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The Royal Society Proposes First Framework For Climate Engineering Experiments
Jason Koebler writes The Royal Society of London, the world's oldest scientific publisher, has unveiled a proposal to create the first serious framework for future geoengineering experiments. It's a sign that what are still considered drastic and risky measures to combat climate change are drifting further into the purview of mainstream science. The scientific body has issued a call to create "an open and transparent review process that ensures such experiments have the necessary social license to operate."
If I were a schill for big business, I'd be all, "Yeah yeah! Do it! Let's compensate by geoengineering!"
DO NOT DO THIS. If it works and you overshoot, you'll induce another ice age, which can happen in as few as a couple of years. Unlike moving in from the oceans over 100-300 years (a nuisance, and less damaging to human life than slowing technological advancement by massive intervention in the economy) an ice age will indeed, and actually, and rapidly kill billions of people.
Lik Willy Wonka, I will sigh and burble flatedly, "No. Stop. Don't do it." but the children won't listen.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
When they say "open and transparent" what they mean is that anyone who's even vaguely sceptical will be hounded out at the first opportunity.
Instead of potentially dangerous experiments, may I suggest the oldest known and proven solution to global warming?
This is extremely complicated, so please bear with me for a minute or two:
Plant. More. Trees.
Don't believe me? Fine, don't take my word for it. Heck, even that bastion of free enterprise, The Economist got behind that idea!
So, why is not implemented on a large scale? Because planting trees is not techonologically "sexy" - it is well known, has been well known for centuries, and, for maximum effect, would require rich countries to invest serious money in poorer countries, to save the rainforest (which is where tree-planting would have maximum impact). And we cannot allow these natives to get money to do something as simple as plant a tree, right?
In other words, the wealthiest have decided it is a lot more fun to throw money at dangerous or even foolish and ineffectual solutions rather than provide for jobs and development in the poorest countries of the world -- precisely the countries that will suffer the most due to global warming. Make of that what you will.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
Oh yeah, that sweet sweet grant money. Everyone knows scientists who support global warming are all riding around on their private yachts paid for with the grant money they lied in their research to get, whereas the poor defenseless honest scientists who are sceptical of global warming are all broke and starving because no one will pay them a dime.
No, they are not running around on their yachts. They are fighting for a living share of a dwindling supply of cash. They are coming out of the woodwork trying to protect their livelihoods and paychecks for fear they might have to get an industry job where there is accountability for results, not just being able to get grant money. They are fighting to stay relevant, so they can keep their PHD students in subjects do develop and defend, right or wrong.
You see, this is academia we are discussing, not business. If this was a business venture, we would have had our answer years ago and wouldn't need another round of National Science Foundation funding to investigate this, or come up with another model that disagrees with the 20 we already have which are not good enough. We certainly wouldn't need a "frame work" to more fairly dole out the funds.
What we really have is survival of the fittest, capitalistic, style. A bunch of these folks will be taking up new avenues of research, getting other jobs, or just retiring without their Nobel Peace Prize. The question is who will make the cut and what will they do when they get desperate.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
You could propose that as a geoengineering experiment.
But the short term costs are horrendous. Billions dead. Unlikely to be a good tradeoff.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
A scientist who doesn't consider all paths to solving a problem is not a very good scientist. Let me emphasise.....CONSIDER all paths. To ignore geoengineering as a possible solution to what is happening NOW would be foolish and irresponsible.
DO NOT DO THIS. If it works and you overshoot, you'll induce another ice age, which can happen in as few as a couple of years.
No, an ice age is not something that can happen in a couple of years. The thermal capacitance of the oceans pretty much guarantees that. If you look at the records of past ice ages (glaciations) over the past million years the drop into them is usually much slower than the rise out of them.
Besides that, nothing about geoengineering is long lasting. It pretty much requires that you keep doing it to maintain the effect. That will be an ongoing expense without any clear end.
You have to keep the flow up as the environment gets worse, and at some point you run out of the resources to geoengineer, which causes a kickback effect that is a large multiple of the geoengineered impact.
Think of it as applying the brakes lightly at the same time that you're flooring the accelerator.
Then you take your foot off the brake while you're going down a steep decline, where you started at a mild decline.
Suddenly you're careening down the hill, out of control.
The best thing to do is stop subsidizing bad behavior that increases it (e.g. fossil fuels) and start requiring all new construction to meet new energy codes (half of all energy use is to heat and cool buildings, and passive solar and insulation can cut that dramatically) while you retrofit any existing fossil fuel plants (e.g. using cogeneration for all pre-2000 coal plants, and phasing out the dirtiest plants by expiring reauthorizations for permits when they come due.
People like to pretend massive change is needed. Energy is not a Binary On/Off thing - a partial change by the largest consumers (e.g. China) causes massive change. Air travel is the largest personal behavior change for people who live in cities (replace old jets with 787s and turboprops and build high speed rail).
There, that's half your carbon impact.
Now stop whining.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I guess we won't know if we don't do the research, but it concerns me that it could be seen as "Don't worry, we'll just put everything back, so go ahead and dig up that last ounce of fossil fuel." Even if the geoengineering approach can do more good than harm, it doesn't let us off the hook to produce less carbon, which will mitigate the damage. And we're having a hard enough time getting anything done on that score without adding a new phase to climate change denialism: "We can fix it."
While the moral hazard of geoengineering is rather obvious as a problem, so is the assumption that humanity only has one purpose, to keep the climate the same as it was in 1850.
We simply do not know enough about the planet to 'engineer' it.
Every past effort to 'engineer' nature, even the simplest, has discovered things it failed to take in to account eg. introduction of 'control' species that became 'invasive'.
On top of which, we don't have to engineer our way out of this. The clear solutions arepresent albeit mundane: more trees, less waste.
'Engineering' the planet simply means finding a way to allow us (humans) to continue to make inefficient or wasteful use of our resources.
So this is where I personally opt out.
I will deny climate change simply in an effort to keep people from screwing with the planet and to encourage others to protest experiments.
My next house will have two airconditioners, four cars (all SUV's), two pools, and as much 'always on' electronic gadgetry as I can stuff in it.
All my future purchases will be quadruple wrapped in plastic, all my food processed, and I'll no longer recycle.
If you're going to engineer the planet, I'm going to make it worth your while.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.