Re: [geo] CO2 mitigation: $$/benefit
Ken, I do like your way of looking at this! FYI I attach the part of my book Kyoto2 which addresses these questions. Oliver. On 14/09/2013 17:02, Ken Caldeira wrote: Had the Romans discovered fossil fuels, and invented automobiles and power plants and so on, and applied the logic recommended by Nordhaus, right now -- the great ice sheets would be melting, with sea-level probably rising a meter per century -- oceans would be acidified, coral reefs gone -- the arctic as we know it today would be gone -- the tropics would be suffering from blistering heat -- etc Would we be glad that the ancient Romans listened to their economists, and maximized their net present value so they could go on a fossil-fueled spending binge for a century or two? As an aside, when I say we should or should not do something, or that something is good or bad, I am presenting my personal opinion as a human being and not pretending that it is a scientific result. When Eduardo Porter repreresents Nordhaus as says, If investments in CO_2 abatement are not competitive, we would do better by investing elsewhere and using the proceeds to cover warming’s damage., is this supposed to be a representation of personal values, or is this a finding of the science of economics? If the latter, then I would know to see how this science proceeds from empirical facts to prescriptive statements about what we ought to do. What is the experiment that would demonstrate the truth of the quoted sentence? Science tells us facts about the world. Religion and morality tell us about what we ought or ought not to do. Is economics a science or a religion? I prefer the speed of light to be 6 x 10**8 m/s, instead of a measly 3 x 10**8 m/s. Is this like Nordhaus saying he prefers a discount rate of 4%? Do facts matter here, or do we just dress up our values with a little mathematics and pretend it is a science? ___ Ken Caldeira Carnegie Institution for Science Dept of Global Ecology 260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA 94305 USA +1 650 704 7212kcalde...@carnegiescience.edu mailto:kcalde...@carnegiescience.edu http://dge.stanford.edu/labs/caldeiralab@kencaldeira On Sat, Sep 14, 2013 at 11:40 AM, Greg Rau gh...@sbcglobal.net mailto:gh...@sbcglobal.net wrote: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/11/business/counting-the-cost-of-fixing-the-future.html Interesting article navigating the SCC (social cost of carbon) issue, critical measure for evaluating the applicability of any mitigation action/technology. One revealing quote from Nordhaus: “Investments in reducing future climate damages to corn and trees and other areas should compete with investments in better seed, improved rotation and many other high-yield investments.” If investments in CO_2 abatement are not competitive, we would do better by investing elsewhere and using the proceeds to cover warming’s damage. We would still have money left over. Professor Nordhaus says he prefers a 4 percent discount rate. Using it in “A Question of Balance,” he calculates that the optimal carbon tax comes in at around $11 per ton of CO_2 . Greg -- 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%2bunsubscr...@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. -- 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. Title: Costing the future Costing the future - From Kyoto2 chapter 4 by Oliver Tickell (Zed Books) How are we value the future? The question is an important one in considering the economics of climate change, as we have to balance the optimum balance of inter-generational transfers of wealth and of costs. Should we assess the wealth and
Re: [geo] CO2 mitigation: $$/benefit
Oliver, Looks like we are on similar ground. I think the main argument is: *It is fine for you to use discounting when making your own personal decision about cash flows that affect only you, but it is unethical to use a discounting argument to take something away from somebody else and consume it yourself.* To me, that is the fundamental sophistry involved in inter-generational discounting. Inter-generational discounting is a thin veil to justify plundering the assets of future generations. Best, Ken ___ Ken Caldeira Carnegie Institution for Science Dept of Global Ecology 260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA 94305 USA +1 650 704 7212 kcalde...@carnegiescience.edu http://dge.stanford.edu/labs/caldeiralab @kencaldeira On Mon, Sep 16, 2013 at 11:41 AM, Oliver Tickell oliver.tick...@kyoto2.orgwrote: Ken, I do like your way of looking at this! FYI I attach the part of my book Kyoto2 which addresses these questions. Oliver. On 14/09/2013 17:02, Ken Caldeira wrote: Had the Romans discovered fossil fuels, and invented automobiles and power plants and so on, and applied the logic recommended by Nordhaus, right now -- the great ice sheets would be melting, with sea-level probably rising a meter per century -- oceans would be acidified, coral reefs gone -- the arctic as we know it today would be gone -- the tropics would be suffering from blistering heat -- etc Would we be glad that the ancient Romans listened to their economists, and maximized their net present value so they could go on a fossil-fueled spending binge for a century or two? As an aside, when I say we should or should not do something, or that something is good or bad, I am presenting my personal opinion as a human being and not pretending that it is a scientific result. When Eduardo Porter repreresents Nordhaus as says, If investments in CO2 abatement are not competitive, we would do better by investing elsewhere and using the proceeds to cover warming’s damage., is this supposed to be a representation of personal values, or is this a finding of the science of economics? If the latter, then I would know to see how this science proceeds from empirical facts to prescriptive statements about what we ought to do. What is the experiment that would demonstrate the truth of the quoted sentence? Science tells us facts about the world. Religion and morality tell us about what we ought or ought not to do. Is economics a science or a religion? I prefer the speed of light to be 6 x 10**8 m/s, instead of a measly 3 x 10**8 m/s. Is this like Nordhaus saying he prefers a discount rate of 4%? Do facts matter here, or do we just dress up our values with a little mathematics and pretend it is a science? ___ Ken Caldeira Carnegie Institution for Science Dept of Global Ecology 260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA 94305 USA +1 650 704 7212 kcalde...@carnegiescience.edu http://dge.stanford.edu/labs/caldeiralab @kencaldeira On Sat, Sep 14, 2013 at 11:40 AM, Greg Rau gh...@sbcglobal.net wrote: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/11/business/counting-the-cost-of-fixing-the-future.html Interesting article navigating the SCC (social cost of carbon) issue, critical measure for evaluating the applicability of any mitigation action/technology. One revealing quote from Nordhaus: “Investments in reducing future climate damages to corn and trees and other areas should compete with investments in better seed, improved rotation and many other high-yield investments.” If investments in CO2 abatement are not competitive, we would do better by investing elsewhere and using the proceeds to cover warming’s damage. We would still have money left over. Professor Nordhaus says he prefers a 4 percent discount rate. Using it in “A Question of Balance,” he calculates that the optimal carbon tax comes in at around $11 per ton of CO2. Greg -- 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. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups geoengineering group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop
Re: [geo] CO2 mitigation: $$/benefit
If we are thinking about how to best benefit the future, then discounting can be a useful tool. But, as is often done, we are just using it as an argument to increase current consumption at the expense of future generations, then it is sophistry. Discounting is a tool. Tools in themselves are neither good nor bad, but tools can be put to good uses or bad uses. ___ Ken Caldeira Carnegie Institution for Science Dept of Global Ecology 260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA 94305 USA +1 650 704 7212 kcalde...@carnegiescience.edu http://dge.stanford.edu/labs/caldeiralab @kencaldeira On Mon, Sep 16, 2013 at 12:56 PM, David Morrow dmorr...@gmail.com wrote: Ken, I'm inclined to agree with your basic position, but the argument for intergenerational discounting in *some kinds* of public policy is not just sophistry. If we don't discount future benefits or losses, policies that have us saving our money today to benefit people in the future will usually do better on a cost-benefit analysis than policies that have us benefiting people today. For instance, suppose you could either save 10,000 lives today with a $100M public health campaign, or you could invest that money until it's doubled to $200M and save 20,000 lives in the future. With no discounting, it seems like you ought to postpone the public health campaign. (But of course, when it comes time to begin the $200M campaign, the same CBA will recommend deferring the campaign until the money has doubled yet again, and so on.) I think you'll agree that there's a crucial difference between the climate case and the public health case that I just described: In the climate case, we're taking something from future generations and using it to inflict harm on them, instead of simply providing a benefit to ourselves rather than some future people. In short, there are important arguments against discounting climate damages, but throwing the baby out with the bathwater is not going to win over many economists. David On Monday, September 16, 2013 4:55:16 AM UTC-5, Ken Caldeira wrote: Oliver, Looks like we are on similar ground. I think the main argument is: *It is fine for you to use discounting when making your own personal decision about cash flows that affect only you, but it is unethical to use a discounting argument to take something away from somebody else and consume it yourself.* To me, that is the fundamental sophistry involved in inter-generational discounting. Inter-generational discounting is a thin veil to justify plundering the assets of future generations. Best, Ken ___ Ken Caldeira Carnegie Institution for Science Dept of Global Ecology 260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA 94305 USA +1 650 704 7212 kcal...@**carnegiescience.edu http://dge.stanford.edu/labs/**caldeiralabhttp://dge.stanford.edu/labs/caldeiralab @kencaldeira On Mon, Sep 16, 2013 at 11:41 AM, Oliver Tickell oliver@kyoto2.orgwrote: Ken, I do like your way of looking at this! FYI I attach the part of my book Kyoto2 which addresses these questions. Oliver. On 14/09/2013 17:02, Ken Caldeira wrote: Had the Romans discovered fossil fuels, and invented automobiles and power plants and so on, and applied the logic recommended by Nordhaus, right now -- the great ice sheets would be melting, with sea-level probably rising a meter per century -- oceans would be acidified, coral reefs gone -- the arctic as we know it today would be gone -- the tropics would be suffering from blistering heat -- etc Would we be glad that the ancient Romans listened to their economists, and maximized their net present value so they could go on a fossil-fueled spending binge for a century or two? As an aside, when I say we should or should not do something, or that something is good or bad, I am presenting my personal opinion as a human being and not pretending that it is a scientific result. When Eduardo Porter repreresents Nordhaus as says, If investments in CO2 abatement are not competitive, we would do better by investing elsewhere and using the proceeds to cover warming’s damage., is this supposed to be a representation of personal values, or is this a finding of the science of economics? If the latter, then I would know to see how this science proceeds from empirical facts to prescriptive statements about what we ought to do. What is the experiment that would demonstrate the truth of the quoted sentence? Science tells us facts about the world. Religion and morality tell us about what we ought or ought not to do. Is economics a science or a religion? I prefer the speed of light to be 6 x 10**8 m/s, instead of a measly 3 x 10**8 m/s. Is this like Nordhaus saying he prefers a discount rate of 4%? Do facts matter here, or do we just dress up our values with a little mathematics and pretend it is a science? ___ Ken Caldeira Carnegie
Re: [geo] CO2 mitigation: $$/benefit
Ken, I'm inclined to agree with your basic position, but the argument for intergenerational discounting in *some kinds* of public policy is not just sophistry. If we don't discount future benefits or losses, policies that have us saving our money today to benefit people in the future will usually do better on a cost-benefit analysis than policies that have us benefiting people today. For instance, suppose you could either save 10,000 lives today with a $100M public health campaign, or you could invest that money until it's doubled to $200M and save 20,000 lives in the future. With no discounting, it seems like you ought to postpone the public health campaign. (But of course, when it comes time to begin the $200M campaign, the same CBA will recommend deferring the campaign until the money has doubled yet again, and so on.) I think you'll agree that there's a crucial difference between the climate case and the public health case that I just described: In the climate case, we're taking something from future generations and using it to inflict harm on them, instead of simply providing a benefit to ourselves rather than some future people. In short, there are important arguments against discounting climate damages, but throwing the baby out with the bathwater is not going to win over many economists. David On Monday, September 16, 2013 4:55:16 AM UTC-5, Ken Caldeira wrote: Oliver, Looks like we are on similar ground. I think the main argument is: *It is fine for you to use discounting when making your own personal decision about cash flows that affect only you, but it is unethical to use a discounting argument to take something away from somebody else and consume it yourself.* To me, that is the fundamental sophistry involved in inter-generational discounting. Inter-generational discounting is a thin veil to justify plundering the assets of future generations. Best, Ken ___ Ken Caldeira Carnegie Institution for Science Dept of Global Ecology 260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA 94305 USA +1 650 704 7212 kcal...@carnegiescience.edu javascript: http://dge.stanford.edu/labs/caldeiralab @kencaldeira On Mon, Sep 16, 2013 at 11:41 AM, Oliver Tickell oliver@kyoto2.orgjavascript: wrote: Ken, I do like your way of looking at this! FYI I attach the part of my book Kyoto2 which addresses these questions. Oliver. On 14/09/2013 17:02, Ken Caldeira wrote: Had the Romans discovered fossil fuels, and invented automobiles and power plants and so on, and applied the logic recommended by Nordhaus, right now -- the great ice sheets would be melting, with sea-level probably rising a meter per century -- oceans would be acidified, coral reefs gone -- the arctic as we know it today would be gone -- the tropics would be suffering from blistering heat -- etc Would we be glad that the ancient Romans listened to their economists, and maximized their net present value so they could go on a fossil-fueled spending binge for a century or two? As an aside, when I say we should or should not do something, or that something is good or bad, I am presenting my personal opinion as a human being and not pretending that it is a scientific result. When Eduardo Porter repreresents Nordhaus as says, If investments in CO 2 abatement are not competitive, we would do better by investing elsewhere and using the proceeds to cover warming’s damage., is this supposed to be a representation of personal values, or is this a finding of the science of economics? If the latter, then I would know to see how this science proceeds from empirical facts to prescriptive statements about what we ought to do. What is the experiment that would demonstrate the truth of the quoted sentence? Science tells us facts about the world. Religion and morality tell us about what we ought or ought not to do. Is economics a science or a religion? I prefer the speed of light to be 6 x 10**8 m/s, instead of a measly 3 x 10**8 m/s. Is this like Nordhaus saying he prefers a discount rate of 4%? Do facts matter here, or do we just dress up our values with a little mathematics and pretend it is a science? ___ Ken Caldeira Carnegie Institution for Science Dept of Global Ecology 260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA 94305 USA +1 650 704 7212 kcal...@carnegiescience.edu javascript: http://dge.stanford.edu/labs/caldeiralab @kencaldeira On Sat, Sep 14, 2013 at 11:40 AM, Greg Rau gh...@sbcglobal.netjavascript: wrote: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/11/business/counting-the-cost-of-fixing-the-future.html Interesting article navigating the SCC (social cost of carbon) issue, critical measure for evaluating the applicability of any mitigation action/technology. One revealing quote from Nordhaus: “Investments in reducing future climate damages to corn and trees and
[geo] Re: please see Cool Planet's new Biochar video
Mostly self-congratulatory. However, if they can really pull off $50/barrel and $1.50 per gallon (retail) of automotive ready petrol-equivalent, it would be a serious boon to whatever local economy they build a plant. Furthermore, if they can extend their innovative(*) catalytic process to a broad variety of agricultural, forestry, and domestic (biomass) waste streams, it could significantly cut down on the transportation costs of both the petrol and the biochar products. I am looking forward to seeing how they do. (*) this seems to be one of the few true innovations, though important and under much investigation (NREL), that they have presented...besides the business model -- 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.
Re: [geo] 20 problems with geoengineering, 1 problem with that thing…Nature | the anthropo.scene
The 20 reasons ( Alan's) can be more directly found here: http://anthroposcene.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/20-reasons-geoengineering-robock-2013.pdf There are 20 reasons why radiation and chemotherapy are bad ideas, too, but because of extensive research we know sometimes the benefit of those treatments outweighs the risks. When the patient is the planet and all of it's inhabitants, and current treatments are not working (or some inhabitants are blocking treatment), alternative remedies need to be considered, and it would seem a good idea not to prematurely toss out potential alternative management ideas until research shows that their risks indeed outweigh the benefits. In the end there may be no acceptable alternatives, but given the rather grave circumstances, it would seem a good idea to prove that, before relying on the truly risky option - adaptation, or something worse. Greg From: Andrew Lockley andrew.lock...@gmail.com To: geoengineering geoengineering@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, September 16, 2013 8:30 AM Subject: [geo] 20 problems with geoengineering, 1 problem with that thing…Nature | the anthropo.scene http://jeremyjschmidt.com/2013/09/16/20-problems-with-geoengineering-1-problem-with-that-thing-nature/ 20 problems with geoengineering, 1 problem with that thing…Nature I have a few posts on geoengineering lately (Hamilton’s new book, Earthmasters, an upcoming workshop, and on competing views). I thought I would add this recent essay to the mix on 20 reasons geoengineering may be a bad idea [PDF]. An interesting aspect of the essay is an inserted text box on the ethics of geoengineering.This normative dimension was of interest to me because I’m finalizing my latest book chapter this week on the topic of ethics, governance and geoengineering in the Anthropocene. It will be out next year and I’ll have more details then.Approaching geoengineering from within the Anthropocene requires considering the broader view of the world that legitimated (I would argued that required is more accurate) a wealthy minority of humans taking such a disproportionate and large share of the earth’s life support systems. It also requires confronting the idea of Nature held in that troublesome view. On this, Ursula Heise has a new essay on that thing formerly known as Nature. You can read it here.Here are the first two paragraphs: Encounters with the Thing Formerly Known as Nature Ursula Heise September 9, 2013 — We used to call it nature: forests, lakes, foxes, butterflies, mosquitoes, dandelions. Soils and oceans. Seasonal cycles. Also floods and heat waves and the occasional hurricane. But no more: as Bill McKibben, the environmental writer and activist founder of 350.org, put it back in 1989, climate change implies the end of nature. Nature, McKibben argued, meant a realm separate from human agency, at least for the modern American society of the last two centuries. Anthropogenic climate change, by transforming even places where no human has yet set foot, even atmospheric processes and ocean depths, leaves no particle of the planet untouched and therefore puts it all under the sway of human action. Nature as we used to know it, as the other of human society, is no more.The idea that true nature is only what has not been touched by humans has since come under serious attack as a distinctively American environmentalist bias. It has little traction in developing countries, where environmentalism often means local communities defending their own uses of nature, or in Europe, where untouched nature has been a scarce commodity for centuries. But the idea that humankind now faces a new and fundamentally changed natural world took shape in 2000, when the atmospheric scientist Paul Crutzen and the ecologist Eugene Stoermer proposed the notion of the “Anthropocene,” a new geological era distinct from the Holocene. Humans’ impact on the planet is now so pervasive that it will be visible even in the Earth’s geological strata, Crutzen and Stoermer suggested, and this justifies thinking of our time as a new and different planetary age.” READ MORE HERE -- 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
Re: [geo] CO2 mitigation: $$/benefit
...the discussion of discounting has been truly awful, and it should not have been. is what Lord Stern said, to summarize his discussion of discount rates, the work of Bill Nordhaus, and the work of most economist impact modellers (including his own work heading the Stern Review), in a major speech delivered at the IMF last April. The IMF has the video of the speech *herehttp://www.imf.org/external/mmedia/view.aspx?vid=2274660864001 * EETV has the transcript up *herehttp://www.eenews.net/videos/1659/transcript * A few exerpts from the EETV transcript follow: Stern, on Nordhaus: Bill Nordhaus, who has been in this game a long time, a scholar a gentleman and *a friend*, has built the generic model DICE. Now in the DICE model you lose 50% of output at 19 degrees Centigrade. At 19 degrees, well, you're probably dead at 7, 8, 6. Fifty percent of output at 19 degrees, it can't be sensible in relation to the kinds of events that we're talking about, yet these are the kinds of modelings that people use, including the United States, to measure the social cost of carbon and so on. It's worse than that, actually, because what you have is not simply a multiplicative loss function, which occurs period by period, with no account of history. What you also have is a exogenous growth rate. So you have a production function of capital, labor, whatever, multiplied by a damage function, which is very small, as I've just described, and multiplied by an exogenous growth factor. Well, put in one or two percent in your exogenous growth factor and over a century you've got an overall multiplicative factor of two or three, up to eight or nine, depending on what growth rate that you put in. If you knock off even 50 percent of output, you're still forecasting in a very destructive world output and incomes higher than now. It just doesn't resonate with the kind of problems that we're talking about. Stern, on the assessment of risk published by the Stern Review which he headed: we badly underestimated or badly under-portrayed the kind of risks which we faced Stern, on how economic modellers get it so badly wrong: what you find often is people focusing those models on bits they can understand. So they'll tell you that at four degrees, the agricultural output in Northern India may go down by 20 percent. Well, that's relevant, but it doesn't take into account the rerouting of the flows of the rivers of the Himalayas. It doesn't take into account the disruption of the monsoon. It leaves out, in other words, most of the things that are important. And of course, those of you who know India well will know that agricultural output is only about 15 percent of GDP, so if you take away 20 percent of 15 percent, you knock GDP down by 3 percent, and that's in the agricultural part of the economy, and you don't model the impact so well on the service sector, so you end up with actually rather trivial statements of a radical, of small losses, but a radical transformation of what's going on. He elaborated on this point a bit later in the speech: If we had to describe the really destructive events of the last century, the First World War, the Second World War, the Holocaust, the loss of life of tens of millions under Stalin's Russia and the different structures of collectivization, the great famine in China, where 30, 35 million people died around 1960, we wouldn't do it in terms of one aggregate GDP. That wouldn't convey to people the kind of things that we're worried about. Stern, on why he feels qualified to discuss discount rates: I was the editor of the Journal of Public Economics for about 17 years, from the end of the seventies through the eighties to the early years of the nineties Stern, on how he feels about the work of many of his colleagues: and sometimes I despair at the ignorance of modern public economics Stern, on discount rates, or how economists magically transform dire warnings issued by climate scientists into statements that whatever happens, it hardly matters: Essentially, we discount for two reasons, if we're thinking about the ethics of discounting. One is because future generations may be better off or worse off than us. If they're worse off than us, then we would be thinking of attaching a strong discount to extra benefits that might occur to people who are much better off than ourselves, and we understand the redistributive reasons for that. But of course, as I've argued, they could well be poorer than us, and we have to take that endogeneity of income in a story which is all about big changes in standards of living. In those circumstances, of course, they're going to be much poorer than us, you'd want negative discounting rather than positive discount rate. There's also the question of pure time discounting, and that's how you value lives. How much more or less do you value a life, an identical life, in the future relative to
[geo] 20 problems with geoengineering, 1 problem with that thing…Nature | the anthropo.scene
http://jeremyjschmidt.com/2013/09/16/20-problems-with-geoengineering-1-problem-with-that-thing-nature/ 20 problems with geoengineering, 1 problem with that thing…Nature I have a few posts on geoengineering lately (Hamilton’s new book, Earthmasters, an upcoming workshop, and on competing views). I thought I would add this recent essay to the mix on 20 reasons geoengineering may be a bad idea [PDF]. An interesting aspect of the essay is an inserted text box on the ethics of geoengineering.This normative dimension was of interest to me because I’m finalizing my latest book chapter this week on the topic of ethics, governance and geoengineering in the Anthropocene. It will be out next year and I’ll have more details then.Approaching geoengineering from within the Anthropocene requires considering the broader view of the world that legitimated (I would argued that required is more accurate) a wealthy minority of humans taking such a disproportionate and large share of the earth’s life support systems. It also requires confronting the idea of Nature held in that troublesome view. On this, Ursula Heise has a new essay on that thing formerly known as Nature. You can read it here.Here are the first two paragraphs: Encounters with the Thing Formerly Known as Nature Ursula Heise September 9, 2013 — We used to call it nature: forests, lakes, foxes, butterflies, mosquitoes, dandelions. Soils and oceans. Seasonal cycles. Also floods and heat waves and the occasional hurricane. But no more: as Bill McKibben, the environmental writer and activist founder of 350.org, put it back in 1989, climate change implies the end of nature. Nature, McKibben argued, meant a realm separate from human agency, at least for the modern American society of the last two centuries. Anthropogenic climate change, by transforming even places where no human has yet set foot, even atmospheric processes and ocean depths, leaves no particle of the planet untouched and therefore puts it all under the sway of human action. Nature as we used to know it, as the other of human society, is no more.The idea that true nature is only what has not been touched by humans has since come under serious attack as a distinctively American environmentalist bias. It has little traction in developing countries, where environmentalism often means local communities defending their own uses of nature, or in Europe, where untouched nature has been a scarce commodity for centuries. But the idea that humankind now faces a new and fundamentally changed natural world took shape in 2000, when the atmospheric scientist Paul Crutzen and the ecologist Eugene Stoermer proposed the notion of the “Anthropocene,” a new geological era distinct from the Holocene. Humans’ impact on the planet is now so pervasive that it will be visible even in the Earth’s geological strata, Crutzen and Stoermer suggested, and this justifies thinking of our time as a new and different planetary age.” READ MORE HERE -- 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.
