Icebergs

I read with great interest James Cameron's comments on the Titanic story and its use as an analogy to climate change:

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/04/13/463957/the-titanic-at-100-years-were-still-ignoring-warnings-this-time-its-climate-change-says-director-james-cameron/

He's right of course, the class of ticket you held dictated your likelihood of survival, a key point often missed in climate debates until recently. I regularly get asked if I am worried for my grandchildren - I often answer simply 'no'. This is, of course, not really true - we are stewards for the planet our grandchildren will inherit and we are making a horrible mess of that job. However, my grandchildren will probably be in a much better situation than those who are less able/cannot afford to adapt.

Some key questions/observations emerge - and these have been pondered a great deal already:

Have we (or are we definitely going to) hit the iceberg?
I'm not the person to answer this, but my colleagues responses could be collectively summed up as 'Not yet, but we will'. Their meaning is that if we cut carbon dioxide emissions to zero tomorrow we'd stay below two degrees of warming, but that's not going to happen is it?

Your value, and definition, of nature drives how far you are willing to go to sustain and protect it. Earth Day passed virtually unnoticed in the news yesterday. The simple truth is that people don't care that much. Why shouldn't today be an Earth Day too?


How will our relationship with nature (or what we take for nature) change if we invoked SRM?
Does it matter if our skies are less blue? Personally, I think, were that the only side effect, it might be a price worth paying BUT I've started to realise that our perception of nature must ultimately change if make tangible, intentional, global scale changes to climate. Nothing will be natural, nothing will be wild - I'm not sure I can live with that?

Does that make 'geoengineers' lifeboat designers?
A far too soft an analogy - pushing what is already discomfort in positivity far beyond my limits. For starters it was better to be in a lifeboat than not - we can't say that's true for CE.

Some thinking...

I feel like Climate Engineering (CE) - a much clearer term than geoengineering by the way - stands on something of a cusp. There is little doubt that CE is more visible and that it is not the taboo it once was. Most of what I hear feels sensible, humble and restrained, especially from those wrestling with the really big questions. The issue of intellectual property is now being further explored, especially by David Keith and others in the US and there has been a very interesting discusssions on fora various. We have been working on an ethical statement for SPICE about our intentions - it currently stands as follows...

• The SPICE project is a feasibility study and does not endorse deployment of any climate engineering technologies

• The SPICE team is committed to openness and transparency

• All results developed from the SPICE project (including foreground IP) will be placed in the public domain

• No profit will be made during the SPICE project, through climate engineering, by the SPICE team

I know it needs some thinking about and there are some challenging issues but, after having spoken to the SPICE team I think it's important we make our intentions clear, again. 

Confusion abounds

There are some very mixed messages coming out of the current environmental audit comission meeting on the Arctic. Even given the fact that most media organisations/writers have strong feelings/predicatable biases these appear difficult to resolve.

1. Sea ice retreat timescales (Met Office, via Guardian: 2040-2060, BBC, via AMEG: 2013)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17400804
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/mar/14/met-office-arctic-sea-ice-loss-winter?INTCMP=SRCH

2. Salter's own position on rapid deployment in the arctic (BBC: alarmingly positive (reportedly), Google groups (from the horse's mouth) : wholly negative).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17400804
http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering/browse_thread/thread/9019051258cfd7d9#

Prof. Salter, who I greatly admire by the way, also caused a stir with this (from the same BBC article)...

'The idea of putting dust particles into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight, mimicking the cooling effect of volcanic eruptions, would in fact be disastrous for the Arctic, said Prof Salter, with models showing it would increase temperatures at the pole by perhaps 10C.'

His source is here...
http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/10/5999/2010/acp-10-5999-2010.pdf 

There are some major issues with the statement above, as highlighted by Ken Caldiera here....
http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering/browse_thread/thread/3197d7a41e2370bf#

This is why we need a decent, open discussion.

AMEG

Interesting post from Josh Horton yesterday (25/02) here:

http://geoengineeringpolitics.blogspot.com/2012/02/environmental-audit-committee-hearing.html

I agree with most of his interpretation but find the last paragraph somewhat negative. Josh writes:

'On balance, geoengineering did not fare well in the hearing. This is not surprising given that its implementation in the Arctic is clearly premature at present. The absence of support from the scientific establishment for rapid implementation ought to signal to advocates of Arctic deployment that the case for action now is not persuasive, and calls for geoengineering in the near future are unwise. Unfortunately, AMEG and its sympathizers may draw the opposite conclusion, and redouble their efforts to convince sceptical scientists and policymakers that the end is nigh, further marginalizing geoengineering in the process.'

I agree, after reviewing the video (thanks Josh) that geoengineering did not fare that well. I also highly doubt AMEG are going to change their minds. However, what I find comforting is that researchers into geoengineering have been very quick to argue strongly that rapid deployment in the artic is hugely premature and exceptionally unwise. Those researching both cloud whitening and stratospheric aerosols (both presented as potential solutions by AMEG) have been exceptionally clear on this.  Surely this points to strong self-governance and undermines the argument that those seriously researching geoengineering are desperate to deploy?

The researchers within SPICE are universally opposed to rapid (timescale months) deployment, specifically using SPICE technology, as proposed by AMEG. Deployment cannot be undertaken due to:

(1) our total lack of understanding of the risks
(2) serious ethical and governance issues as yet wholly unresolved
(3) a lack of consensus (in fact the AMEG are in the minority) about methane production from the arctic, as described by Tim Lenton
(4) practical technological developmental times (absolute minimum 3-5 years - specific to SPICE - this development time is for the technology only and does not consider the impacts of deployment in the arctic).

We simply cannot deploy any such technologies without fully considering all the facets of all the consequences of geoengineering (especially true for SRM) and even then it may not be apposite, legal or ethically acceptable to do so.

It is worth noting (lest I fall into a trap I've already highlighted) - http://thereluctantgeoengineer.blogspot.com/2011/06/ecotopia-new-moral-hazard.html - that the situation in the artic (in terms of sea ice loss) is real and serious. The most alarming thing to me is the lack of understanding of this issue from within the environmental audit commission itself.

Back from Central America

There's nothing like a trip to the global South (or third, or even fourth, world according to here - http://faculty.ucc.edu/egh-damerow/global_south.htm) to give one a sense of perspective. The volcanic highlands of Guatemala provide a visual stunning backdrop to some of the most grotesque manifestations of abject poverty I've ever witnessed. This is my eighth year in a row leading the 'natural hazards in central America' fieldtrip (and my fifteenth (or so) visit to the region) and I am still shocked.

Of course, most of my thinking whilst in the field is about hazards, risk and resilience as well as physical volcanology (my day job). That said, the ethics of climate engineering seems to infuse my consciousness these days. Some questions arose:

What do they [the impoverished indigenos of Guatemala] want? - they can see things changing and they don't have any tolerance for additional stress from climate, but do they really want climate engineering?

Whilst I am possibly more qualified to think about climate engineering, does that give me/anyone the right to decide for them? - No, it doesn't. Simple as that.

Will they have say in what happens? - I seriously doubt it, they are largely invisible in their own country let alone the world stage.

All of this does nothing to change my mind that we are better of knowing about geoengineering (i.e. researching it) than not. How can a position of ignorance ever be better? As for deployment [SRM]? - every day I become less convinced it's a good idea (and I started off from a pretty sceptical viewpoint).

shocker

http://www.forbes.com/sites/louiswoodhill/2011/12/28/even-the-warmists-dont-believe-in-global-warming/

Climate denier trashes AGW then endorses geoengineering in hypocrisy shocker...

Oh, Canada

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-16151310