Climate Damage Science Studied

[MAF]

The UK's Royal Society is to investigate whether ambitious engineering schemes

could reduce the impact of global warming.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7698805.stm

is it just another waste of time and money, or are there benefits to be reaped from the study?

[jethro]

Personally, I'd say there are huge benefits to be reaped.

Before anyone starts messing with eco systems, such as adding iron to the oceans, we need to know what negative impacts this would have. I'm not a great believer in CO2 being the big bad guy, driving climate change but I am a great believer in not messing up our planet.

Just for arguments sake, the route of putting large mirrors in space is taken, shouldn't we be pretty sure how much impact this would have before going ahead with it? What happens if it's super efficient and we end up with a large cooling?

You shouldn't mess with things you don't understand is my perspective, so let's test, find out more, understand more before forging ahead blindly.

[Devonian]

Personally, I'd say there are huge benefits to be reaped.

Before anyone starts messing with eco systems, such as adding iron to the oceans, we need to know what negative impacts this would have. I'm not a great believer in CO2 being the big bad guy, driving climate change but I am a great believer in not messing up our planet.

Just for arguments sake, the route of putting large mirrors in space is taken, shouldn't we be pretty sure how much impact this would have before going ahead with it? What happens if it's super efficient and we end up with a large cooling?

You shouldn't mess with things you don't understand is my perspective, so let's test, find out more, understand more before forging ahead blindly.

I've never been in favour of geo engineering, for the reason you outline and because it is a response to the effects not the cause.. I'm also not in favour of adding ever more ghg to the atmosphere, because we don't know for sure what the outcome to that geo engineering will be either.

[MAF]

well i am not sure they will instigate any project without proper research, but just how do you test what a large mirror in space is going to do to the earth?

OK geo-engineering may be a reactive process to global warming, but then it would have to be wouldn't it? lets face it, there are not many proactive initiatives going on.

But according to Professor Watson, there is a feeling in the scientific community that these proposals should be researched because some may actually be useful as a last resort, at the very least.

[Thundery wintry showers]

I think it's well worth investigating geo engineering- but that we shouldn't go ahead with it unless we have a very good understanding, the risks are likely to be reasonably low and/or climate change has reached a level that calls for desperate measures. Investigating it is useful in that we might, just might, find a method that is low-risk and probably works, for in an emergency.

Some environmentalists say thinking about geo-engineering diverts focus away from reducing CO2 emissions, but I find that a very weak argument in my view. A complex problem like this needs a set of interlinked solutions, not just "reduce CO2 emissions end of story" and it's well worth considering all of the possible ways of addressing the problem- as in truth, some of them won't work, others will.

[Devonian]

I think it's well worth investigating geo engineering- but that we shouldn't go ahead with it unless we have a very good understanding, the risks are likely to be reasonably low and/or climate change has reached a level that calls for desperate measures. Investigating it is useful in that we might, just might, find a method that is low-risk and probably works, for in an emergency.

Some environmentalists say thinking about geo-engineering diverts focus away from reducing CO2 emissions, but I find that a very weak argument in my view. A complex problem like this needs a set of interlinked solutions, not just "reduce CO2 emissions end of story" and it's well worth considering all of the possible ways of addressing the problem- as in truth, some of them won't work, others will.

I don't think just cutting CO2/ghg emissions is the answer, otoh, I don't think you can solve the problem without cutting them. Indeed, I think the risks involved with geo engineering greater and the problem more insurmountable than cutting ghg emissions.

If I ever catch a nasty bacterial infection I want the bacteria dealt with not the symptoms masked.

[Essan]

We're already embarked on one multi faceted geo-engineering exercise - I'd rather we try to stop that than start on some more ..... Or, at least stop some aspects of current geo-engineering and maybe try and reverse what we've already done?

Then again, if we're too stupid to stop burning rainforests what hope have we of building a space mirror?

[Pennine Ten Foot Drifts]

Then again, if we're too stupid to stop burning rainforests what hope have we of building a space mirror?

I guess it's easy to suggest burning rainforests is stupid from where we're sitting. It may not appear so stupid if you're living in a shack on a few dollars a day, and just up the road are thousands of trees which someone will pay good money for chopped up ??? or the land they're on could be cleared and cultivated to provide food/income ??? The stupidity lies in a global system where economics will always come first................... Or, let me put it another way, would you be happy to have, say, 2p in every pound you earn taken to go towards a 'Rainforest fund', which would then pay all the people in rainforest areas of the world to leave the forests alone ? As long as there is a global demand for wood/beef/soya/gold/copper/aluminium etc etc then the rainforests will be plundered....................

[Devonian]

I guess it's easy to suggest burning rainforests is stupid from where we're sitting. It may not appear so stupid if you're living in a shack on a few dollars a day, and just up the road are thousands of trees which someone will pay good money for chopped up ??? or the land they're on could be cleared and cultivated to provide food/income ??? The stupidity lies in a global system where economics will always come first................... Or, let me put it another way, would you be happy to have, say, 2p in every pound you earn taken to go towards a 'Rainforest fund', which would then pay all the people in rainforest areas of the world to leave the forests alone ? As long as there is a global demand for wood/beef/soya/gold/copper/aluminium etc etc then the rainforests will be plundered....................

I very much doubt it would cost that much - certainly not if it was across the developed nations.

For me it's a question of is business as usual the solution to the degradation of the world?

[Pennine Ten Foot Drifts]

For me it's a question of is business as usual the solution to the degradation of the world?

Patently and manifestly not, but can the 'business as usual' juggernaut be deflected ???

[Devonian]

Patently and manifestly not, but can the 'business as usual' juggernaut be deflected ???

Ah, 64,000 time.

Not by ignoring it. So how? By people pointing out the obvious until they are blue in the face? Probably didn't help on Eater Island. But, can, should, we just give up? I don't like that option either.

I think the option is indeed a deflection. And I do think it's by the means so often attacked: green tax, laws, 'progressivness' (birth control, fair shares for the world's 'super' poor come to mind, less excess for the top) and a change to more 'stuff' not necessarily being more thinking. Will it be easy? I'm sure it wont be chances are the world will continue to be degraded.

[MAF]

and so back to the geo-engineering question..... yes, putting a mirror in orbit would seem a technical achievement. as, i suppose, is anything sent up into space. the thing is, is would it work?? deflecting the Sun from certain areas by reflecting it away from the planet seems like clutching at straws. but then as the advert which starts with a quote from albert einstien roughly translated "the more stupid an idea is the more chance it has of working"

[Coast]

Costly and unfortunate news:

Nasa has lost the centrepiece satellite of its $280 million climate-change mission after a catastrophic launch failure today. The carbon dioxide-monitoring satellite was fired on a rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, but after blasting through the Earth’s atmosphere it fell short of its orbiting height.

A Nasa spokesman at the launch site said: “The mission has been lost. We don’t have any details at this moment. There’s an investigation under way.” The Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) satellite was designed to map carbon dioxide on Earth providing a major step forward for scientists attempting to understand climate change.

www.timesonline.co.uk

news.bbc.co.uk

[Methuselah]

It would have worked - but there was a sceptic in the room.