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.
Most commenters are missing the point. The post isn’t about geoengineering or global warming. It’s about game theory, period. Game theory isn’t playing games with actual people. It’s playing games with imaginary people who make imaginary decisions based on imagined self-interest, people who exist only in the mind of the theorist. In other words, game theory consists of the theorist playing with himself.
“Ever since the beginning of time, man has yearned to destroy the sun. I shall do the next best thing: block it out”
–Mr. Burns
Newsflash: It’s already happening, and without our knowledge or consent. Perhaps you aren’t aware of it because the name Geoengineering was changed to Climate Remediation, and Solar Radiation Management (SRM)
This is the go-to page for papers, government action, and projects between the US and UK governments:
http://www.agriculturedefensecoalition.org/content/geoengineering-current-actions
The site is run by Rosalind Peterson, a co-founder of the Agricultural Defense Coalition. She is a former farmer who worked for the California Dept. of Agriculture for years. If you have time you should watch the first video on the page. It starts out slowly–it was recorded during a Radio Liberty seminar lunch, I think, so you can hear clinking glasses and murmurs–and it seems for the first 10 minutes as if Ms Peterson might be rambling about something she has scant grasp of, or that she has a political axe to grind. Then it becomes riveting.
This woman is a quiet determined activist machine. Her work for the State of CA, before she retired, involved assessing crop damage and causes. She was also a certified U.S.D.A. Farm Service Agency Crop Loss Adjustor. She has decades of experience.
The paper on this homepage that floors me–there are, actually, too many–is listed as this
Aurora Flight Sciences prepared it for Professor David Keith, Canada Research Chair in Energy and the Environment, Director ISEEE – Energy and Environmental Systems Group, University of Calgary, Canada. Member of the Royal Society Geoenginering Group (2009) as Peterson describes him in her link to his audio clip.
If you want to read insanity–and IMO, evil–skim the first six pages of the Aurora report. They want to dump 1 million tonnes of sulphur compounds into the air at an altitude of 40 to 100 kft (best is above 60) and at a cost of billions per year. Who is paying for this? Peterson mentions it in her talk. She says we spent years getting sulphur compounds out of diesel fuel and reducing those emissions in smokestacks, as Dr. McKitrick pointed out in his WUWT-TV presentation, and these nutcases want to put them back in. Without public debate. Without discussion. Zip. Even David Suzuki is listed on her page calling geoengineering insane.
Dr. Keith is the guy who was asked in the film “Why in the World are They Spraying?” if he could identify the consequences of the geoengineering he proposed, and he couldn’t answer. The film is on Peterson’s geoengineering page at my first link above. This film, unbelievably, is being branded as conspiratorial in the MSM.
I wish this site would ask her to guest post about the topic, and give her wider exposure, if she has the time.
Chem-what?
The website ref’d clearly claims “Monitoring the Planned Poisoning of Humanity”
The video is titled: “Chem-trails – I Was The Doctor Treating The Pilots …” and in a category labelled “Chem-trail Evidence, Featured”
Potentially USDA choice grade-A ‘crock’ material, and seemingly outside allowable site-content limits (but the final determination of that classification is outside my purview.)
And since no real comment was posted, I’m tempted to believe you’re an acolyte of Michael the ‘wise guy’ engaging in drive-by posting (just curious now, but how did you find this site, WUWT?)
Soon, we will be over-run by like-minded ‘drivers’ I am thinking … let one in, the ‘herd’ follows.
[Reply: chemtrails comment deleted. — mod.]
Foolish work based on multiple unstated assumptions. I’ll only address the first three that strike me:
1. That nobody wants a suboptimal solution even if it is free, and
The best solution is to get as much as you can for as little effort as possilbe. Which is to ride on the coats of others. Only if what you get for mimimal effort is truly insufficient should you do more.
This connects with the second assumption,
2. More pertinently: that governments in general act in the best interests of the majority of their citizens.
It is hardly necessary to go through history, ancient, recent or current, to see that Those At The Top rarely act in a way that benefits the masses below if it causes loss to themselves. Only when enlightened self-interest (an educated, medically fit workforce, for example) benefits TATT, are the rest treated better than possible.
Together, the truth about the falsity of the above two assumptions leads to what I suggest we call “The Al Gore Principle”: do best for yourself with as little effort as possible, regardless of what you could do for the greater good. Its model is the sale of Current TV to Al Jazeera/Qatar.
The optimal solution for the planet heading towards a CO2-induced apocalypse would have been the sale of Current TV to a Sierra Club or David Suzuki clone who would use its reach to convince the general populace to pull back on fossil fuel use and push forward on clean environmental actions. But this would have resulted in a sale price less than $500 million, and less than $100 million in his own pocket. So he didn’t do this. He sold Current TV to the network owned by the governmentl of the argest energy consumers per capital on the planet, one that is near to Abu Dhabi as the largest water-consumers per capita on the planet. And the government whose entire national interest is in selling its oil production for the longest period possible.
The Al Gore Principle: do not do anything to indicate your personal “beliefs” if it results in getting a buck less in your jeans than looking the other way. From this example, AG being, an insignificant insect on the world stage, why would we expect ANY powerholder act outside of his own, general, self-interest?
But there is a third assumption, also unstated:
3. That a warmer world, even a much warmer world, comes at a greater cost than benefit to all.
In fact, there are places, peoples and nations for whom a warmer world is ALL benefit, an no cost. Polar bears may have a different opinion, but those who live in colder climates will benefit overall from a warmer world in those places where overall moisture and temperature extremes are not impacted to a problem level. Why are the governments so interested in an ice-free Arctic if the loss of Arctic ice is all bad? What would the central Canadian provinces not like about the extended growing seasons and range of farming? And if the moist-air theories hold (more water), there are going to be wetter areas that please the inhabitants.
Sunshine resorts on Vancouver and the Channel Islands: how do you think the geoengineering votes will go there? And what about self-interest in others’ misfortunes: is the US in the mid-East because it wants to build the Muslim countries into powerhouses, or to keep them weak (er than the US)? Wouldn’t some countries prefer a warmer world if it kept their potential or actual competitors further from their front doors?
Standing by while a problem is being fixed is the optimal solution for all. Getting a buck of benefit for 10 bucks of effort (to account for the coat-tailers) is not optimal for the payers. Avoiding beneficial effects to you while helping others who are not your friends stay strong are not good ideas.
A cooperative, planetary level geo-engineering project is a no-starter for any but taxpayer-funded buddies of the political class.
Stupid, limited, non-creative thinking. If academics weren’t so self-indulgent and monomaniacal, they would be …. business people doing things that are useful.
Well, geo-anything seems to bring out the Keepers Of Odd Knowledge (K.O.O.K.) crowd …
They are veritably waiting-in-the-wings to swoop in ‘coat-tailing’ (or coat-racking as McIntyre puts it) on any issue even remotely related but containing certain (con-spir-acy) imagination-stimulating keywords like geo-engineering.
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Is this team sure that all countries will want it cooler if it gets warmer?
jorgekafkazar says:
February 22, 2013 at 9:17 am
“Most commenters are missing the point. The post isn’t about geoengineering or global warming. It’s about game theory, period. Game theory isn’t playing games with actual people.”
Well, some game theorists feeding at the warmist money trough. Like every sociologist or psychologist does these days.
_Jim says:
February 22, 2013 at 11:03 am
“And since no real comment was posted, I’m tempted to believe you’re an acolyte of Michael the ‘wise guy’ engaging in drive-by posting (just curious now, but how did you find this site, WUWT?)
Soon, we will be over-run by like-minded ‘drivers’ I am thinking … let one in, the ‘herd’ follows.”
I’m flattered to be acknowledged as an influential voice in the worldwide blogosphere, even by the likes of you Jim. Your drive-by attacks on the voice of reason won’t be successful in stopping the signal. We are legion.
PS
The language has been changed for purposes of legitimate scientific discussion. Get with the program.
wws
I am Dr Evil and I want to know where you obtained my top-secret plans.?
Climate geo-engineering with space mirrors. You get to change the climate to your benefit, and your enemy’s detriment. Plus, you get a Mark I Death Star into the bargain.
What’s not to like?
Any politician who seriously proposes to initiate a geo-engineering project to limit CO2 needs to be shot out of hand. And that includes that idiot-child industrialist who polluted the Pacific with iron filings.
No … no flattery … more in a lugubrious way … think more along the lines of Medusa, or mephistopheles, with inordinate power to briefly ‘stun’ his/her victim briefly for the purposes of accomplishing nefarious goals … also the Greek Hydra comes to mind, as one of your posts is ‘trimmed’ for site policy infractions another one ‘grows’ back … the mythical Greek creature Cerberus comes to mind too, you know, the three-headed, giant hound that guarded the gates of Hades.
I’m just trying my darnedest to get you branded as the “Chem-trail Guy”, or “MichaelCehmTrail” vs Michael weiss guy …
.
Philip Bradley
Same question to you…..
Dr Evil
This isn’t looking good for security at Acme Evil Inc…….
Over 10 years ago I read a science site proposing a positive contemplation of using geo-engineering to cure global warming and I was quite taken back that scientist were even thinking of this insanity. I commented that introducing maybe pathogens into our environment without knowing the consequences is a crimes against humanity and is akin to dumping toxins into our environment like industry in our past. The only difference is adding real pollutants into our world purposefully …to when we did not know or understanding of the consequences of our actions in the past. And if they did this kind of insanity any where near me I’d take matters into my own hands to stop them.
Of course this was just a emotional driven comment and maybe a little hyperbola on my part, never expecting it to ever happen or get legs.
Skip to today and I’m seeing that these insane ideas are starting to be played out and being given credence by so many in post modern science. Only last years dumping more than 100 metric tonnes of iron into the Pacific Ocean in Haida Gwaii by a first Nations salmon restoration group by geoengineering to deliberately modify the environment to combat climate change.
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/10/28/bc-ocean-iron-dumping-haida-gwaii-un_n_2032827.html
This is the scary future or should I say NOW, eco geoengineering terrorist taking matters into their own hands. The iron may have done nothing, but the disregard and consequences for the environment is just beyond stupid.
” there is no cure for stupidity”
I believe that there needs to be a shift in the dialectic. We should stop speaking of “unintended” consequences. When the outcomes of a course of action are well known, predicted, and even warned of, and some idiot decides to go and do the thing anyway, he should not be let off with a claim that the consequences were “unintended.” Especially not in the case of geoengineering. The consequences are deliberate and intended, and damned be he who eventuates them.
M
I am wondering – Do any of these scientists play Sim City by any chance?
Steve B
Infinitely more fun using real cities……
Dr Evil
rgbatduke says:
February 22, 2013 at 5:46 am
The real point of this is that there exist a variety of very high risk “space” solutions that would permit us to modulate insolation. I read about one of them in a science fiction novelette by Murray Leinster when I was nine or ten years old. They are high risk in the specific sense that if we do it wrong, we could kick the planet into an ice age or a real hothouse scenario as once we dump a “comet’s tail” of ionized metal gases into (say) a geosynchronous orbit around the Earth, they’ll stay there until sunlight itself pushes them away.
They are on the table if and only if the catastrophists turn out to be right. On this list everybody seems to be “sure” that that cannot happen, but I am not, I just think it is somewhat unlikely. It’s good to think that we have technology based options, and good practice for the equally unlikely case that we will one day want to terraform a marginal planet or a planet like Venus that is nearby but currently has a toxic unreduced atmosphere. In the meantime, the smart thing to do is wait and see and study without prejudice.
rgb
——————-
Well said! A quiet statement of sanity in the face of this madness bears emphasizing.
My 2 cents, don’t even dare try it until there is a successful way to ‘remove’ light scattering stratospheric dust. That is what the cooling in the last 16 years is all about, imho. Some meteor shower intensification and volcanic increase.
But we now have proof that greenhouse gases do not have any effect since the climate is not warming. Reality check someone in climate science or politics please.
Whoa; overstep (McIntyre might say ‘a bridge too far’)? … H2O vapor is part of that family, and it *does* have an effect!
(Surely you weren’t including WV?)
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Isn’t the UN supposed to be the arena where every country has a voice and is able to ‘set the thermostat’ for whatever problem there is in the world?
We can all see how that has worked for the past 50 years or so. World peace, the end of hunger, good living standards for all!!!
After studying ” crowd sourcing of the paleoclimate ” the solar and ocean pages here at WUWT, I would seriously consider taking up arms to prevent any attempt at geoengineering our planet.
We are bouncing along at the end of an interglacial, the flapping of a butterflies wings could see us enter another mini ice age or worse at any time. Mr Mosher, your sarcastic quips are enlightening in their total lack of reality, your religious belief in the AGW scam comes across for all to see. CO2 is our friend we need more of it not less.