[geo] Prospect of Climate Engineering | Scribd
http://www.scribd.com/mobile/doc/234934009?width=360 This is a weighty report but I can't attach or copy it, so please view the link. -- 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.
[geo] Geoengineering: Parallels between the Global Climate and the Madison Lakes | Yahara in situ
http://yaharawsc.wordpress.com/2014/07/23/geoengineering-parallels-between-the-global-climate-and-the-madison-lakes/ Extract To understand how geoengineering could play out in reality, looking to lessons learned from our experiences managing other natural systems can be useful. One example with strong parallels to managing the global climate is managing lake water quality. So, what can we learn? Writing in Nature Climate Change, a team of ecologists (myself included), economists, and political scientists argue that geoengineering will benefit some countries and harm others, but we cannot know in advance who the winners and losers will be. -- 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.
[geo] Event : Climate Modification and Ethics in the Anthropocene | School of Humanities and Languages | UNSW Australia
https://hal.arts.unsw.edu.au/events/fighting-fire-with-fire-climate-modification-and-ethics-in-the-anthropocene/ Fighting Fire with Fire - Climate Modification and Ethics in the Anthropocene When:29 Jul 2014, 6pm - 8pm 30 Jul 2014, 9am - 5pmVenue:Sydney University and UNSW Australia First proposed in the mid-1960s, climate modification and direct weather manipulation have a long history and debates about deploying these technologies to mitigate human-induced global warming have been in the background of international climate change policy for some time. In the context of the collective exasperation with the slow progress of international climate change policies there is renewed interest in scientific and policy circles in a suite of technologies through which to engineer the world’s climate. Techniques as diverse as the injection of sulphate particles into the upper atmosphere to deflect radiant energy away from the earth, the use of ocean fertilisation to promote algae growth, and the burial of charred biomass to promote carbon sequestration, are now being openly discussed as constituting a possible “Plan B” response to human-induced global warming. “It seems,” Nigel Clark argues that we are “gearing up to fight fire with fire.” These proposals raise of host of profound social, ethical and normative questions. By bringing together an interdisciplinary group of contemporary scholars, this symposium aims to develop modes of socio-theoretical intervention that articulate the challenges posed by geoengineering and climate modification. The event will situate the geopolitical and economic milieus in which geoengineering research is being undertaken, in consideration with notions of ethics, responsibility and governance in the face of catastrophe. -- 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.
[geo] Thinking Well in a Desperate Situation: Pride, Sloth, and Metaphors - Guest Post- Laura M. Hartman, Augustana College | WGC
http://dcgeoconsortium.org/2014/07/23/thinking-well-in-a-desperate-situation/ The Washington Geoengineering Consortium: Unpacking the social and political implications of climate geoengineering Thinking Well in a Desperate Situation: Pride, Sloth, and Metaphors – Guest Post- Laura M. Hartman, Augustana College The most important ethical element of geoengineering is scale. Climate change is real, it’s happening, and it’s scary. The world of politics is hardly helping: it seems that the only measures that pass the political process are best described as “too little, too late.” Experts and decision makers are getting desperate, which may be why they have begun discussing drastic efforts such as climate geoengineering. The Royal Society defines geoengineering as “the deliberate large-scale manipulation of the planetary environment to counteract anthropogenic climate change.”[1] This means, in short, changing the climate on purpose, in order to un-do the accidental climate change we’ve already engendered. Technological might may win where political negotiation and voluntary self-sacrifice fails. Desperation is hardly a recipe for wisdom, but it is a strong motivation just the same. In a gloomy article that mostly argues against geoengineering, James Lovelock nevertheless concedes, “We have to marshal our resources soon and if a safe form of geoengineering buys us a little time then we must use it.”[2] Despite its challenges and downsides, climate geoengineering may be the best chance we have for maintaining a planet that is habitable for humans and the other creatures who are our neighbors. We need our best thinking to address such a drastic situation, and this includes the humanities – philosophy, religion, literature, and so forth.[3] PRIDE, SLOTH, AND AGENCY As Clingerman and O’Brien aptly argue in a prior post for the Washington Geoengineering Consortium blog, much of the discussion of geoengineering is religious in tone. “Both sides of the debate use the same metaphor of ‘playing god’,” they note, recognizing that intentionally altering the climate puts humans into a domain previously reserved only for deities.[4] They use the Tower of Babel as a Biblical metaphor for human hubris and agency taken too far. Clingerman points out that many religions include rain gods and other deities of the weather; appeasing such gods was an early attempt by humans to control the weather, and to this day “the sheer unpredictability of climate often necessitates a religious response.”[5] Clingerman provocatively suggests that the rain dances and other weather prayers of religious people constitute the first human attempts at geoengineering.[6] Even in 2011, Texas governor Rick Perry called on his citizens to pray for rain in a time of drought and wildfires.[7] According to Clingerman and O’Brien, the geoengineering debate is, arguably, “about sin, repentance, pride, and virtue.”[8] They see two major schools of thought butting heads in this debate. Some worry that the ambition to engineer the climate is a demonstration of human hubris or pride, and the proper response would instead be “a penitent retraction.” Others suggest that “the urgent moral failing to be solved is inaction” – we succumb to the sin of sloth, doing nothing when the situation requires bold action.[9] The contrast between pride and sloth echoes a basic conundrum of Christian ethics described by Reinhold Niebuhr in The Nature and Destiny of Man. Niebuhr describes pride as “a will-to-power which overreaches the limits of human creatureliness.” This rebellion against God, which is a desire to “usurp the place of God,” leads to a disturbance of “the harmony of creation,” and also to injustice.[10] The other major human sin is not sloth exactly, but “sensuality.” While pride refuses to accept human finitude, sensuality refuses to accept human freedom. It is an abdication of responsibility, not unlike the torpor of sloth.[11] These two are a kind of Scylla and Charybdis, twin perils to be avoided and navigated between. Niebuhr’s depth of insight on pride was not matched by his insights about sensuality. It took other thinkers – most notably feminists such as Valerie Saiving – to fully excavate the dimensions of pride’s partner sin. Saiving calls this sin “underdevelopment or negation of the self,” and it is a kind of self-erasure or abdication of the responsibilities of personhood. I would argue that this failure to recognize, cultivate, and properly use one’s own power is indeed a sin.[12] In a sense, both pride and sloth can be understood as the misuse of power. The question of how best to use power is a question about human agency. In the words of Galarraga and Szerszynski, are we architects, imposing order on the climate? Are we artisans, responding to the climate’s inherent qualities? Are we artists, envisioning and building new worlds?[13] SCALE AND METAPHOR While I appreciate Galarraga and Szersynski’s work on models of human agency, and
[geo] Clive Hamilton Podcast | WGC
http://dcgeoconsortium.org/podcasts/ The Washington Geoengineering Consortium: Unpacking the social and political implications of climate geoengineering Podcasts July 24, 2014-Clive Hamilton In a conversation recorded on January 15, 2014, author and public intellectual Clive Hamilton speaks with Simon Nicholson, of the Washington Geoengineering Consortium. Hamilton explains why he believes the idea of climate geoengineering cannot be ignored, and what forces he sees pushing the world towards eventual deployment of such technologies. While in his writing he argues that potential solar radiation management schemes like stratospheric sulphate aerosol injection may be too problematic to consider, he says “in my own heart, I do have doubts.” There may come a moment when the situation becomes “so dire that doing climate geoengineering of this sort is better than the alternative – doing nothing,” he says. For Hamilton, there is no straightforward answer- “This is a desperately complex issue, with all sorts of scientific, moral and political complications that we have to grapple with and weigh up.” In the podcast, you’ll hear Dr. Hamilton refer to the Solar Radiation Management Governance Initiative (SRMGI). You can read about the SRMGI in a blog post written for the Washington Geoengineering Consortium by members Andy Parker and Alex Hanafi. You’ll also hear reference to two of Hamilton’s books-Requiem for a Species: Why We Resist the Truth About Climate Change (Routledge, 2010), and Earthmasters: The Dawn of the Age of Climate Engineering (Yale University Press, 2013). Hear the full conversation 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/d/optout.
[geo] Exclusive interview with Russia's leading permafrost expert, fresh from Siberian hole
Marina Leibman says some fascinating things about the durability of permafrost in the face of surface warming, including some negative feedbacks that further insulate it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5fK3TT2GAQfeature=youtu.be -- *_* ANDREW C. REVKIN Dot Earth blogger http://www.nytimes.com/dotearth, The New York Times Senior Fellow http://www.pace.edu/paaes/faculty-and-staff, Pace U. Academy for Applied Env. Studies Cell: 914-441-5556 Fax: 914-989-8009 Twitter: @revkin http://twitter.com/revkin Skype: Andrew.Revkin Music: A Very Fine Line http://veryfinelines.com CD -- 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.
Re: [geo] Multi model assessment of regional climate disparities caused by solar geoengineering
Hi Ken - Thanks for your interest! I would be very happy to see such a paper. All of the GeoMIP model output that we used for our paper is publicly available on the Earth System Grid archives, so if you're interested in leading such a paper, please feel free. Best, Ben On Wednesday, July 23, 2014 8:12:18 AM UTC-7, kcaldeira wrote: Will there be a follow up paper focused on the regional climate disparities that might be alleviated by solar geoengineering? ___ 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 https://twitter.com/KenCaldeira Assistant: Dawn Ross dr...@carnegiescience.edu javascript: On Wed, Jul 23, 2014 at 12:03 AM, Andrew Lockley andrew@gmail.com javascript: wrote: Attached -- 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 geoengineerin...@googlegroups.com javascript:. To post to this group, send email to geoengi...@googlegroups.com javascript:. 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. 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.
[geo] PNNL: Dust Increases Cloud Cover
Poster's note : a fascinating result which could affect existing geoengineering proposals as well as sparking new ones http://www.pnl.gov/science/highlights/highlight.asp?groupid=749id=3717 Atmospheric Sciences Global Change Division Research Highlights July 2014 Dust Increases Cloud CoverScientists find an unexpected culprit encouraging cloud formation The satellite image shows western Africa, where dust storms carry particles across the Atlantic Ocean and into the atmosphere. The inset graph (enlarge image) shows the inter-annual correlation between the June-July-August mean dust burden and lower tropospheric cloud fraction anomalies simulated by the model over the tropical/subtropical Atlantic Ocean.Satellite image courtesy of NASA.Enlarge Image. Results: Surprisingly, cloud cover increases when more dust blows off the west coast of Africa, according to a long global climate simulation run by researchers from the University of California San Diego and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. They expected that heat radiating off of dust, which absorbs solar energy, would burn off the clouds. Instead, the team found more clouds as more dust flows from Africa over the Atlantic Ocean. The Community Earth System Model (CESM)produced the simulations in this research. In our simulations, we see that above the clouds, the heat given off by dust makes the atmosphere more stable which, in turn, reduces air mixing between the clouds below and the much drier air above the clouds, said the paper's co-author Dr. Steven J. Ghan, Laboratory Fellow and atmospheric scientist at PNNL. By reducing that mixing, more of the water evaporating from the ocean can produce clouds. Why It Matters: Global climate models are necessary to provide a view of the future effects of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide. Distinguishing the climate impact of carbon dioxide from natural variations in the climate becomes important to understand what triggers these natural variations. Shifting wind and precipitation patterns are natural influences that provoke dust lofted in the air from Africa. The impacts of dust on clouds were previously unknown, yet appear to be an important factor in altering the Earth's energy balance for years. This research is part of the effort to describe and understand naturally occurring background climate changes. By simulating the effects of dust over North Africa without the effects of emissions from human activity, such as coal-burning power plants, they can isolate a view of this natural event to understand the full impact of dust as it influences cloud formation. Methods: The researchers used various observation data such as dust and dust sources, cloud cover and composition, and aerosol optical depth from ground and satellite information for their study. They ran a CESM simulation for 150 years under pre-industrial conditions, i.e., without emissions caused by human activity to view the climate interactions isolated from human influence. They then examined the cloud-aerosol relationships on a year-to-year timescale. The research found a strong cloud cover enhancement below plumes of dust transported from Africa. They identified the driving mechanism of this increase as a suppression of vertical mixing due to dust absorbing sunlight. What's Next? The scientists are investigating the climatic signature of natural variations in other aerosol particle types, such as sea salt and wildfire smoke. Acknowledgments Sponsor: Development of the CESM and the research for this paper was partially funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science Biological and Environmental Research program for the Earth System Modeling Program. Research Team: Michael J. DeFlorio, Arthur J. Miller, Daniel R. Cayan, Lynn M. Russell, and Richard C. J. Somerville of University of California San Diego; and Steven J. Ghan and Balwinder Singh of PNNL. Research Area: Climate Earth Systems Science Reference: DeFlorio MJ, SJ Ghan, B Singh, AJ Miller, DR Cayan, LM Russell, and RCJ Somerville. 2014. Semi-Direct Dynamical and Radiative Impact of North African Dust Transport on Lower Tropospheric Clouds over the Subtropical North Atlantic in CESM 1.0. Journal of Geophysical Research, early view July 2014. DOI: 10.1002/2013JD020997. -- 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.
