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Thread started 08/22/14 4:59am

XxAxX

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Scientists Propose First Major Framework for Climate Engineering Experiments

i think any geo-engineering project implemented going forward needs to be governed by a specific doctrine and transparently executed so that the general public has a voice and a measure of control over the outcome.

the planet doesn't belong to any one special interest group or nation, it belongs to all of us, each and every one.

Scientists Propose First Major Framework for Climate Engineering Experiments

Written by

BRIAN MERCHANT

SENIOR EDITOR

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-royal-society-of-london-proposes-framework-for-geoengineering-climate-engineering

Professor Steve Rayner, the co-director of the Oxford Geoengineering Programme, 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, like artificially injecting tiny particles into the Earth's atmosphere to reflect sunlight back into space, are drifting further into the purview of mainstream science. The august 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."

Rayner, who served on the Royal Society of London's Working Group on Climate Geoengineering, released what's been christened the 'Berlin Declaration', at the world's first major clima...conference currently underway in Germany. Rayner issued a call for amendments from the conference's attendees, which includes top climate scientists, policymakers, and geoengineering scholars.

The draft, in its current iteration, states that "New technologies have the potential to provide significant benefits to society, but they can also be controversial. Indeed the controversies surrounding new technologies have often led to a backlash against their development, as has been seen in the fields of genetically modified organisms and nuclear power." You can read the full draft here—it was distributed at the Climate Engineering Conference in Berlin, where I'll be reporting from all week.

It's specifically focused on a subset of geoengineering projects called solar radiation management, which also includes proposals to brighten clouds over the ocean and to send tiny mirrors into orbit to deflect sunlight. The grander geoengineering projects, which fall into this category, have inspired comparisons to s...g Dr. Evil.

"The emergence of interest in climate geoengineering, broadly defined as the deliberate large-scale manipulation of the planetary environment to counteract climate change, has provoked controversy about the practicality and wisdom of such ideas," the document reads.

In an interview, Rayner told me that the document was inspired in part by a failure of a previous foray into climate engineering experimentation, the first attempt by the SPICE (Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate Engineering) project to explore aerosol delivery into the stratosphere.

That undertaking would have floated a blimp a kilometer into the sky to spray 40 gallons of water into the atmosphere, in an attempt to illustrate the machinery that could be used to deliver aerosol particles into the stratosphere.

Graphic: SPICE

The impact of the experiment would have been negligible on the climate, but, according to Rayner and the Guardian, it caused a public backlash, and was eventually cancelled for unrelated reasons. Rayner says scientists interested in studying geoengineering need to learn from the debacle, and to make sure future experiments are carefully and responsibly vetted, both scientifically and publicly.

"We need to be very careful in these initial steps," he told me, in order to create "a pragmatic pathway" to climate engineering experiments. He notes that the vast majority of the geoengineering experiments currently under consideration are so small in scale they "couldn't conceivably have any effect on the atmosphere," but that scientists need to consider the "social and political consequences." He said that he and his colleagues did harbor concerns that they were making things "thinkable that ought to be unthinkable" but that with or without a framework, scientists were going to experiment with climate engineering, and it was best to do so in a measured way that kept the public informed.

Dr. Ken Caldeira, a prominent American atmospheric scientist also attending the conference, worries that such a document will ultimately prove stifling to climate science. It's too broadly defined, he says, and could end up preventing research that's only tangentially related to geoengineering, if future regulators object to it.

"There's a real possibility that this governance, or regulations, could hurt climate science," he said. Regulators could, for instance, not consider carbon sequestration (the act of pumping pollution underground) to be geoengineering, but decide that painting roofs white (another, less controversial geoengineering proposal) is.

"How do you define 'experimental work on such techniques'?" Caldeira told me, referring to a line in the text that appears to be vague. "I think it will end up doing more harm than good."

The proposal has already caused heated debate amongst the scientists and commentators in Berlin, and whether it is accepted and published remains to be seen. But Rayner believes that, at least as a subject for discussion and experimentation, geoengineering is here to stay.

"A decade ago, 'nanotechnology' was a word that was on everybody's lips," he said in a panel discussion. Now we mostly talk about the specific applications of nanotech, because it's become so commonplace. Rayner believes the same will happen with geoengineering—it will become normalized. "My prediction is that the word 'geoengineering' will fall out of use, and be replaced by discussion of more specific technologies."

Update: This article formerly stated that the Royal Society of London was behind the proposal; it is fact written by an affiliated scientist, but has not yet formally been endorsed or recognized by the organization. Motherboard regrets the error.


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Reply #1 posted 08/27/14 6:59am

midnightmover

We're so desperate to have our cake and eat it too, we'll even resort to mad schemes like this rather than reduce our carbon emissions. It's basically an admission of failure on our part.

“The man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them, inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.”
- Thomas Jefferson
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Reply #2 posted 08/27/14 11:20pm

TweetyV6

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midnightmover said:

reduce our carbon emissions.

Because?

The man of science has learned to believe in justification, not by faith, but by verification - Thomas Henry Huxley
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Reply #3 posted 08/28/14 8:10am

PurpleJedi

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I am sure that in the (near/far) humans will be able to affect the weather in SOME fashion.

One thing that I would be all for is for scientists to develop some action plan for dealing with an ELE such as Yellowstone blowing its top. Could we somehow deploy a flotilla of vessels above the clouds of particles and spray them with water to allow them to fall back to earth (and end the dangerous ice age)???

nod

By St. Boogar and all the saints at the backside door of Purgatory!
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Reply #4 posted 08/28/14 3:32pm

XxAxX

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PurpleJedi said:

I am sure that in the (near/far) humans will be able to affect the weather in SOME fashion.

One thing that I would be all for is for scientists to develop some action plan for dealing with an ELE such as Yellowstone blowing its top. Could we somehow deploy a flotilla of vessels above the clouds of particles and spray them with water to allow them to fall back to earth (and end the dangerous ice age)???

nod

weather manipulation is one of the stated uses of the HAARP array in alaska. aluminum dioxide (chemtrails) particles distributed atmospherically are also used to (theoretically) deflect heat from the earth. imo, these are inadvisable.

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Reply #5 posted 08/28/14 5:36pm

Cloudbuster

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As if climate/weather engineering hasn't already been going on for years. lol

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Reply #6 posted 08/29/14 5:31am

XxAxX

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smile

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Reply #7 posted 09/08/14 9:03am

midnightmover

Yes, climate engineering has been going on for years, but it's been unintentional. The moment we started digging carbon out of the ground and dumping it in the atmosphere we effectively began altering the climate. We just didn't know we were doing it.

“The man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them, inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.”
- Thomas Jefferson
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