[geo] Some say we can ‘solar-engineer’ ourselves out of the climate crisis. Don’t buy it Ray Pierrehumbert and Michael Mann

[Geoeng Info]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/22/climate-crisis-emergency-earth-day

Some say we can ‘solar-engineer’ ourselves out of the climate crisis. Don’t
buy it
Ray Pierrehumbert and Michael Mann



What could go wrong with this idea? Well, quite a lot
[image: A coal-fired power station near Liverpool, England.]
‘The heating effect of carbon dioxide persists for ten thousand years or
more, absent unproven technologies for scrubbing carbon dioxide out of the
atmosphere.’ Photograph: Phil Noble/ReutersAs we arrive at Earth Day, there
is renewed hope in the battle to avert catastrophic climate change. Under
newly elected president Joe Biden, the US has reasserted global leadership

in
this defining challenge of our time, bringing world leaders together in
Washington this week

to
galvanize the global effort to ramp down carbon emissions in the decade
ahead.

So there is promise. But there is also great peril looming in the
foreground.

Just as the world, at long last, is getting its act together, an ominous
sun-dimming cloud has appeared on the horizon
,
threatening to derail these nascent efforts. That cloud comes in the form
of technologies whose proponents call – somewhat deceptively – “solar
geoengineering”.

So-called “solar geoengineering” doesn’t actually modify the sun itself.
Instead, it reduces incoming sunlight by other means, such as putting
chemicals in the atmosphere that reflect sunlight to space. It addresses a
symptom of global heating, rather than the root cause, which is
human-caused increase in the atmosphere’s burden of carbon dioxide.

While it is certainly true that reducing sunlight can cause cooling (we
know that from massive but episodic volcanic eruptions such as Pinatubo in
1991), it acts on a very different part of the climate system than carbon
dioxide. And efforts to offset carbon dioxide-caused warming with sunlight
reduction would yield
 a very different
climate, perhaps one unlike any seen before in Earth’s history, with
massive shifts in atmospheric circulation and rainfall patterns and
possible worsening of droughts.

What could possibly go wrong ?
Elizabeth Kolbert’s book Under a White Sky

documents
case after case where supposedly benign environmental interventions have
had unintended consequences requiring layer after layer of escalating
further technological interventions to avert disaster. When the impacts are
local, as in Australia’s struggle to deal with consequences of deliberate
introduction of the cane toad, the spread of catastrophe can be contained
(so far, at least). But what happens when the unintended consequences
afflict the entire planet?

Then there is the mismatch of time scales. The heating effect of carbon
dioxide persists for 10,000 years or more, absent unproven technologies for
scrubbing carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. In contrast, the
sun-dimming particles in question drop out in a year or less, meaning that
if you come to rely on geoengineering for survival, you need to keep it up
essentially forever. Think of it as climate methadone.

And if we are ever forced to stop, we are hit with dangerous withdrawal
symptoms – a catastrophic “termination shock” wherein a century of pent-up
global heating emerges within a decade. Some proponents insist we can
always stop if we don’t like the result. Well yes, we can stop. Just like
if you’re being kept alive by a ventilator with no hope of a cure, you can
turn it off – and suffer the consequences.

Geoengineering evangelists

at
Harvard have pushed for expanded consideration of such technology; as panic
over the climate crisis has grown, so too has support for perilous
geoengineering schemes spread well beyond Cambridge, Massachusetts. And the
lines between basic theoretical research (which is worthwhile – climate
model experiments, for example, have revealed

the
potential perils) on the one hand, and field testing and implementation
 on the
other, have increasingly been blurred.

Solar geoengineering has been cited

RE: [geo] Some say we can ‘solar-engineer’ ourselves out of the climate crisis. Don’t buy it Ray Pierrehumbert and Michael Mann

[SALTER Stephen]

Hi All

The root cause of the root cause of the CO2 problem is the excessive population 
of humans.  The best solution would be genetic engineering of a virus with high 
mortality and transmission efficiency.  Covid 19 is pathetically inadequate.  
We would need to crank up the rate of variant production, improve the width of 
age sensitivity and also make it selective for skin colour, eye shape and 
perhaps even political attitudes.

Stephen

Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design
School of Engineering
Mayfield Road
Edinburgh EH9 3DW
0131 650 5704
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBB6WtH_Ni8



From: geoengineering@googlegroups.com  On 
Behalf Of Geoeng Info
Sent: Thursday, April 22, 2021 9:20 PM
To: Geoengineering@googlegroups.com
Subject: [geo] Some say we can ‘solar-engineer’ ourselves out of the climate 
crisis. Don’t buy it Ray Pierrehumbert and Michael Mann

This email was sent to you by someone outside the University.
You should only click on links or attachments if you are certain that the email 
is genuine and the content is safe.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/22/climate-crisis-emergency-earth-day

Some say we can ‘solar-engineer’ ourselves out of the climate crisis. Don’t buy 
it
Ray Pierrehumbert and Michael 
Mann<https://www.theguardian.com/profile/michael-e-mann>



What could go wrong with this idea? Well, quite a lot
[Image removed by sender. A coal-fired power station near Liverpool, England.]
‘The heating effect of carbon dioxide persists for ten thousand years or more, 
absent unproven technologies for scrubbing carbon dioxide out of the 
atmosphere.’ Photograph: Phil Noble/ReutersAs we arrive at Earth Day, there is 
renewed hope in the battle to avert catastrophic climate change. Under newly 
elected president Joe Biden, the US has reasserted global 
leadership<https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/31/biden-infrastructure-plan-address-climate-crisis>
 in this defining challenge of our time, bringing world leaders together in 
Washington this 
week<https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/03/26/president-biden-invites-40-world-leaders-to-leaders-summit-on-climate/>
 to galvanize the global effort to ramp down carbon emissions in the decade 
ahead.


So there is promise. But there is also great peril looming in the foreground.

Just as the world, at long last, is getting its act together, an ominous 
sun-dimming cloud has appeared on the 
horizon<https://michaelmann.net/content/my-comments-new-national-academy-report-geoengineering>,
 threatening to derail these nascent efforts. That cloud comes in the form of 
technologies whose proponents call – somewhat deceptively – “solar 
geoengineering”.

So-called “solar geoengineering” doesn’t actually modify the sun itself. 
Instead, it reduces incoming sunlight by other means, such as putting chemicals 
in the atmosphere that reflect sunlight to space. It addresses a symptom of 
global heating, rather than the root cause, which is human-caused increase in 
the atmosphere’s burden of carbon dioxide.

While it is certainly true that reducing sunlight can cause cooling (we know 
that from massive but episodic volcanic eruptions such as Pinatubo in 1991), it 
acts on a very different part of the climate system than carbon dioxide. And 
efforts to offset carbon dioxide-caused warming with sunlight reduction would 
yield<https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.2968/064002006> a very different 
climate, perhaps one unlike any seen before in Earth’s history, with massive 
shifts in atmospheric circulation and rainfall patterns and possible worsening 
of droughts.

What could possibly go wrong<https://ncse.ngo/preview-madhouse-effect>? 
Elizabeth Kolbert’s book Under a White 
Sky<https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/mar/26/under-a-white-sky-by-elizabeth-kolbert-review-the-path-to-catastrophe>
 documents case after case where supposedly benign environmental interventions 
have had unintended consequences requiring layer after layer of escalating 
further technological interventions to avert disaster. When the impacts are 
local, as in Australia’s struggle to deal with consequences of deliberate 
introduction of the cane toad, the spread of catastrophe can be contained (so 
far, at least). But what happens when the unintended consequences afflict the 
entire planet?

Then there is the mismatch of time scales. The heating effect of carbon dioxide 
persists for 10,000 years or more, absent unproven technologies for scrubbing 
carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. In contrast, the sun-dimming particles in 
question drop out in a year or less, meaning that if you come to rely on 
geoengineering for survival, you need to keep it up essentially forever. Think 
of it as climate methadone.

And if we are ever forced to stop, we are hit with dangerous withdrawal 
symptoms – a catastrophic “termination shock” wherein a century of pent-up 
global heating emerges with

Re: [geo] Some say we can ‘solar-engineer’ ourselves out of the climate crisis. Don’t buy it Ray Pierrehumbert and Michael Mann

[Daniele Visioni]

For my own mental sanity I will assume this is really cheap sarcasm (and I can 
assure you this is really not funny).

In the same spirit I might suggest that if such a virus was engineered to 
prevent old academics with no skin in the game from venting their uninformed 
opinions on any subject they can think of on international newspapers (or 
elsewhere where they’re not peer reviewed, for that matter), the world would be 
way better off than with any form of population control. 

Daniele


> On 23 Apr 2021, at 08:53, SALTER Stephen  wrote:
> 
> 
> Hi All
>  
> The root cause of the root cause of the CO2 problem is the excessive 
> population of humans.  The best solution would be genetic engineering of a 
> virus with high mortality and transmission efficiency.  Covid 19 is 
> pathetically inadequate.  We would need to crank up the rate of variant 
> production, improve the width of age sensitivity and also make it selective 
> for skin colour, eye shape and perhaps even political attitudes.
>  
> Stephen
>  
> Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design
> School of Engineering
> Mayfield Road
> Edinburgh EH9 3DW
> 0131 650 5704
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBB6WtH_Ni8
>  
>  
>  
> From: geoengineering@googlegroups.com  On 
> Behalf Of Geoeng Info
> Sent: Thursday, April 22, 2021 9:20 PM
> To: Geoengineering@googlegroups.com
> Subject: [geo] Some say we can ‘solar-engineer’ ourselves out of the climate 
> crisis. Don’t buy it Ray Pierrehumbert and Michael Mann
>  
> This email was sent to you by someone outside the University.
> You should only click on links or attachments if you are certain that the 
> email is genuine and the content is safe.
> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/22/climate-crisis-emergency-earth-day
>  
> Some say we can ‘solar-engineer’ ourselves out of the climate crisis. Don’t 
> buy it
> Ray Pierrehumbert and Michael Mann
>  
>  
> What could go wrong with this idea? Well, quite a lot
> <~WRD.jpg>
> ‘The heating effect of carbon dioxide persists for ten thousand years or 
> more, absent unproven technologies for scrubbing carbon dioxide out of the 
> atmosphere.’ Photograph: Phil Noble/ReutersAs we arrive at Earth Day, there 
> is renewed hope in the battle to avert catastrophic climate change. Under 
> newly elected president Joe Biden, the US has reasserted global leadership in 
> this defining challenge of our time, bringing world leaders together in 
> Washington this week to galvanize the global effort to ramp down carbon 
> emissions in the decade ahead.
> 
> So there is promise. But there is also great peril looming in the foreground.
> 
> Just as the world, at long last, is getting its act together, an ominous 
> sun-dimming cloud has appeared on the horizon, threatening to derail these 
> nascent efforts. That cloud comes in the form of technologies whose 
> proponents call – somewhat deceptively – “solar geoengineering”.
> So-called “solar geoengineering” doesn’t actually modify the sun itself. 
> Instead, it reduces incoming sunlight by other means, such as putting 
> chemicals in the atmosphere that reflect sunlight to space. It addresses a 
> symptom of global heating, rather than the root cause, which is human-caused 
> increase in the atmosphere’s burden of carbon dioxide.
> 
> While it is certainly true that reducing sunlight can cause cooling (we know 
> that from massive but episodic volcanic eruptions such as Pinatubo in 1991), 
> it acts on a very different part of the climate system than carbon dioxide. 
> And efforts to offset carbon dioxide-caused warming with sunlight reduction 
> would yield a very different climate, perhaps one unlike any seen before in 
> Earth’s history, with massive shifts in atmospheric circulation and rainfall 
> patterns and possible worsening of droughts.
> What could possibly go wrong? Elizabeth Kolbert’s book Under a White Sky 
> documents case after case where supposedly benign environmental interventions 
> have had unintended consequences requiring layer after layer of escalating 
> further technological interventions to avert disaster. When the impacts are 
> local, as in Australia’s struggle to deal with consequences of deliberate 
> introduction of the cane toad, the spread of catastrophe can be contained (so 
> far, at least). But what happens when the unintended consequences afflict the 
> entire planet?
> Then there is the mismatch of time scales. The heating effect of carbon 
> dioxide persists for 10,000 years or more, absent unproven technologies for 
> scrubbing carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. In contrast, the sun-dimming 
> particles in question drop out in a year or less, meaning that if you come to 
> rely on geoengineering for 

Re: [geo] Some say we can ‘solar-engineer’ ourselves out of the climate crisis. Don’t buy it Ray Pierrehumbert and Michael Mann

[Andrew Lockley]

Got a complaint about that, understandably!

Probably just Stephen's esoteric sense of humour - but just to reiterate
that we have to be careful not to say things that might bring the community
into disrepute.

Anyone who breaks the rules, or says egregious troll things, might get
moderated or ultimately banned.

Andrew

On Fri, 23 Apr 2021, 13:53 SALTER Stephen,  wrote:

> Hi All
>
>
>
> The root cause of the root cause of the CO2 problem is the excessive
> population of humans.  The best solution would be genetic engineering of a
> virus with high mortality and transmission efficiency.  Covid 19 is
> pathetically inadequate.  We would need to crank up the rate of variant
> production, improve the width of age sensitivity and also make it selective
> for skin colour, eye shape and perhaps even political attitudes.
>
>
>
> Stephen
>
>
>
> *Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design*
>
> *School of Engineering*
>
> *Mayfield Road*
>
> *Edinburgh EH9 3DW*
>
> *0131 650 5704*
>
> *https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBB6WtH_Ni8
> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBB6WtH_Ni8>*
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* geoengineering@googlegroups.com  *On
> Behalf Of *Geoeng Info
> *Sent:* Thursday, April 22, 2021 9:20 PM
> *To:* Geoengineering@googlegroups.com
> *Subject:* [geo] Some say we can ‘solar-engineer’ ourselves out of the
> climate crisis. Don’t buy it Ray Pierrehumbert and Michael Mann
>
>
>
> *This email was sent to you by someone outside the University.*
>
> You should only click on links or attachments if you are certain that the
> email is genuine and the content is safe.
>
>
> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/22/climate-crisis-emergency-earth-day
>
>
> Some say we can ‘solar-engineer’ ourselves out of the climate crisis.
> Don’t buy it
>
> *Ray Pierrehumbert and Michael Mann
> <https://www.theguardian.com/profile/michael-e-mann>*
>
>
>
>
>
> What could go wrong with this idea? Well, quite a lot
>
> [image: Image removed by sender. A coal-fired power station near
> Liverpool, England.]
>
> ‘The heating effect of carbon dioxide persists for ten thousand years or
> more, absent unproven technologies for scrubbing carbon dioxide out of the
> atmosphere.’ Photograph: Phil Noble/ReutersAs we arrive at Earth Day,
> there is renewed hope in the battle to avert catastrophic climate change.
> Under newly elected president Joe Biden, the US has reasserted global
> leadership
> <https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/31/biden-infrastructure-plan-address-climate-crisis>
>  in
> this defining challenge of our time, bringing world leaders together in
> Washington this week
> <https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/03/26/president-biden-invites-40-world-leaders-to-leaders-summit-on-climate/>
>  to
> galvanize the global effort to ramp down carbon emissions in the decade
> ahead.
>
> So there is promise. But there is also great peril looming in the
> foreground.
>
> Just as the world, at long last, is getting its act together, an ominous
> sun-dimming cloud has appeared on the horizon
> <https://michaelmann.net/content/my-comments-new-national-academy-report-geoengineering>,
> threatening to derail these nascent efforts. That cloud comes in the form
> of technologies whose proponents call – somewhat deceptively – “solar
> geoengineering”.
>
> So-called “solar geoengineering” doesn’t actually modify the sun itself.
> Instead, it reduces incoming sunlight by other means, such as putting
> chemicals in the atmosphere that reflect sunlight to space. It addresses a
> symptom of global heating, rather than the root cause, which is
> human-caused increase in the atmosphere’s burden of carbon dioxide.
>
> While it is certainly true that reducing sunlight can cause cooling (we
> know that from massive but episodic volcanic eruptions such as Pinatubo in
> 1991), it acts on a very different part of the climate system than carbon
> dioxide. And efforts to offset carbon dioxide-caused warming with sunlight
> reduction would yield
> <https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.2968/064002006> a very
> different climate, perhaps one unlike any seen before in Earth’s history,
> with massive shifts in atmospheric circulation and rainfall patterns and
> possible worsening of droughts.
>
> What could possibly go wrong <https://ncse.ngo/preview-madhouse-effect>?
> Elizabeth Kolbert’s book Under a White Sky
> <https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/mar/26/under-a-white-sky-by-elizabeth-kolbert-review-the-path-to-catastrophe>
>  documents
> case after case where supposedly benign environmental interventions have
>

Re: [geo] Some say we can ‘solar-engineer’ ourselves out of the climate crisis. Don’t buy it Ray Pierrehumbert and Michael Mann

[Daniele Visioni]

“Having no skin in the game” only means that whoever is not a white male 
emeritus professor (or an NAS member like Michael Mann) 
would probably think twice before writing in a public mailing list that anyone 
can read about eugenic proposals that people support for real without a shed of 
irony.
Anybody else in any other more precarious position would probably think “Mmh, 
would this horrible opinion (or joking about this horrible opinion) make me a 
persona non grata everywhere? Maybe I should shut up about it”.

Please remember that your personal definition of what’s “fun” or “irony” might 
not be shared by people who have heard multiple times that their 
location/race/skin color/gender needs to be exterminated for real.
Do you think they would feel welcome in writing in this group (or coming to 
geoengineering meetings) if they suspected we think the solution to solving the 
climate crisis is exterminating them?
Not to mention the fact that there are probably journalists in this group. 

I think profs. Mann and Pierrehumbert (and for that matter, Kevin Surprise and 
prof. Jennie Stephens piece in The Hill) opinion is condescending (and pretty 
grand in calling other people paternalistic)
Not to mention conflating researchers with “geoengineering evangelists”, or 
claiming that solar geoengineering suppresses BLM. Both things I find 
incredibly, personally offensive.
The solution is not to shock in the other direction, by saying that if people 
don’t want to discuss SRM or CDR, then we have to resort to neo-malthusian 
bullcrap.
We can do (as a community) way better than that, and keep our head cool.

I’m not going to discuss your scientific results right now. We can have that 
discussion another time, and we most likely agree on the danger of climate 
change. But this is not what is being discussed here.

Daniele


> On 23 Apr 2021, at 10:14, SALTER Stephen  wrote:
> 
> Daniele
>  
> I have had Covid myself and so I agree that it is not all funny.  My 
> intention was to shock.
>  
> The problem with having only emission reduction by 2050 is means that 
> typhoons, floods, droughts, bushfires, sea-level rise, Arctic ice loss and 
> damage to coral will all be worse, perhaps much worse than at present.  If 
> you think that present conditions are not acceptable you have to conclude 
> that zero emission is not low enough.  As well as reducing emissions we will 
> have to remove greenhouse gases, probably with help from phytoplankton, and 
> also do direct cooling a soon as we can and then ramp it down when emissions 
> are under control. 
>  
> To help inform opinions, the graph below shows estimates of the amount of 
> salt of all sizes thrown up by sea waves plotted against the date of the 
> estimate.
>  
> 
> The small blue circle is the mean at 5.4 gigatonne per year.
>  
> The thickening of the black line on the X axis between 1959 and 2020 shows 
> the mass of sea salt with the mass of 10 ^ -14 grams chosen for a high Kohler 
> nucleation efficiency which we would need for John Latham’s proposal for 
> marine cloud brightening.  This gives what we hope is enough to cancel 
> thermal effects since preindustrial times.  The size of spray is actually 
> where there is a gap between the masses of Aitken and accumulation modes of 
> natural aerosol. 
>  
> Spraying can be stopped at the click of a mouse and salt will be washed back 
> into the sea at the next rainfall.  If we can forecast wind speed and 
> direction a few days ahead we can target hot blobs,  El Nino events and the 
> Indian Ocean dipole which sets the balance between floods and bush fires 
> between Australia and Africa.  Over 20 years we could restore sea level.
>  
> The results below from Stjern et al. show the mean of nine climate models for 
> temperature and precipitation if we increase the concentration of the right 
> size of nuclei in cloudy ocean regions by 50%. Note the blue-green increased 
> precipitation in drought-stricken regions.
>  
> 
>  
> Perhaps the people who have blocked research into this possibility will have 
> uncomfortable thoughts in future.
>  
> I am too old to understand ‘skin in the game’. Please advise.
>  
> Stephen
>  
>  
> Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design
> School of Engineering
> Mayfield Road
> Edinburgh EH9 3DW
> 0131 650 5704
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBB6WtH_Ni8 
> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBB6WtH_Ni8>
>  
>  
> From: Daniele Visioni  <mailto:daniele.visi...@gmail.com>> 
> Sent: Friday, April 23, 2021 2:07 PM
> To: SALTER Stephen mailto:s.sal...@ed.ac.uk>>
> Cc: infogeo...@gmail.com <mailto:infogeo...@gmail.com>; 
> geoengineering@googlegroups.com <mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com>
> Subject: Re: [geo] Some say we can ‘solar-eng

Re: [geo] Some say we can ‘solar-engineer’ ourselves out of the climate crisis. Don’t buy it Ray Pierrehumbert and Michael Mann

[Hawkins, David]

A provocative, in the good sense, exchange.
A couple of comments on the pieces by Pierrehumbert and Mann.
Personally, I feel the arguments against planning for SRM deployment are 
numerous and very strong.  The arguments against research on the subject are 
much weaker.  The SRM topic is being discussed in policy circles.  Not doing 
research will not halt the discussion in policy circles.  Rather, it will tend 
to leave the field open for those who want to hold out SRM as an easy, 
effective alternative to cutting emissions. They can paint a rosy picture 
without having to be concerned about contradictory research findings.
I find no fault with the Pierrehumbert and Mann points about why SRM is not a 
substitute for emission cuts (nor with similar points made by Mann in his more 
nuanced blog on the NRC report 
https://michaelmann.net/content/my-comments-new-national-academy-report-geoengineering).

But taking the recent NRC report to task for proposing an SRM research program 
seems off-base to me.  The NRC report takes pains to state that SRM can never 
be a substitute for emission cuts. It goes further and says the research it 
recommends should “focus on developing policy-relevant knowledge, rather than 
advancing a path for deployment.”  The report recommends SRM be only a  minor 
part of the climate research budget, suggesting $100-200 million total over 
five years.  The report recommends off-ramps, providing for an end to research 
if show-stopper factors emerge.

I would be interested in knowing what specifically in the NRDC report 
Pierrehumbert and Mann disagree with.  I understand the concern that spending 
public money on researching SRM has the potential to “legitimize” the concept 
of SRM.  There is merit to that concern but barring research seems to me to be 
too blunt an instrument to address the concern.  The cost of ignorance is too 
high.

From: Geoengineering  on behalf of Daniele 
Visioni 
Reply-To: "daniele.visi...@gmail.com" 
Date: Friday, April 23, 2021 at 11:19 AM
To: Stephen Salter 
Cc: "infogeo...@gmail.com" , Geoengineering 

Subject: Re: [geo] Some say we can ‘solar-engineer’ ourselves out of the 
climate crisis. Don’t buy it Ray Pierrehumbert and Michael Mann

“Having no skin in the game” only means that whoever is not a white male 
emeritus professor (or an NAS member like Michael Mann)
would probably think twice before writing in a public mailing list that anyone 
can read about eugenic proposals that people support for real without a shed of 
irony.
Anybody else in any other more precarious position would probably think “Mmh, 
would this horrible opinion (or joking about this horrible opinion) make me a 
persona non grata everywhere? Maybe I should shut up about it”.

Please remember that your personal definition of what’s “fun” or “irony” might 
not be shared by people who have heard multiple times that their 
location/race/skin color/gender needs to be exterminated for real.
Do you think they would feel welcome in writing in this group (or coming to 
geoengineering meetings) if they suspected we think the solution to solving the 
climate crisis is exterminating them?
Not to mention the fact that there are probably journalists in this group.

I think profs. Mann and Pierrehumbert (and for that matter, Kevin Surprise and 
prof. Jennie Stephens piece in The Hill) opinion is condescending (and pretty 
grand in calling other people paternalistic)
Not to mention conflating researchers with “geoengineering evangelists”, or 
claiming that solar geoengineering suppresses BLM. Both things I find 
incredibly, personally offensive.
The solution is not to shock in the other direction, by saying that if people 
don’t want to discuss SRM or CDR, then we have to resort to neo-malthusian 
bullcrap.
We can do (as a community) way better than that, and keep our head cool.

I’m not going to discuss your scientific results right now. We can have that 
discussion another time, and we most likely agree on the danger of climate 
change. But this is not what is being discussed here.

Daniele


On 23 Apr 2021, at 10:14, SALTER Stephen 
mailto:s.sal...@ed.ac.uk>> wrote:

Daniele

I have had Covid myself and so I agree that it is not all funny.  My intention 
was to shock.

The problem with having only emission reduction by 2050 is means that typhoons, 
floods, droughts, bushfires, sea-level rise, Arctic ice loss and damage to 
coral will all be worse, perhaps much worse than at present.  If you think that 
present conditions are not acceptable you have to conclude that zero emission 
is not low enough.  As well as reducing emissions we will have to remove 
greenhouse gases, probably with help from phytoplankton, and also do direct 
cooling a soon as we can and then ramp it down when emissions are under control.

To help inform opinions, the graph below shows estimates of the amount of salt 
of all sizes thrown up by sea waves plotted against the date of the estimate.

Re: [geo] Some say we can ‘solar-engineer’ ourselves out of the climate crisis. Don’t buy it Ray Pierrehumbert and Michael Mann

[David Lewis]

 "there is still a safe path forward to addressing the climate crisis" say 
Pierrehumbert and Mann.  They sound so certain.  

On Friday, April 23, 2021 at 1:15:16 PM UTC-7 David Hawkins wrote:

> A provocative, in the good sense, exchange.
>
> A couple of comments on the pieces by Pierrehumbert and Mann.
>
> Personally, I feel the arguments against planning for SRM deployment are 
> numerous and very strong.  The arguments against *research *on the 
> subject are much weaker.  The SRM topic is being discussed in policy 
> circles.  Not doing research will not halt the discussion in policy 
> circles.  Rather, it will tend to leave the field open for those who want 
> to hold out SRM as an easy, effective alternative to cutting emissions. 
> They can paint a rosy picture without having to be concerned about 
> contradictory research findings.
>
> I find no fault with the Pierrehumbert and Mann points about why SRM is 
> not a substitute for emission cuts (nor with similar points made by Mann in 
> his more nuanced blog on the NRC report 
> https://michaelmann.net/content/my-comments-new-national-academy-report-geoengineering
> ).
>
>  
>
> But taking the recent NRC report to task for proposing an SRM research 
> program seems off-base to me.  The NRC report takes pains to state that SRM 
> can never be a substitute for emission cuts. It goes further and says the 
> research it recommends should “focus on developing policy-relevant 
> knowledge, rather than advancing a path for deployment.”  The report 
> recommends SRM be only a  minor part of the climate research budget, 
> suggesting $100-200 million total over five years.  The report recommends 
> off-ramps, providing for an end to research if show-stopper factors emerge.
>
>  
>
> I would be interested in knowing what specifically in the NRDC report 
> Pierrehumbert and Mann disagree with.  I understand the concern that 
> spending public money on researching SRM has the potential to “legitimize” 
> the concept of SRM.  There is merit to that concern but barring research 
> seems to me to be too blunt an instrument to address the concern.  The cost 
> of ignorance is too high.
>
>  
>
> *From: *Geoengineering  on behalf of Daniele 
> Visioni 
> *Reply-To: *"daniele...@gmail.com" 
> *Date: *Friday, April 23, 2021 at 11:19 AM
> *To: *Stephen Salter 
> *Cc: *"infog...@gmail.com" , Geoengineering <
> geoengi...@googlegroups.com>
> *Subject: *Re: [geo] Some say we can ‘solar-engineer’ ourselves out of 
> the climate crisis. Don’t buy it Ray Pierrehumbert and Michael Mann
>
>  
>
> “Having no skin in the game” only means that whoever is not a white male 
> emeritus professor (or an NAS member like Michael Mann) 
>
> would probably think twice before writing in a public mailing list that 
> anyone can read about eugenic proposals that people support for real 
> without a shed of irony.
>
> Anybody else in any other more precarious position would probably think 
> “Mmh, would this horrible opinion (or joking about this horrible opinion) 
> make me a *persona non grata* everywhere? Maybe I should shut up about 
> it”.
>
>  
>
> Please remember that your personal definition of what’s “fun” or “irony” 
> might not be shared by people who have heard multiple times that their 
> location/race/skin color/gender needs to be exterminated *for real*.
>
> Do you think they would feel welcome in writing in this group (or coming 
> to geoengineering meetings) if they suspected we think the solution to 
> solving the climate crisis is exterminating them?
>
> Not to mention the fact that there are probably journalists in this group. 
>
>  
>
> I think profs. Mann and Pierrehumbert (and for that matter, Kevin Surprise 
> and prof. Jennie Stephens piece in The Hill) opinion is condescending (and 
> pretty grand in calling other people paternalistic)
>
> Not to mention conflating researchers with “geoengineering evangelists”, 
> or claiming that solar geoengineering suppresses BLM. Both things I find 
> incredibly, personally offensive.
>
> The solution is not to shock in the other direction, by saying that if 
> people don’t want to discuss SRM or CDR, then we have to resort to 
> neo-malthusian bullcrap.
>
> We can do (as a community) way better than that, and keep our head cool.
>
>  
>
> I’m not going to discuss your scientific results right now. We can have 
> that discussion another time, and we most likely agree on the danger of 
> climate change. But this is not what is being discussed here.
>
>  
>
> Daniele
>
>
>
> On 23 Apr 2021, at 10:14, SALTER Stephen  wrote:
>
>  
>
> Daniele
>
>  
>
>