere, seas and oceans. It has been suggested thatgeoengineering might buy us time to prevent warming above 2C, and that weshould look at it seriously in case everything goes pear-shaped with ourclimate. There are two problems withthis argument. The first is that we already have an affordable solution with arelatively well-understood outcome: reducing our carbon emissions. The second is thatgeoengineering itself is fraught with danger and that, worryingly, the mostdangerous version, called solar radiation management, is also the most popularwith those exploring this field. Down in flames In essence, solar radiationmanagement is about mimicking volcanoes. Climate scientists have known foryears that major volcanic eruptions can eject so much ash into the highatmosphere that they effectively dim the sun. The tiny ash particles blockthe sunlight, reducing the amount of solar energy that reaches Earth’s surface.A major volcanic eruption like that of Mount Pinatubo in 1991 can causeworldwide cooling of about 0.1C for about two or three years. As global temperatures willrise in the business-as-usual scenario, leading to a projected increase ofalmost 4C in the coming century, the ash of a few volcanic eruptions each yearcould theoretically offset the temperature rise due to the burning of fossilfuels. Science has also taught usthat depositing the ash, or something similar, into the high atmosphere is notvery difficult. Some studies show that by using balloons, it could cost aslittle as a few billion dollars per year. It certainly sounds like amuch cheaper and easier approach than trying to negotiate a worldwide treaty tocut carbon emissions from nations across the globe. Unlike global emissions cuts,geoengineering has the potential to be financed and implemented by a singlewealthy individual, and can arguably be accomplished with a lot less effort. Major problems If it is so easy, why aren’twe already pumping ash into the sky to dim the Sun? Perhaps predictably, it’sbecause this climate solution is likely to create new problems of its own. The Intergovernmental Panelon Climate Change (IPCC) has completely rejected solar radiation management –not because it is too hard, but because there is no guarantee that theconsequences will be benign. There are three majorproblems that make this form of geoengineering so dangerous that, hopefully, itwill never be used. First, it does not addressthe root cause of climate change. It only addresses one of the symptoms: globalwarming, while failing to deal with related issues such as ocean acidification.This is because our carbon dioxide emissions will continue to build up in theatmosphere and dissolve in the oceans, making seawater more acidic and makingit harder for species like corals and oysters to form their skeletons. The second problem is alsorelated to the continued build-up of atmospheric carbon dioxide. If, at somepoint in the future, we stop pumping ash into the skies, the ash will rapidlywash out from the atmosphere in a few years. Yet with atmospheric carbondioxide levels even higher than before, Earth will experience rapid “catch-up”warming. According to the IPCC, this could be as much as 2C per decade –roughly 10 times the current rate. This would be very troubling, given thatmany species, including in places such as Sydney, are already struggling toadapt to the current pace of change. Third, pumping dust into ourskies will almost certainly change the weather. In particular, it is likely toalter the amount of rainfall from country to country. Some will become drier,others wetter, with a range of grave impacts on many types of agriculture. Itis not yet clear how individual countries will be affected, but we know thatunpredictable water and food supplies can provoke regional conflict and evenwar. Safeguarding the future The precautionary principlehas been embedded into national environmental laws and some internationalagreements (such as Article 3 (3) of the UN Framework Convention on ClimateChange). While this principle impels countries to act to stave off climateharm, it would also arguably require geoengineering proposals to be scrutinisedwith care. It is difficult to designcautious policies, or even draw up regulations, on issues like geoengineering,where the outcome can at best only be partly predictable. Policies andregulations should be designed to have an intended and purposeful effect, whichgeo-engineering at the moment cannot deliver. Some researchers have gone asfar as to brand geoengineering immoral, while the concept has also beendescribed as an Earth experiment, in addition to the experiment already beingdone with greenhouse emissions. The only thing we know forcertain is that we need a lot more certainty before deciding to hack ourclimate. -- 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 emailto 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. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. 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