Comments on: Flannery on geo-engineering

By: nasking

nasking — Sat, 24 May 2008 16:28:35 +0000

No…leave Albanese

By: wbb

wbb — Sat, 24 May 2008 15:00:07 +0000

So they do, Mug Punter. So they do.

By: Mug Punter

Mug Punter — Sat, 24 May 2008 09:15:36 +0000

Lovelock’s recent endorsement of nuclear energy is also about a drastic short term fix while long term strategies are put into place. He believes it’s ‘business as usual’ that is winning the day and advocates for a drastic slowing down.

I propose an Easter Island Heritage Award for John Howard and his business as usual cronies.

Civilisations rise and fall.

Species come and go.

By: BilB

BilB — Fri, 23 May 2008 07:17:42 +0000

My comment here is that with the EXTREME urgency required for URGENT ACTION on global warming, we here, in Australia, are waiting for yet another report from yet another economist, despite the fact that the pre-releases of the awaited report are all indicating EXTREME urgency and a need for URGENT ACTION. I am not impressed with Rudd’s performance here at all, and I am completely floored with the lack of comment at the Environment free budget. I think that Garret should be put back out on the street to sing for his supper, because he has become a pathetic excuse for an Environmental spokesman. I know full well here that the string puller is Anthony Albanesie, and he should be chucked out on his ear as well, with a razor wire fence put around Bob Debus to ensure that he does not move into the role. Perhaps our only hope is that Tim Flannery becomes an RBA style independent commissioner for environmental restitution. Are you up for it Tim?

By: Wilbur

Wilbur — Fri, 23 May 2008 02:40:15 +0000

I think Flannery’s point is to shock us into action. Its a fair bet he regards putting sulphur is the atmosphere as completely horrible. The fact that he contemplates doing that is obviously intended to communicate strongly to us that inaction is far far worse. That purpose seems to largely be missed by the Flannery haters above. Whatever you think about Flannery, one thing is for sure, the guy has courage.

Another approach to atmospheric carbon extraction is to log trees and bury them a metre below ground (where they can remain stable for thousands of years) and then plant new trees and keep cycling. I saw somewhere this could increase the sequestration potential of current forests by 100 times. Its a variant in the theme of soil carbon’s comments above.

By: Roger Jones

Roger Jones — Fri, 23 May 2008 01:32:34 +0000

On the engineering of small solutions writ large, I endorse Thursday night’s Catalyst on Microgeneration in the UK. Inspiring.

Story here

By: soil carbon

soil carbon — Fri, 23 May 2008 01:05:50 +0000

FACT - A 1% change in soil organic matter across 5 billion hectares could sequester 500 billion tonnes of physical CO2 – this means that each 1% increase could remove 64 ppm of carbon dioxide from atmospheric circulation.
Visit [link] and look at the presentations.

Boosting soil organic matter levels is one of the only real ways to deal with the existing excess legacy load of carbon dioxide currently in the atmosphere.

It also increases farm production, helps rural rebuilding, reduces the impact of drought and incidence of flooding, builds biodiversity and genuinely starts the healing of the World’s river systems. It may sound too good to be true, but it works.

By: BilB

BilB — Fri, 23 May 2008 00:19:53 +0000

Oh! and here is another good idea. If we stop all irrigation then the resultant reduction of water vapour in the atmosphere would to some extent reduce the trapping of heat.

By: BilB

BilB — Thu, 22 May 2008 23:57:24 +0000

If we are going to completely ignore the real things that can be done and skive off into the ridiculous then allow me to suggest that organising a medium sized meteor to collide with the earth in some problem causing zone (not Australia) would solve many problems. The dust cloud would bring global temperatures down immediately and hold them there for some significant time. Depending upon where it landed (and the us would have more to say about that than anyone) the poppy crop could be eliminated, or terrorism supporting people could be substatially eliminated, or the Japanese whaling fleet could be wiped out, or… Of course up to 2 billion people would be disappeared in the process, but global warming is going to do that anyway. It would create a ripple on Wall Street, but the markets have shown great resiliance in the face of many disasters, no biggey. And as long as the landing was kept away from major oil stocks then things could be back to normal in as little as a decade.

By: Brian

Brian — Thu, 22 May 2008 15:05:26 +0000

Mr Nameless never is, you see, but maybe just once.

By: wbb

wbb — Thu, 22 May 2008 14:20:57 +0000

a very respected and knowledgeable commenter around the place

Mr(s) Nameless wuz wrong, then!

By: Brian

Brian — Thu, 22 May 2008 14:16:41 +0000

wbb, I’ve been working 7/7 until a couple of weeks ago. But last year I was on one occasion virtually accused of being an alarmist by a very respected and knowledgeable commenter around the place. It kinda made me cautious, but the evidence keeps mounting and has an internal coherence, I think, that makes it hard to escape.

Anyway, braver now.

By: wbb

wbb — Thu, 22 May 2008 13:45:08 +0000

As I do, James. But I fear that Brian has been too modest. He has already put up a great number of very detailed posts over the last two or three years in this place.

I understand where Kim is coming from but I just think it is very hard to sell bad news. People tune out very quickly. Plus it’s all hard science and to most of us very boring and technical.

We are headed for a very rocky road where only the actual crashes will get people’s attention. Unfortunately with CC it’s all about lead times. Our usual just in time approach will fail us on this one.

By: James Farrell

James Farrell — Thu, 22 May 2008 12:28:03 +0000

I enjoyed Jacques’s comment at #18. But there’s no mystery about why RWDBs liked his proposals while hating Flannery’s. The RWDB’s sole interest is, after all, in ridiculing lefties. So when a target leftie proposes an scheme to mitigate global warming he puts on his denialist hat and attacks it, whether it’s technological one (as in this case) or a regulatory one, on the basis that global warming is a leftie swindle. But when the issue is whether to regulate or find a technical fix, he puts on his anti-government hat, curses the meddling bureaucrats, and cheers the hard-working, straight-talking engineer types and their ‘practical’ solutions.

Looking forward to Brian’s promised post.

By: Ambigulous

Ambigulous — Thu, 22 May 2008 10:55:47 +0000

Sam C

It only fails to form acid rain if it STAYS up high. What price slow diffusion down into lower levls? How much CO2 emitted in the raising of he sulphur up to those levels?

Peter Wood [8]: P. Crutzen was one of the leading scientists warning in the mid-1980sof the dangers of a “nuclear winter” (sun blocked by smoke and dust in the aftermath of a nuclear war).

In those days he thought blocking the sun’s rays could be globally fatal. My, how he’s changed!

By: Brian

Brian — Thu, 22 May 2008 07:22:22 +0000

After posting above at 30 I had to rush off to catch the bus to town where there’s a dentist who extracts large quantities of money from my bank account. When he’s talking about reconstructing a tooth only capped 8 years ago, I’m calculating how many times this may happen again before I don’t need teeth any more.

At my age, Robert, a couple of decades without blue sky is too long. I wouldn’t care to live in a world without blue sky.

Then again we’ve been getting too much of it lately by far. Some rain clouds would go well.

A massive global effort should not be beyond us.

Huggy, for 98% of our existence as a species we’ve cooperated very nicely in small groups of about 30-40 adults, but at the same time been prepared to compete vigorously with the other mob over the hill. I’m afraid we are still doing the same thing, but on a national basis. So I’m not optimistic at all. But if a few dramatic bad things happen to one or more of the main power centres, then maybe. But Paul’s perfectly right. If things seem to stabilise in the next few years then we’re in trouble.

By: Huggybunny

Huggybunny — Thu, 22 May 2008 06:25:45 +0000

I guess my difficulty with all those heroic engineering schemes is that they can have unintended consequences.
The safest thing to do would be to immediately implement all the low cost energy conservation measures and technologies that we already understand and that are already developed.
A massive global effort should not be beyond us.
Assisting this would be a major refocussing of food and fibre production where economic primacy is given to locally grown food and fibre that has low embodied energy and low fossil fuel inputs.
The scope for short term action is vast and varied and very effective but the best we can come up with is some half arsed scheme to install SO2 in the stratosphere?
An equally massive effort to develop artificial geothermal energy and other base load renewable sources should pay off in a very short time.
Finally do you gullible supporters of the yellow skies scenario really think you would ever get your blue skies back ? No not ever, Greed will see to that.
On the question of species extinction: the species that is really at risk is us. Life will go on, even if it means that giant intelligent cockroaches will inherit the earth.
Huggy.

By: Robert Merkel

Robert Merkel — Thu, 22 May 2008 05:35:44 +0000

Roger: I’m not a huge fan of any approach other than “put the atmosphere back the way it was”. I particularly don’t like sulphur-seeding. Aside from the risks to the ozone layer, I kind of prefer a blue sky every so often…

But if there’s a choice between a couple of decades of dirty skies while we make the transition to low-carbon energy (which we could have largely already done if we’d been a little bit more sensible about things) and sacrificing a significant fraction of the world’s biodiversity, I think we should real hard at the tradeoff.

By: Roger Jones

Roger Jones — Thu, 22 May 2008 03:06:00 +0000

I think we need to be careful about distinguishing between the risk of global warming and the unintended consequences of the use of technology.

Geo-engineering solutions are clearly exercising both risks. Certainly the feasibility of a range of options is worth testing so we can better distinguish between those risks.

Though I do not discount the possibility that managing the transition between the energy system we have now and that which we might have in 2050, may present the greatest risk. Is there a chance that this transition can be managed without resource to geo-engineering, which may at best keep the patient alive while we look for a cure. Perhaps the cure is not out of reach, but if both paths are possible, then both should be examined.

Personally, I like the idea of the ozone layer where it is. Exposing marine and terrestrial life to higher UV to stop large-scale ice melt is a choice we should try to avoid.

By: BilB

BilB — Thu, 22 May 2008 02:19:22 +0000

The kind of serious action that can be taken immediately is bailing up our new prime minister with a “please explain” on his zero concern budget!! Then turn Peter Garret around to see what his other face looks like. Only Harry Potter has seen it so far.