Transcript Asilomar 2.2 participants - Carbon Mitigation Initiative

Thoughts about Asilomar 2.2
You are now attending Asilomar 2.1
Robert Socolow
Princeton University
[email protected]
The Asilomar International Conference
On Climate Intervention Technologies
March 25, 2010
Tuesday: What response to climate
change would you hate to see,
and why?
I’d like to create a list at this meeting. Please hand
your suggestions to me today, tomorrow, or Thursday.
If not “hate to see,” then “be very anxious about.”
Source of hate or anxiety can be environmental,
social, technical…
I’ll report back Thursday evening.
Asilomar 2.2
Hypotheses:
1. Much done here is incomplete.
2. Priorities for Asilomar 2.2 can be explored via
“nightmares.”
Which have we addressed adequately?
Which have we addressed inadequately?
Which have we ignored, but want to attend to?
Which are a distraction?
In order to know the truth,
it is necessary to imagine
a thousand falsehoods.
Sidney Coleman, ca. 1964
Nightmares related to conventional
mitigation and adaptation
1. Nuclear weapons proliferate as global nuclear power
expands, due to weak international governance, and
there is a nuclear war.
2. After wide deployment of CCS is under way, a major
escape of CO2 from a reservoir undermines public
confidence.
3. Human beings, nearly universally today, have defined
the good life in terms of self-realization. Zealots take
charge and squelch our exuberance (our appetite for
variety, our curiousity about other places)
Mitigation is Not Risk-Free
Therefore, the lowest conceivable
greenhouse-concentration targets
are not optimal.
Nightmares directly related to
geoengineering technology
Forestry to sequester carbon
annihilates biodiversity.
A policy is enacted that rewards the maximization of
stored carbon, without reference to biodiversity. The
result is a forest engineered for carbon storage – as
opposed to a forest managed for multiple objectives (or
not managed at all) which happens to store carbon.
To those writing governance rules: If the intention is to
elicit responses from the private sector, expect
responses that follow the letter of the law and that are
“creative” where there are no rules.
Example: Fuel economy in cars and the EPA
“driving cycle.”
Nightmare: SRM runs a while, then
is terminated abruptly.
Rapid disengagement from S-injection might be:
a. deliberate: An adverse side-effect is
discovered.
b. unintentional: Loss of capability,
political will.
“Coming generations will have to live with the danger of this ‘Sword
of Damocles’ scenario, the abruptness of which has no precedent
in the geologic history of climate.”
Victor Brovkin, et al., Climate Change, 2008
Nightmare: SRM is launched,
predicated on a CDR exit strategy
A role for CDR has been identified: in principle, it
provides an exit strategy for SRM,
But won’t the SRM enterprise behave like any other
incumbent and resist being phased out?
Nightmares directly related to
geoengineering science
Nightmare: All the climate scientists
are working on geoengineering.
Dual Use!
Clouds and aerosols
Forest dynamics
Ocean biology
Why are you resisting this framing?
Couldn’t you sell the needed R&D better if you
presented it as a benefit on the margin of a program
addressing the global imperative of improving our
understanding of the Earth?
Nightmare: We are unprepared for
the next volcano
Be ready for the next volcano (Granger Morgan)
Nightmare: Geoengineering
contributes to the rejection of
science as a way of knowing.
Imagine describing environmental problems and
formulating and evaluating “solutions” without science.
Cherish the norms of science: open, welcoming of
newcomers, cosmopolitan, iterative. These are our
jewels.
Nightmares directly related to
geoengineering policy
Nightmare: Regulatory spillover
stops CCS in its track
More generally, spillover of regulation generated at this
meeting and its successors shifts the burden of proof
for new technologies, impeding innovation.
Nightmare: Soon, stratospheric
aerosol injection is actually used
by a rogue state
… well before international norms are established.
Nightmare: Soon, an unambiguous
signal of a climate emergency
An unambiguous emergency is quite conceivable:
E.g., the methane concentration soars for five years in a
row, and arctic outgassing is identified as the culprit.
SRM seeks to be epinepherin, not Advil. Epinephrine
treats an acute allergic reaction. Doctors have
epinephrine in their medicine cabinet.
However, Lovelock observes that in this instance we
have only 19th century medicine – leeches. We aren’t
ready.
Nightmare: Globally coordinated
environmental policy is rejected by
the developing world
For a while longer, the industrialized countries will lead.
But the developing world will decide what kind of planet
we live on.
There is a nearly comical mismatch between our sense of
good intentions and their perceptions of the realities of
political power. They say: “Thanks, but no thanks.”
Asilomar 2.2 participants: less than 50% from the U.S.,
greater than 25% from developing countries.
Nightmare: We fail to anticipate
conflict over setting the thermostat
Anticipate disputes, if someday the world confronts a
choice among end-points of geoengineering.
We should not pretend that the pre-industrial world (the
status quo ante) will be universally chosen as the endpoint, nor any other world.
Nonetheless, there will be a bias toward retrieving the
pre-industrial world. We planted crops where the rain fell
and built our cities near rivers and coasts. Sea-level rise
means moving inland. Sea-level fall means cities without
access to the sea.
Nightmares directly related to
geoengineering values
Nightmare: The goal of Earth
enhancement is embraced uncritically
Genetic engineering now allows enhancement of the human species
(prettier, taller, smarter,…)
Geoengineering will allow enhancement of the planet – notably, the
moderation of extreme events:
warmer winters where people want them
cooler summers where people want them
less severe storms and droughts
sweet spots
See Michael Sandel, The Case Against Perfection. Enhancement can
be pursued to excess. The ability to savor the life we have been
“gifted” can be lost, as well as the random, the “unbidden.”
Nightmare: Geoengineering is
unlinked to awe.
Geoengineering becomes part of the human agenda
without linkage to the profound existential questions
of human purpose and our place in the natural
environment. (Leinen)
A geoengineered world bears almost no
resemblance to the world desired by
environmentalists, who seek to reduce the influence
of humans on other species and ecosystems.
A message to those who are
drawing up guidelines
Say up front: Geoengineers must not police themselves.
Say this before others say it.
Concede that geoengineering may not be needed.
Muddling through is a legitimate alternative.
Anticipate, imagine what could go wrong.
The norm is good intentions gone awry.
Measure, evaluate, iterate: Incredibly hard to do.
“Madmen in authority who hear
voices in the air are distilling the
wisdom of an academic scribbler of
some years back.”
John Maynard Keynes
Be very careful.