WUWT readers may recall this story on geoengineering on WUWT that referred to at the time as “batshit crazy“. It seems others in the green community agree.
This Open letter to IPCC on geoengineering has had over 100 signatories, many of them major environemnetal players and was sent to chairman Pachauri. Right now that seems the least of his worries as Josh points out.
Here’s the open letter. It is quite something:
Rajendra K. Pachauri
Chairman of the IPCC
C/O World Meteorological Organization
7bis Avenue de la Paix
C.P. 2300
CH- 1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland
Dear Dr. Pachauri,
The undersigned organizations would like to express our concerns about the upcoming IPCC joint working group expert meeting on geoengineering to be held in Lima, Peru, June 20-22, 2011.
Geoengineering, the intentional large-scale manipulation of the Earth’s systems to modify the climate, is one of the most serious issues the international community will face in the decades ahead. The prospects of artificially changing the chemistry of our oceans to absorb more CO2, modifying the Earth’s radiative balance, devising new carbon sinks in fragile ecosystems, redirecting hurricanes and other extreme weather events are alarming. The potential for accidents, dangerous experiments, inadequate risk assessment, unexpected impacts, unilateralism, private profiteering, disruption of agriculture, inter-state conflict, illegitimate political goals and negative consequences for the global South is high. The likelihood that geoengineering will provide a safe, lasting, democratic and peaceful solution to the climate crisis is non-existent.
h/t to Climate Depot
Here’s the links. If you know of a organization that should sign on, forward the link to them in a professional letter.
[ download IPCC Letter: PDF – 68 KB | form to endorse letter (organizations only) HERE ]
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I wonder if there could be common ground for both “greens” and AGW skeptics on this issue of geo-engineering. Both groups could be strongly opposed but for different reasons.
We hereby endorse this letter
Signed
Everybody
P.S. Don’t mess with us, we can defund you.
PS: What climate crisis?
Wil says @ur momisugly June 20, 2011 at 11:50 am “PS: What climate crisis?”
Notice that the letter doesn’t call in to question if there is a problem, just one potential set of approaches to dealing with it.
R. Gates says:
Nope, the same reasons, it’s batsh*t crazy & too much chance of screwing up everything.
DaveE.
Seems like they actually understand the political nature of AGW, that it isn’t actually real. It is a tool to fulfill an agenda of acquiring power. They want the power, but they don’t want idiots actually changing anything on Earth. Geoengineering would constitute a real threat, assuming we could actually accomplish anything on the necessary scale. However, the greens will never admit AGW is bogus because they still want the power. They are not alllies except in this one area, where they know how to craft the language socialists will understand, e.g. ‘democratic and peaceful solution’. That phrase is actually a thinly veiled threat of non-peaceful reaction.
So the Greens have just realised the potential consequences of recruiting governments to their cause.
As always, the rule of unintended consequences applies.
Did they really think that their ‘pet’ politicians would dismantle modern civilisation at their behest?
Wasn’t it obvious that the solution to their assertion that humans could change climate was a greater effort to do just that but in the opposite direction?
A fine example of “The madness of crowds” i.e a group can cause more damage than any individual.
The bigger the group the more damage it will cause.
Spare us from these pitiful examples of humanity.
This is consistent. If geo-engineering would work, then we could burn all the fossil fuel we want. So of course, this group would be against any type of geo-engineering. Only retrograding the human condition to the stone ages is satisfactory I would guess. Or even better, less of those earth viruses called Homo Sapiens would be the best solution.
This is the only geoengineering system we need:
http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/nexgen/Nexgen_Downloads/SBSPInterimAssesment0.1.pdf
This takes care of all problems simultaneously. I’m surprised this hasn’t been discussed on WUWT more often?
I’m all in favor of returning to space & doing grand projects, but not stupid crap like mirrors etc.
The geo-engineering is just to make people think “Wow. This global warming really must be bad if they’re considering such drastic measures to fight it.”.
John Mason says:
June 20, 2011 at 12:13 pm
“This is consistent. If geo-engineering would work, then we could burn all the fossil fuel we want. ”
We can burn all the fossil fuel we want to anyway. human-caused catastrophic climate change is a fraud. Burning fossil fuel is not an issue unless you think their junk science is correct.
Oh give me a break! Did anyone actually read what the meeting they are objecting to is actually about????
See here: http://www.ipcc-wg3.de/meetings/expert-meetings-and-workshops/files/doc05-p32-proposal-EM-on-geoengineering.pdf
The meeting is to develop a knowledge base for *assessing* what the literature says about geoengineering. The meeting is NOT about promoting geoengineering, or endorsing geoengineering, or advocating geoengineering, etc! In fact a specific component of the meeting is about assessing risks and dangers!
Given that some irresponsible agencies are advocating geoengineering, don’t you think someone should have a meeting to assess the implications?
The comment list here is a bit like Pavlovs dog, or Fox News; give it a stimulus and there’s an automatic reaction.
Geoengineering is crazy and dumb, but so is econoengineering, socioengineering, and politicoengineering, all in the name of “punishing carbon” and pushing ridiculously expensive and unreliable “green” energy.
Suggested Joke of the Day:
What does Global Warming and the NBA final this year have in common?
The Heat, that was predicted to dominate, never showed up.
;>P
@R.Gates
“I wonder if there could be common ground for both “greens” and AGW skeptics on this issue of geo-engineering. Both groups could be strongly opposed but for different reasons”
The common ground is surprisingly broad and you are spot on with your latter observation. You, so often, remind me of Judy C back in 2008.
@Hoser
“However, the greens will never admit AGW is bogus because they still want the power”
I usually agree with your vp but not on this. I think we should see Greens as a broad spectrum in which we reside also. The Greens that I think you get incensed by rattle my cage as well but they are at the ultra-virulent extreme. They may claim the cloak of sustainability but for the them it is but a mask to hide their greed.
@fredb
“Given that some irresponsible agencies are advocating geoengineering, don’t you think someone should have a meeting to assess the implications?
The comment list here is a bit like Pavlovs dog, or Fox News; give it a stimulus and there’s an automatic reaction”
Fred you have a valid point and, as much as I don’t want to agree with you, I think that you are spot on.eep a grudhge
The Pavlovian Fox, now there’s an image to conjure with, has possibly come about because of the hurt brought to some by the condescending certainty and talking-down by RC et al. We may not always bleed but we do attack back, at times.
Geo-Eng 101. A great idea, if we totally understand the circumstances, if we knew the future with certainty. We don’t!
So the Greens are just now realizing that the Agenda on CO2 is likely to trigger a War on Climate/Weather/etc. and all species are caught in the crossfire, including Greens.
Perhaps they now have a real crisis to save the Planet from: Geoengineering.
CRS, Dr.P.H. says:
June 20, 2011 at 12:35 pm
“This is the only geoengineering system we need: [PV in space]”
Terrestrial PV has a capacity factor (hope that is the right word) of about 10% in Germany, meaning that on average, including nights, 10% of max. insolation is received, or in other words, about 800 sun hours per year. In Spain, you have twice as many, about 20%, in the Sahara maybe 25 to 30%.
It gets even higher high up in the Andes and in the Rocky Mountains where you are above the clouds most of the time.
Now, standard PV converts only 20% of the sunlight into electricity (current top commercial cells), but in your document, they state that PV already reaches 50% (they talk about ultra expensive solar cells as used in spacecraft) so i will assume that our terrestrial PV is made from these super cells as well. So factor in losses of 50%.
So a Saharan PV plant would produce on average nearly a sixth of 1kW/m^2 or 166 W/m^2, where 1kW would be the “noon insolation”. (1370W at TOA, about 1 kW at ground level)
The microwave beam from the space installation – they say they want to keep the beam density “substantially lower” than noon insolation – would have to compete with such capacity factors if you don’t want to build rectennas a multiple the size of equivalent terrestrial PV. I don’t see how this can work. Granted, you can harvest loads of PV energy in space but beaming it to Earth would require covering huge areas with the rectenna grid. And maintain that; it would be a nightmare as you can’t afford holes in it. Think of tornados or other storms.
So, while it sounds nice to have PV in space, it just shifts the problem of how to receive and convert radiation from space. Instead of building huge arrays of PV we would have to build even larger microwave receiver nets.
With traditional PV we have the storage problem, but if you are willing to spend a lot of money you can solve it with H2 or Methane synthesis. That’s probably cheaper than bringing the PV infrastructure into space and building a second receiver infrastructure on Earth.
Just my opinion…
Just my opinion, I think we need to practice our geo-forming or geo-engineering (terrafoming?) on a different planet first. Maybe I read to much science-fiction, but still……….
Once again Australia is at the forefront of climate lunacy – we beat the rest of you by years
“Tim Flannery’s radical climate change ‘solution’
By Cathy Alexander From: AAP May 19, 2008 12:00AM ”
Here’s proof the land down under wins
http://www.news.com.au/top-stories/climate-plan-could-change-sky-colour/story-e6frfkp9-1111116384553
It looked like a neat idea.
Humans do not have the power to geoengineer the entire planet. Even if we set off every single nuke we have simultaneously, in a few years, the planet would be back to normal.
I guess in the end I’m just interested in clear, honest thinking about what we could and should do if CO2 does turn out to be a serious problem. And we should do it now, because if we wait until that key piece of astonishing research that proves the need, radical emissions reductions will already be the presumed solution.
And radical emissions reductions would be really, really hard. If humans ever deliberately stabilize atmospheric CO2 levels, I think it will almost certainly to be through some form of fascism, or else through massive capture and sequestration.
I would prefer sequestion. And I think that idea should be considered on its own merits, and not be rejected because other, completely different ideas are shown to be bad.
IMHO, lumping everything other than emissions reductions into the single category, “geoengineering,” risks doing exactly that.
Pumping sulfates into the stratosphere may have dangerous and unpredictable consequences.
Altering the extent and/or brightness of clouds over the oceans may have dangerous and unpredictable consequences.
Changing the chemistry of the oceans may have dangerous and unpredictable consequences.
Capturing and sequestering CO2 to compensate for emissions probably has no such consequences. Global atmospheric CO2 levels would be stabilized or reduced – just as if the emissions were reduced or eliminated. Period. Local effects of emissions are local problems and not in the same category.
With all of these ideas lumped into one bag, it is too easy to make good arguments and get widespread agreement that stratospheric sulfates, massive cloud seeding, or changing ocean chemistry are all dangerous and unpredictable, go from that to “geoengineering” is crazy, and from there to capture and sequestration must also be nuts. That is sloppy thinking.
It would be tragic if CO2 were eventually proven to be a real danger ( I certainly do not think that has been done yet ), and a fascist state were created because we all knew that “geoengineering” was nuts, so radical emissions reduction was the “only” solution. That makes it dangerously sloppy thinking to lump them all together.
Peter George,
Tell it to India, China, and a hundred smaller countries. They’ll laugh at you.
Smokey,
India, China, and the others are laughing at emissions reductions. One of the principle advantages of sequestration is that the industrialized nations could do it without participation by the third world.
Requiring participation by the third world is just one of the reasons that emissions reductions would be so hard, and would require a radical, authoritarian world government.
I say, screw that. Let’s figure out what we would do without their participation.
Josh, this is an extremely potent, old school scoff. Bravo! Why you puff pastels of late behind the plate, I can’t fathom. There is Art in what you do, this time.