From the Carnegie Institution comes a nutty consensus type idea, modeled in game-theory, implemented by an equally nutty future coalition. Law of unintended consequences anyone?
Geoengineering by coalition
Washington, D.C.—Solar geoengineering is a proposed approach to reduce the effects of climate change due to greenhouse gasses by deflecting some of the sun’s incoming radiation. This type of proposed solution carries with it a number of uncertainties, however, including geopolitical questions about who would be in charge of the activity and its goals.
New modeling work from Carnegie’s Katharine Ricke and Ken Caldeira shows that if a powerful coalition ever decided to deploy a geoengineering system, they would have incentive to exclude other countries from participating in the decision-making process. Their work is published by Environmental Research Letters and is available online.
Carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of coal, oil, and gas have been increasing over the past decades, causing the Earth to get hotter and hotter. Large volcanic eruptions cool the planet by creating lots of small particles in the stratosphere, but the particles fall out within a couple of years and the planet heats upagain. The idea behind solar geoengineering is to constantly replenish a layer of small particles in the stratosphere, mimicking this volcanic aftermath and scattering sunlight back to space.
“Attempts to form coalitions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions have repeatedly hit the wall, because it’s difficult to get everybody to participate in a substantive and meaningful way,” Ricke said. “Members of coalitions to reduce emissions have incentives to include more countries, but countries have incentives not to participate, so as to avoid costs associated with emission reduction while benefiting from reductions made elsewhere.”
But a game-theoretic model developed by Ricke, Caldeira, and their colleague Juan Moreno-Cruz from the Georgia Institute of Technology showed that when it comes to geoengineering, the opposite is true.
Smaller coalitions would be more desirable to the participants, not less, because those members could set the target temperature to their liking without having to please as many parties. Likewise, countries that aren’t included in the coalition would actually want to join so that they could move the thermostat, so to speak, in the direction that better suits their interests. Since the costs of geoengineering are so much lower than mitigation, once a coalition has formed and has successfully implemented geoengineering, it would have an incentive to exclude permanently other willing participants.
“My view, aside from any technical result, is that it should remain a central goal to maintain openness and inclusiveness in geoengineering coalitions, so that all people who want a voice in the decision-making process are able to have that voice,” Caldeira said.
I’m reminded of an interview with a senior Egyptian politician, in which he was asked, “Given Egypt’s dependence on the Aswan Dam, what would they do if Uganda or Sudan tried to dam the Nile?”.
His reply :- “We’d just bomb it. We’d send fighter planes and destroy it.”.
Start excluding people from important decision making processes, regardless of whether they pay, and their response might be more than harsh words.
Geoengineering – a recipe for global war.
O.M.G. Oh yes, let’s chill us all into the next Ice Age.
I never realized how many suicidal loonies there are in the world.
Smaller coalitions? Not have to please so many parties? Is that green-speak for “more easily bullied”. Where will the head of all this sit? Who controls it all? Let me guess, the UN?
“Carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of coal, oil, and gas have been increasing over the past decades, causing the Earth to get hotter and hotter.”
Obviously there exists an alternative Earth. Popular idea in Scifi years ago. Now proven to be true
“….members could set the target temperature to their liking…. they could move the thermostat, so to speak, in the direction that better suits their interests.”
When did the CIW start funding 5 year olds?
I remember a child suggesting the solution to overpopulation was to reduce, by genetic engineering, over several generations, the height of humans to a maximum of 3 inches. I think Jonathan Swift and confusion over GM had a little influence over that. :o)
They are REAL lunies.
Is it April 1st?
things would get very interesting if we were able to extract c02 from the atmosphere at will and cheaply.
Unless they develop a location specific geo-enigineering technique, this is a doomed idea. Why would anyone join in funding, if they can enjoy the benefits free?
There is not a word strong enought to describe this type of ‘stupid’.
I got a better idea: anyone who thinks it’s a good idea to join a coalition to block out the sun, or that such a coalition can “move the thermostat” to a temperature that “suits their interests”, should be banned for life from joining coalitions of any kind.
And if they didn’t like the results, people outside the coaltion would simply form another coaltion, and institute counter geoengineering techniques. Or war. Whichever was easier.
Anthony,
As someone with a reasonable background in game theory, the results stated here make sense from a game theoretic perspective. The authors are not necessarily stating that geoengineering itself is desirable (this is outside of their scope) but rather that a coalition of parties advocating geoengineering would be better able to convince parties not presently in the coalition to join since those not presently participating would perceive little significant cost and potential significant benefits to join.
The danger here (and this may be your point) is that geoengineering may have major unintended consequences. If anything, this study highlights that governments may band together to do something incredibly stupid and that an unstoppable momentum may develop because more governments may well be persuaded to join in such madness. If anything, this study is a wakeup call for those who think that geoengineering schemes would never see the light of day.
CO2 has caused the Earth to get “hotter and hotter’…
past decades ? I’ve seen 7 now and those I spent
in Germany, mid fifties, were pretty brrrrrr. ([“?….
Alfred
My father once gave my brothers and I some very sound advice.
To quote “If it isn’t broken, don’t try to fix it. If it is broken, make damned sure you know exactly what you are doing so you don’t make things worse.”
As an electronics technician with 25 years of experience I would add “Never touch with your bare hands that which you do not fully understand.”
Having seen first hand the destruction and deaths resulting from failures of people to follow this kind of advice , I can not think of anything worse than some group screwing around with a system as complex as the Earths’ biosphere.
So that would be the entire human race, yes? We all get a say before you loonies decide to [snip . . mod] with the planet?
The BS meter pegged when the third paragraph made the usual assertion about CO2 dring the temperature, however this was my favourite part:-
“Since the costs of geoengineering are so much lower than mitigation….”
REALLY? Numbers please Kat & Ken, or there is literally nothing to see here.
I was laughed at the last time I contributed to the thread involving geoengineering….(what’s wrong with atom bombs around the equator I found myself asking?).
However, I am prepared to supply the benefit of my wisdom one more time…..
Here it is…….
It occurs to me that if every fridge/freezer on the planet was just left open and turned on……………you see where I’m going with this?……
The stuff of mad “scientists”. Without a proper understanding of what really drives climate, these harebrained schemes could dump us into the next ice age.
”The planet getting hotter and hotter” ? Dream on you fools.
CO2 atmospheric concentrations have increased, naturally not our input I might add, but temperature increase has stalled since 1998.
This is a case of the alarmists believing the rubbish they preach and getting wilder in their claims. Propagandizing like those Nazis in 1930’s Germany. Or is that another lesson of history forgotten.
Getting hotter and hotter is it?? Where do they live? Last really good summer the UK had was 1976.
Halt the sun o’er the enemy’s cornfield
Sweep those hovels away
Clear the view for miles around
Compel the masses away
We don’t call it “Chemtrails” anymore, that’s a “Conspiracy Theory”. We Call it “Geo-Engineering” now. Get with the Program!
Except, of course, the public.
Scary
Kath n Ken y’all needed to create a computer model to determine that smaller coalitions would be more desirable to the participants under the scenario you described? Unbelievable.
More ridiculously shallow thinking by academics.
Their so called theory assumes countries wishing to have climate move in the opposite direction will join their coalition or just idly sit by and do nothing to counteract the effect the coalition is trying to impose.
Countries wishing to raise temperature have no incentive to even bother to join a coalition which is attempting to lower temperature. No compromise temperature would be acceptable to either group as they have opposing goals. A 2nd coalition would form to move temperature in the opposite direction. So you’d have a war of the geoengineers doing all sorts of things to screw up the climate with countries which like the temperature as it is caught in the middle. And if one side finds it is losing by too much, then it will escalate to a real war.