RE: [geo] My big-quick-secure CO2 cleanup proposal is still alive at the MIT geoengineering competition

[Peter Flynn]

Mark,



The residence time for exchange between the deep ocean and the shallow
ocean is on the order of 600 to 1000 years. This is an average; there are
ocean locations where the exchange is far slower (negligible downwelling
and upwelling currents). Hence conversion of biomass to CO2 in the deep
ocean would not liberate it to the atmosphere for a very long time, perhaps
past the age of fossil fuels.



I don’t know enough about the behavior of methane, i.e. whether it is
soluble or would form gas bubbles. If it is soluble the same long storage
would apply.



Peter Flynn



Peter Flynn, P. Eng., Ph. D.

Emeritus Professor and Poole Chair in Management for Engineers

Department of Mechanical Engineering

University of Alberta

peter.fl...@ualberta.ca

cell: 928 451 4455







*From:* geoengineering@googlegroups.com [mailto:
geoengineering@googlegroups.com] *On Behalf Of *markcap...@podenergy.org
*Sent:* July-12-13 9:40 PM
*To:* andrew.lock...@gmail.com; william.cal...@gmail.com
*Cc:* geoengineering
*Subject:* RE: [geo] My big-quick-secure CO2 cleanup proposal is still
alive at the MIT geoengineering competition



Bill,



At a quick glance:



1.  I did not detect your nutrient cycling or nutrient mass balancing.
 There may be sufficient N, P, K, iron, etc. in deep water below the
themocline.  But what fraction are you extracting?



2.  I am a wastewater engineer with some landfill and dairy waste
experience.  Do you know what fraction of the "sunk or pumped to bottom"
carbon is available to anaerobic bacteria?  Years ago, we used to think
anaerobic bacteria required fresh water and mammal body temperatures to
convert biomass to CH4 and CO2.  Now we can buy anaerobic bacteria that
produce at 5C for use in unheated temperate climate dairy digesters.  The
bacteria exist or evolve to work in all ocean conditions.  The gas
production at seafloor temperatures in seawater will be slower, but not
that much.  Perhaps 80% of volatile solids (aka ash-free biomass) hitting
the deep seafloor should be converted to CH4 and CO2 within a decade, if
not sooner.



Mark E. Capron, PE
Ventura, California
www.PODenergy.org



 Original Message 
Subject: Re: [geo] My big-quick-secure CO2 cleanup proposal is still
alive at the MIT geoengineering competition
From: Andrew Lockley 
Date: Fri, July 12, 2013 7:15 pm
To: william.cal...@gmail.com
Cc: geoengineering 

I looked through it in detail earlier. Where's the evidence you can get
anywhere near the numbers you need?

A

On Jul 13, 2013 4:13 AM, "William H. Calvin" 
wrote:

I seem to be one of the three finalists in this geoengineering competition,
despite both judges remaining dubious and dismissive. You can judge for
yourself, as it is all at

 http://climatecolab.org/web/guest/plans/-/plans/contestId/20/planId/1302501

My detailed response is in the Comment following the judges’ report. (Note
that the revised proposal you see is not the original proposal the judges
saw and from which I quoted in my reply Comment).

The 2,000 word limit forced me to boil it down at lot but it has also
become, I hope, a bit more understandable for those who haven't been
following developments since 1983. A more complete proposal is in my short
book, *The Great CO2 Cleanup*, at the Kindle store or the PDF at
http://WilliamCalvin.org/bk16  .

I have until Monday to make revisions to the proposal before final judging.
Please email suggestions.  If you wish to add public comments or
“Supporter” endorsements, the Comments tab has a login/register link. I am
encouraged to “use on-line social networks” to build support, something I
am not good at doing.

This competition is my best chance so far to get a wider audience to
consider my reframing of the climate problem and its implications for the
time scale of needed climate actions.

Thanks to many of you for earlier comments,

-Bill

William H. Calvin, Ph.D.
University of Washington, School of Medicine.

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RE: [geo] My big-quick-secure CO2 cleanup proposal is still alive at the MIT geoengineering competition

[markcapron]

Bill,At a quick glance:1.  I did not detect your nutrient cycling or nutrient mass balancing.  There may be sufficient N, P, K, iron, etc. in deep water below the themocline.  But what fraction are you extracting?2.  I am a wastewater engineer with some landfill and dairy waste experience.  Do you know what fraction of the "sunk or pumped to bottom" carbon is available to anaerobic bacteria?  Years ago, we used to think anaerobic bacteria required fresh water and mammal body temperatures to convert biomass to CH4 and CO2.  Now we can buy anaerobic bacteria that produce at 5C for use in unheated temperate climate dairy digesters.  The bacteria exist or evolve to work in all ocean conditions.  The gas production at seafloor temperatures in seawater will be slower, but not that much.  Perhaps 80% of volatile solids (aka ash-free biomass) hitting the deep seafloor should be converted to CH4 and CO2 within a decade, if not sooner.  Mark E. Capron, PEVentura, Californiawww.PODenergy.org


 Original Message 
Subject: Re: [geo] My big-quick-secure CO2 cleanup proposal is still
alive at the MIT geoengineering competition
From: Andrew Lockley 
Date: Fri, July 12, 2013 7:15 pm
To: william.cal...@gmail.com
Cc: geoengineering 

I looked through it in detail earlier. Where's the evidence you can get anywhere near the numbers you need? A  On Jul 13, 2013 4:13 AM, "William H. Calvin"  wrote:  I seem to be one of the three finalists in this geoengineering competition, despite both judges remaining dubious and dismissive. You can judge for yourself, as it is all at  http://climatecolab.org/web/guest/plans/-/plans/contestId/20/planId/1302501  My detailed response is in the Comment following the judges’ report. (Note that the revised proposal you see is not the original proposal the judges saw and from which I quoted in my reply Comment). The 2,000 word limit forced me to boil it down at lot but it has also become, I hope, a bit more understandable for those who haven't been following developments since 1983. A more complete proposal is in my short book, The Great CO2 Cleanup, at the Kindle store or the PDF at http://WilliamCalvin.org/bk16 . I have until Monday to make revisions to the proposal before final judging. Please email suggestions.  If you wish to add public comments or “Supporter” endorsements, the Comments tab has a login/register link. I am encouraged to “use on-line social networks” to build support, something I am not good at doing. This competition is my best chance so far to get a wider audience to consider my reframing of the climate problem and its implications for the time scale of needed climate actions. Thanks to many of you for earlier comments, -Bill William H. Calvin, Ph.D.   University of Washington, School of Medicine.   --  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.     





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[geo] Re: The governonsense of climate engineering

[Michael Hayes]

 
In Andrew's opening post, the “The International Governance of Climate 
Engineering”, held by The Institute for European Studies in Brussels on 
June 28, shows that it made material reference to an *ETC 
poster*(i.e.
 
*"Other conflicts can be found when more research is done starting from the 
map of 300 geoengineering experiments drafted by the ETC group."*. I've 
reviewed the poster and found it to be absolutely misleading. The ETC group 
is clearly feeding well meaning folks purposely twisted disinformation and *it 
is being used in the discussion on governance!!!*
** 
ETC has also claimed it establish a de facto moratorium on GE through the 
UN CBD. *The CBD has no such 
position*. 
The key position is: 

*"Thus, if a proposed geoengineering approach can be shown to be 
potentially feasible and effective in reducing the risks, costs and 
uncertainties of climate change, its projected positive impacts need to be 
considered alongside any projected further impacts of the geoengineering 
measure (mostly technique-specific), with their own risks, costs and 
uncertainties." *

*Geoengineering 101 folks!*
The report is well done and the authors clearly did not let themselves be 
used by ETC. Yet, how much money has ETC raise by twisting that story and 
beating that particular horse? How many folks now believe that there is an 
actual GE moratorium in effectenforced by the UN?
This type of Machiavellian BS needs to be directly confronted. Adequate 
funding needs to be found to create a non-profit "civil society" group 
dedicated to providing well vetted information to the public, media and 
policy level groups concerning the research, history and current consensus 
(where it exists) regarding GE with a particular focus on exposing those 
engaged in purposeful acts of disinformation. Having this effort as a 
secondary (or lower) priority within a sponsoring institution may tie the 
hands of the the advocacy group when the muck starts to fly. And, it should 
fly! 
No one should underestimate the destructive potential of the disinformation 
and manipulations exemplified by ETCs' yellow journalism.
 
Best,
 
Michael

On Friday, July 5, 2013 3:31:38 AM UTC-7, andrewjlockley wrote:

> http://www.ejolt.org/2013/07/the-governonsense-of-climate-engineering/
>
> At the environmental policy forum “The International Governance of Climate 
> Engineering”, held by The Institute for European Studies in Brussels on 
> June 28, opinions differed on how European policymakers should react to the 
> emerging field of climate engineering. Climate engineering refers to the 
> deliberate intervention in the climate system to counter the effects of 
> climate change (e.g. through blocking/reducing solar radiation in the upper 
> atmosphere or enhancing the uptake of carbon dioxide through ocean 
> ‘fertilization’).Ralph Bodle, Senior Fellow at the Ecologic Institute of 
> Berlin first presented his report, which suggested that the Convention on 
> Biological Diversity (CBD) might serve as a overarching but not supervisory 
> central institution for all climate engineering matters. Jacob Werksman, 
> the Principal Advisor of the European Commission’s DG Climate Action 
> disagreed, stating that the CBD was dominated by NGOs and developing 
> countries but not respected by countries that are not part of the CBD, such 
> as the US. He suggested the UNFCCC because of a more global membership and 
> it’s great ability to create new institutions. The argument against 
> introducing this discussing in the UNFCCC is the risk of a moral hazard 
> where there will always be some countries trying to use the opportunity of 
> geo-engineering to do less mitigation. The same can be expected for the 
> public opinion: why invest in climate mitigation of some technological fix 
> saves us from all the effort?Jacob Werksman was keen to stress that for 
> those reasons the EC did not have an explicit position on climate 
> engineering. It did not want to undermine the already difficult 
> negotiations in the UNFCCC and it did want to underline the multiple 
> co-benefits of a climate mitigation policy – on work and health for 
> example. But none of the speakers were talking about an international ban 
> on climate engineering. While Jacob Werksman talked about a de facto ban 
> with exceptions for research, Ralph Bodle said that deployment is an 
> inevitable part of that research. Both stated that any exception to the 
> rule of not doing climate engineering should be considered “with great 
> care”.However, there was agreement in the room on the high political risk 
> of any climate engineering experiment, especially if it has trans-boundary 
> effects. When we asked if there was any research on conflicts or tensions 
> related to climate engineering, Ralph Bodle said it was too early 

Re: [geo] My big-quick-secure CO2 cleanup proposal is still alive at the MIT geoengineering competition

[Andrew Lockley]

I looked through it in detail earlier. Where's the evidence you can get
anywhere near the numbers you need?

A
 On Jul 13, 2013 4:13 AM, "William H. Calvin" 
wrote:

> I seem to be one of the three finalists in this geoengineering
> competition, despite both judges remaining dubious and dismissive. You can
> judge for yourself, as it is all at**
>
>  *
> http://climatecolab.org/web/guest/plans/-/plans/contestId/20/planId/1302501
> *
> 
>
> My detailed response is in the Comment following the judges’ report. (Note
> that the revised proposal you see is not the original proposal the judges
> saw and from which I quoted in my reply Comment).
>
> The 2,000 word limit forced me to boil it down at lot but it has also
> become, I hope, a bit more understandable for those who haven't been
> following developments since 1983. A more complete proposal is in my short
> book, *The Great CO2 Cleanup*, at the Kindle store or the PDF at *
> http://WilliamCalvin.org/bk16*  .
>
> I have until Monday to make revisions to the proposal before final
> judging. Please email suggestions.  If you wish to add public comments or
> “Supporter” endorsements, the Comments tab has a login/register link. I am
> encouraged to “use on-line social networks” to build support, something I
> am not good at doing.
>
> This competition is my best chance so far to get a wider audience to
> consider my reframing of the climate problem and its implications for the
> time scale of needed climate actions.
>
> Thanks to many of you for earlier comments,
>
> -Bill
>
> William H. Calvin, Ph.D.
> University of Washington, School of Medicine.
>
> --
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>
>
>

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[geo] My big-quick-secure CO2 cleanup proposal is still alive at the MIT geoengineering competition

[William H. Calvin]

 

I seem to be one of the three finalists in this geoengineering competition, 
despite both judges remaining dubious and dismissive. You can judge for 
yourself, as it is all at

 *
http://climatecolab.org/web/guest/plans/-/plans/contestId/20/planId/1302501*

My detailed response is in the Comment following the judges’ report. (Note 
that the revised proposal you see is not the original proposal the judges 
saw and from which I quoted in my reply Comment).

The 2,000 word limit forced me to boil it down at lot but it has also 
become, I hope, a bit more understandable for those who haven't been 
following developments since 1983. A more complete proposal is in my short 
book, *The Great CO2 Cleanup*, at the Kindle store or the PDF at *
http://WilliamCalvin.org/bk16*  .

I have until Monday to make revisions to the proposal before final judging. 
Please email suggestions.  If you wish to add public comments or 
“Supporter” endorsements, the Comments tab has a login/register link. I am 
encouraged to “use on-line social networks” to build support, something I 
am not good at doing.

This competition is my best chance so far to get a wider audience to 
consider my reframing of the climate problem and its implications for the 
time scale of needed climate actions.

Thanks to many of you for earlier comments,

-Bill

William H. Calvin, Ph.D.  
University of Washington, School of Medicine.

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Re: [geo] Radiative forcing by aircraft: effects of soot on large-scale clouds (abstract only)

[Joyce Penner]

Andrew et al.,

To be sure this "may" be game changing, but these effects are highly uncertain, 
primarily because there is no agreement (or direct measurement) on whether soot 
from aircraft can act as ice nuclei (even when processed through contrails) and 
there is no agreement on the fraction and composition of particles that act as 
ice nuclei in the background (pre-aircraft) atmosphere. I tried to emphasize 
this in my talk (and in the submitted paper). The result can range from near 
zero forcing (my value in the abstract of -0.2 W/m2 is not statistically 
significant) up to the -0.8 W/m2.

Best,

Joyce
On Jul 11, 2013, at 6:23 PM, Andrew Lockley wrote:

> Poster's note :  This is a game-changing piece of research.  Finding
> we have up to 0.8 W/m2 of previously 'hidden' warming is a spectacular
> result.  It also suggests a possible contradiction with Kravitz'
> result on the use of soot, albeit his paper was analysing
> stratospheric (not tropospheric) soot injections.
> 
> NB Link is to abstract only.  Paper will hopefully be in PNAS
> http://www.daca-13.org/wsl/daca13/program/DACA-13_Abstract_Proceedings.pdf
> 
> Radiative forcing by aircraft: effects of soot on large-scale clouds
> Joyce Penneret al
> 
> Radiative forcing by aircraft soot in large-scale clouds has been
> estimated to be both positive and
> negative, while forcing by contrails and contrail cirrus (i.e.
> spreading contrails) is positive. Here we use
> an improved model to estimate the forcing in large-scale clouds. We
> assume that the fraction of soot
> particles that have been processed through contrails are good
> heterogeneous ice nuclei (IN) and use
> the average fraction determined from the CoCiP model. The calculated
> total all-sky radiative climate
> forcing ranges between -0.2 and -0.8 Wm-2
> , with the range determined by whether sulfate on soot
> decreases their ability to act as IN as well as the treatment used for
> precipitation scavenging. We
> discuss what is needed to narrow the range.
> 
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> 
> 

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Re: [geo] Re: The governonsense of climate engineering

[Gregory Benford]

On Clive Hamilton's concern about a slippery slope: He seems fearful of so
much, especially regional tests of GE methods.

Indeed as Bill says, the Arctic is the prime place to try it, nearly ideal:
few people, short 4 month trial in summer of SRM, low cost (~$200 million
or less), easily measurable effect on sea ice, etc. Should be done first.

Gregory Benford

On Fri, Jul 12, 2013 at 10:07 AM, Bill Stahl  wrote:

>
> * Re: Fred's point: 1 $M is a lot when the debate is confined to a
>> relatively small world of researchers and advocates, but tiny once the idea
>> goes 'viral' in society at large. Think what a single insurance
>> conglomerate might spend to head off claims from sea-level rise!
>> Environmental advocates will soon have to adjust to losing 'ownership' of
>> the debate- as will researchers (and yes, there is plenty of overlap). NGO
>> advocacy contra ETC will be handled by existing environmental groups, along
>> the same lines as existing differences between, say, The Nature Conservancy
>> vs. Sea Shepherd Society. That seems hard to credit at the moment. But many
>> greens have noticed that our existing 'Plan A' of emission-reductions now
>> requires the environmentalist's equivalent of the protestant evangelical
>> Rapture: a sound of trumpets, a flash of (green) light in the sky, and lo!
>>   It's not a sustainable position, and alternatives will be sought. (Which
>> highlights the importance of Ken's appearance on KPFA, speaking to an
>> audience that both cares about the issue and is extremely resistant to the
>> news he carries).
>
>
> * Re: Lou's scenario: grimly plausible. What would be the role an
> intermediate step such as high-latitude SRM in the Arctic? I'm not in a
> position to evaluate its plausibility (perhaps someone could privately
> point me to useful reading?) but if plausible enough to attempt it would
> meet a lower threshold of resistance than a global project. If
> approximately successful it would be a model, and a temptation, for a
> broader effort.
> Which speaks to Clive Hamilton's concern about a slippery slope, obviously.
>
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[geo] Re: The governonsense of climate engineering

[Bill Stahl]

> * Re: Fred's point: 1 $M is a lot when the debate is confined to a 
> relatively small world of researchers and advocates, but tiny once the idea 
> goes 'viral' in society at large. Think what a single insurance 
> conglomerate might spend to head off claims from sea-level rise! 
> Environmental advocates will soon have to adjust to losing 'ownership' of 
> the debate- as will researchers (and yes, there is plenty of overlap). NGO 
> advocacy contra ETC will be handled by existing environmental groups, along 
> the same lines as existing differences between, say, The Nature Conservancy 
> vs. Sea Shepherd Society. That seems hard to credit at the moment. But many 
> greens have noticed that our existing 'Plan A' of emission-reductions now 
> requires the environmentalist's equivalent of the protestant evangelical 
> Rapture: a sound of trumpets, a flash of (green) light in the sky, and lo! 
>   It's not a sustainable position, and alternatives will be sought. (Which 
> highlights the importance of Ken's appearance on KPFA, speaking to an 
> audience that both cares about the issue and is extremely resistant to the 
> news he carries).


* Re: Lou's scenario: grimly plausible. What would be the role an 
intermediate step such as high-latitude SRM in the Arctic? I'm not in a 
position to evaluate its plausibility (perhaps someone could privately 
point me to useful reading?) but if plausible enough to attempt it would 
meet a lower threshold of resistance than a global project. If 
approximately successful it would be a model, and a temptation, for a 
broader effort. 
Which speaks to Clive Hamilton's concern about a slippery slope, obviously.

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RE: [geo] Re: Oli Morton with Opinion Article on "Nitrogen Geoengineering"

[Chris Vivian (Cefas)]

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] On Behalf Of Chris Vivian
Sent: vrijdag 12 juli 2013 15:09
To: geoengineering@googlegroups.com
Cc: 
geoengineeringourclim...@gmail.com; 
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 

[geo] Re: Oli Morton with Opinion Article on "Nitrogen Geoengineering"

[Chris Vivian]

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*) 
>>> 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