I don't think this is a very good summary of the viewpoints from that debate. like, the anti-geoengineering side of that debate is participating in the debate. just by definition, they are in fact...
This Intelligence Squared debate is a good summary of the geoengineering controversy. Basically, the anti-geoengineering side argues that these plans are way too speculative and risky. The pro-geoengineering side — which would more accurately be called the “pro considering geoengineering side” — argues that hell yes, these plans are speculative and risky, but given the scale of the problem, we need to consider them in case they’re needed in the future.
I don't think this is a very good summary of the viewpoints from that debate.
like, the anti-geoengineering side of that debate is participating in the debate. just by definition, they are in fact considering geoengineering. they are saying that after considering it, they think the downsides outweigh the upsides.
it seems sloppy at best and misleading at worst to frame the debate as between people who are staunchly opposed without even considering it on the one hand, and people who just want to consider it on the other.
here is a better summary of the anti-geoengineering side in that debate, as summarized by the debaters themselves:
Clive Hamilton, author of "Earthmasters: The Dawn of the Age of Climate Engineering."
"Each decision will change the weather conditions of some people more than others. Who would you trust to have such power? Our opponents believe that it will be done on the advice of a cohort of clever, rational scientists. But that's not how the world works."
Anjali Viswamohanan, scholar at University of Oxford.
"The list of negative impacts on deployment is quite long, but one of the most immediate impacts will be to the change in the precipitation cycles. It will also affect tropical forests, the ozone layer, and the oceans."
also, the focus of the debate was specifically about solar geoengineering - things like releasing reflective particles into the stratosphere to block some amount of sunlight. the arguments from the debate don't necessarily apply to other proposals such as painting significant chunks of the Earth's surface with super-duper-white paint, or doing direct CO2 capture, etc.
if I ctrl-F for "moral hazard" in this essay - nothing. ditto "termination shock".
those, from my perspective, are the two most relevant factors we should consider when talking about the opposition to / skepticism of geoengineering. and this essay doesn't engage with them at all.
specifically, the moral hazard that if we engage in large-scale geoengineering projects, that can be seen as a license to continue burning fossil fuels and emitting CO2, because we have a "fix" to the problem. when what we should be doing instead is drastically cutting carbon emissions, and keeping geoengineering as an option in our back pocket to mitigate the worst effects of the carbon we've already emitted.
and hand-in-hand with that, termination shock - all that CO2 continues to build up in our atmosphere, while we release sun-blocking particles into the upper atmosphere, or whatever. if we at some point stop doing the geoengineering, all that CO2 is still there, and there's an accelerated "snap back" as the effects of the geoengineering fade away.
Rational, cost-benefit analysis will be more useful than hysterics.
this is a subtle, kind of shitty way of saying/implying one side of the debate is being rational, and the other side is being hysterical. (and it's pretty clear from the context of the rest of the piece which side the author thinks is which)
for an essay with the purported goal of improving the conversation about geoengineering, I think it fails pretty badly.
Yeah, from what I read termination shock is pretty fucking scary. Like the potential to cause a worse extinction event then what we are already seeing. Also, isn't there the potential that a...
Yeah, from what I read termination shock is pretty fucking scary. Like the potential to cause a worse extinction event then what we are already seeing.
Also, isn't there the potential that a billionaire or group just decides to start geoengineering without the consent of other people or other governments? From what I can tell, there are no treaties or laws in effect to really stop this. I don't think someone could do it without some forewarning since these all seem to be massive projects, but we have too many misguided billionaires so please no one tell musk about solar radiation management or he'll likely start shooting X particles into the air.
I’m sorry to give such a short reply to your comment, but I thought the part where the author pulled up comments to the times article was interesting. The arguments, especially “once again...
I’m sorry to give such a short reply to your comment, but I thought the part where the author pulled up comments to the times article was interesting. The arguments, especially “once again addressing symptoms, not root causes”, and “…has also been criticized for distracting from the root problem: Humans must stop burning fossil fuels to avoid more catastrophic effects of climate change” read to me as “locking your door doesn’t address the root problem: humans must stop breaking and entering homes”.
I get the message they are trying to convey, it just seems weird that we wouldn’t try for damage control while we address the root problems.
Its a good point, but I think one point against geoengineering is that 99% of it could be replaced with: Stop building parking lots, start planting forests. Everywhere in the US you see a empty...
Its a good point, but I think one point against geoengineering is that 99% of it could be replaced with: Stop building parking lots, start planting forests.
Everywhere in the US you see a empty plot of grass more than 10x10? There should be one or more trees in it. A tree serves the exact same function of hyperwhite paint, except it also removes carbon from the air and provides a place for wildlife to live.
Geoengineering is often trying to solve an energy-expending crisis by increasing demand for energy (I'm particularily thinking efforts like carbon scrubbers). There's rarely projects like permaculture villages being discussed, or deindustrializing. It all reeks of "don't worry, we'll invent our way out of this."
I guess its a way of saying that geoengineering as an actual process is not the absolute worst thing. But geoengineering that is focused around advances in technology instead of process/implementation is barking up the wrong tree.
And the reason for a lot of the either-or...the brainpower being used to invent hyperwhite paint would probably be better spent trying to figure out how to get people to stop driving 2000lb vehicles to move 300 lbs of human flesh and groceries.
I think if we want to be a global civilization that lasts more than a few hundred years it is inevitable that we will have to actively manage the climate. Even if we solved the fossil...
I think if we want to be a global civilization that lasts more than a few hundred years it is inevitable that we will have to actively manage the climate.
Even if we solved the fossil fuel/greenhouse problem there will be more issues. There are billions of us. We now know that we have the power to significantly impact the weather. We will continue to change the climate no matter what going forward. The only decision is if we do it mindfully or if we shut our eyes and hope that "mother nature" will figure it out for us.
For better or worse I think the earth is no longer wild. We should run it like a national park. Where we try to have the lightest touch possible, but still monitor and try to head off potential problems as they come up.
I think the hardest part isn't really the engineering. It's the politics of who is responsible for doing what and how our "management" will effect different regions in different ways. There will always be trade offs, people who benefit and people who suffer from any climate change. I have no idea how we can handle that side of things.
If I ever write a fiction story set in the future, yep it has long been in my head that the characters would not have a concept of nature in the same way that I don't have a concept of dangerous...
For better or worse I think the earth is no longer wild.
If I ever write a fiction story set in the future, yep it has long been in my head that the characters would not have a concept of nature in the same way that I don't have a concept of dangerous animals outside of zoos around here (Netherlands). No dirt anywhere ever, everything is roofed and vacuumed on a regular schedule. Except some nature reserves, but you look at that and don't go in because it's dirty and icky and we're not uncivilised cavepeople anymore, just like a zoo today only has the dangerous animals at a safe distance and you don't go hunt them
I feel this so much. I want to be invested in climate change and work to make a difference, but it can be a real chore to deal with persistently pessimistic people who are sometimes associated...
I attribute geoengineering’s understated place in the dialogue partly to the fact that some percentage of the environmental movement is a cult that sees climate change as an opportunity to scold humanity for its wickedness.
I feel this so much. I want to be invested in climate change and work to make a difference, but it can be a real chore to deal with persistently pessimistic people who are sometimes associated with the topic.
I get really put off when people try to argue against geoengineering research, just small scale trials, by saying things like it's a distraction or an opportunity cost.
If you think it's a distraction to talk about different possibilities, then what that says to me is that you only want to talk about the things you think you are unambiguously right about. Which means NOT really having a discussion, but rather a lecture. I dont want to sign up to be lectured to by people I don't really respect intellectually.
Geoengineering is fine if it incorporated intelligent solutions such as using natural sources for answers. IE planting trees. Its bad engineering to not look at the problem as a whole with all...
Geoengineering is fine if it incorporated intelligent solutions such as using natural sources for answers. IE planting trees. Its bad engineering to not look at the problem as a whole with all solutions instead of just assuming more tech is the only answer
I think people are already planting trees; that's not a skipped step when talking of what more concrete things we can do that actually make a difference on a planetary scale Also, I don't know...
I think people are already planting trees; that's not a skipped step when talking of what more concrete things we can do that actually make a difference on a planetary scale
Also, I don't know whether I'm preaching to the choir here but planting trees is one of the comparatively more useless things you can choose to do for global warming in most circumstances. It has more to do with nature preservation than climate change, exceptions being specific trees in specific places like in cities, and even there it is a coping/adaptation mechanism more than prevention. Assuming carbon sequestration as the goal of planting trees, direct air capture from either the atmosphere in general or high-concentration locations like at exhaust pipes is what would make a measurable difference. But it's expensive per kg (trees are dirt cheap, yet less effective per euro) and so people wonder out loud, why can't we just not change our lifestyle and send up a few planes with magic sparkles and keep using dino sap? It's a conversation to have, not one to be cut short with "why is nobody considering planting more trees" - we're way beyond that point now. You literally can't fit enough trees in usable locations on land to get the job done, as far as I've heard, and if we could then their growth would still be slower than the nuclear plants that people are saying are too slow to build compared to when we need the stabilisation in CO2 levels, so from my understanding it's a doubly impossible proposal
All this talk of whether we should or shouldn't and no one has stopped to realize that we have already been doing it for hundreds of years. We very much should talk about how to undo the damage we...
All this talk of whether we should or shouldn't and no one has stopped to realize that we have already been doing it for hundreds of years. We very much should talk about how to undo the damage we have done and continue to do. Short of our near immediate extinction, the planet will not be able to bring back the golden age of the Holocene. Too much damage has been done and there are no plans to cease the activity that caused that damage.
If Boeing isn't interested in developing a 737 replacement (why is it domestic flyers have to suffer with a 1967 plane) they should be developing an airplane as described here:...
If Boeing isn't interested in developing a 737 replacement (why is it domestic flyers have to suffer with a 1967 plane) they should be developing an airplane as described here:
I did think about doing a kickstarter to do an iron fertilization mission (a twisted sequel to Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior) but talked to experts who told me not to do it. For one thing it is not simple to just dump some iron off the side of a barge, to make sure the iron is being effective you've got to carefully target it and you'll need a whole flotilla to observe the response. It's likely that you're just borrowing from future production in other places and there is the risk you'll encourage undesirable organisms to grow.
I don't think this is a very good summary of the viewpoints from that debate.
like, the anti-geoengineering side of that debate is participating in the debate. just by definition, they are in fact considering geoengineering. they are saying that after considering it, they think the downsides outweigh the upsides.
it seems sloppy at best and misleading at worst to frame the debate as between people who are staunchly opposed without even considering it on the one hand, and people who just want to consider it on the other.
here is a better summary of the anti-geoengineering side in that debate, as summarized by the debaters themselves:
also, the focus of the debate was specifically about solar geoengineering - things like releasing reflective particles into the stratosphere to block some amount of sunlight. the arguments from the debate don't necessarily apply to other proposals such as painting significant chunks of the Earth's surface with super-duper-white paint, or doing direct CO2 capture, etc.
if I ctrl-F for "moral hazard" in this essay - nothing. ditto "termination shock".
those, from my perspective, are the two most relevant factors we should consider when talking about the opposition to / skepticism of geoengineering. and this essay doesn't engage with them at all.
specifically, the moral hazard that if we engage in large-scale geoengineering projects, that can be seen as a license to continue burning fossil fuels and emitting CO2, because we have a "fix" to the problem. when what we should be doing instead is drastically cutting carbon emissions, and keeping geoengineering as an option in our back pocket to mitigate the worst effects of the carbon we've already emitted.
and hand-in-hand with that, termination shock - all that CO2 continues to build up in our atmosphere, while we release sun-blocking particles into the upper atmosphere, or whatever. if we at some point stop doing the geoengineering, all that CO2 is still there, and there's an accelerated "snap back" as the effects of the geoengineering fade away.
this is a subtle, kind of shitty way of saying/implying one side of the debate is being rational, and the other side is being hysterical. (and it's pretty clear from the context of the rest of the piece which side the author thinks is which)
for an essay with the purported goal of improving the conversation about geoengineering, I think it fails pretty badly.
Yeah, from what I read termination shock is pretty fucking scary. Like the potential to cause a worse extinction event then what we are already seeing.
Also, isn't there the potential that a billionaire or group just decides to start geoengineering without the consent of other people or other governments? From what I can tell, there are no treaties or laws in effect to really stop this. I don't think someone could do it without some forewarning since these all seem to be massive projects, but we have too many misguided billionaires so please no one tell musk about solar radiation management or he'll likely start shooting X particles into the air.
I’m sorry to give such a short reply to your comment, but I thought the part where the author pulled up comments to the times article was interesting. The arguments, especially “once again addressing symptoms, not root causes”, and “…has also been criticized for distracting from the root problem: Humans must stop burning fossil fuels to avoid more catastrophic effects of climate change” read to me as “locking your door doesn’t address the root problem: humans must stop breaking and entering homes”.
I get the message they are trying to convey, it just seems weird that we wouldn’t try for damage control while we address the root problems.
Its a good point, but I think one point against geoengineering is that 99% of it could be replaced with: Stop building parking lots, start planting forests.
Everywhere in the US you see a empty plot of grass more than 10x10? There should be one or more trees in it. A tree serves the exact same function of hyperwhite paint, except it also removes carbon from the air and provides a place for wildlife to live.
Geoengineering is often trying to solve an energy-expending crisis by increasing demand for energy (I'm particularily thinking efforts like carbon scrubbers). There's rarely projects like permaculture villages being discussed, or deindustrializing. It all reeks of "don't worry, we'll invent our way out of this."
I guess its a way of saying that geoengineering as an actual process is not the absolute worst thing. But geoengineering that is focused around advances in technology instead of process/implementation is barking up the wrong tree.
And the reason for a lot of the either-or...the brainpower being used to invent hyperwhite paint would probably be better spent trying to figure out how to get people to stop driving 2000lb vehicles to move 300 lbs of human flesh and groceries.
I think if we want to be a global civilization that lasts more than a few hundred years it is inevitable that we will have to actively manage the climate.
Even if we solved the fossil fuel/greenhouse problem there will be more issues. There are billions of us. We now know that we have the power to significantly impact the weather. We will continue to change the climate no matter what going forward. The only decision is if we do it mindfully or if we shut our eyes and hope that "mother nature" will figure it out for us.
For better or worse I think the earth is no longer wild. We should run it like a national park. Where we try to have the lightest touch possible, but still monitor and try to head off potential problems as they come up.
I think the hardest part isn't really the engineering. It's the politics of who is responsible for doing what and how our "management" will effect different regions in different ways. There will always be trade offs, people who benefit and people who suffer from any climate change. I have no idea how we can handle that side of things.
If I ever write a fiction story set in the future, yep it has long been in my head that the characters would not have a concept of nature in the same way that I don't have a concept of dangerous animals outside of zoos around here (Netherlands). No dirt anywhere ever, everything is roofed and vacuumed on a regular schedule. Except some nature reserves, but you look at that and don't go in because it's dirty and icky and we're not uncivilised cavepeople anymore, just like a zoo today only has the dangerous animals at a safe distance and you don't go hunt them
I feel this so much. I want to be invested in climate change and work to make a difference, but it can be a real chore to deal with persistently pessimistic people who are sometimes associated with the topic.
I get really put off when people try to argue against geoengineering research, just small scale trials, by saying things like it's a distraction or an opportunity cost.
If you think it's a distraction to talk about different possibilities, then what that says to me is that you only want to talk about the things you think you are unambiguously right about. Which means NOT really having a discussion, but rather a lecture. I dont want to sign up to be lectured to by people I don't really respect intellectually.
Geoengineering is fine if it incorporated intelligent solutions such as using natural sources for answers. IE planting trees. Its bad engineering to not look at the problem as a whole with all solutions instead of just assuming more tech is the only answer
I think people are already planting trees; that's not a skipped step when talking of what more concrete things we can do that actually make a difference on a planetary scale
Also, I don't know whether I'm preaching to the choir here but planting trees is one of the comparatively more useless things you can choose to do for global warming in most circumstances. It has more to do with nature preservation than climate change, exceptions being specific trees in specific places like in cities, and even there it is a coping/adaptation mechanism more than prevention. Assuming carbon sequestration as the goal of planting trees, direct air capture from either the atmosphere in general or high-concentration locations like at exhaust pipes is what would make a measurable difference. But it's expensive per kg (trees are dirt cheap, yet less effective per euro) and so people wonder out loud, why can't we just not change our lifestyle and send up a few planes with magic sparkles and keep using dino sap? It's a conversation to have, not one to be cut short with "why is nobody considering planting more trees" - we're way beyond that point now. You literally can't fit enough trees in usable locations on land to get the job done, as far as I've heard, and if we could then their growth would still be slower than the nuclear plants that people are saying are too slow to build compared to when we need the stabilisation in CO2 levels, so from my understanding it's a doubly impossible proposal
All this talk of whether we should or shouldn't and no one has stopped to realize that we have already been doing it for hundreds of years. We very much should talk about how to undo the damage we have done and continue to do. Short of our near immediate extinction, the planet will not be able to bring back the golden age of the Holocene. Too much damage has been done and there are no plans to cease the activity that caused that damage.
If Boeing isn't interested in developing a 737 replacement (why is it domestic flyers have to suffer with a 1967 plane) they should be developing an airplane as described here:
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aae98d
I did think about doing a kickstarter to do an iron fertilization mission (a twisted sequel to Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior) but talked to experts who told me not to do it. For one thing it is not simple to just dump some iron off the side of a barge, to make sure the iron is being effective you've got to carefully target it and you'll need a whole flotilla to observe the response. It's likely that you're just borrowing from future production in other places and there is the risk you'll encourage undesirable organisms to grow.