Month: October 2016

Reynolds, Jesse L.; et al. (2016): Five solar geoengineering tropes that have outstayed their welcome

Reynolds, Jesse L.; Parker, Andy; Irvine, Peter (2016): Five solar geoengineering tropes that have outstayed their welcome. In Earth’s Future, n/a‐n/a. DOI 10.1002/2016EF000416.

“However, a number of claims are frequently made in the academic and popular SRM discourses and, despite evidence to the contrary, pose the risk of hardening into accepted facts. Here, in order to foster a more productive and honest debate, we identify, describe, and refute five of the most problematic claims that are unsupported by existing evidence, unlikely to occur, or greatly exaggerated. These are (1) once started, SRM cannot be stopped; (2) SRM is a right-wing project; (3) SRM would cost only a few billion dollars per year; (4) Modelling studies indicate that SRM would disrupt monsoon precipitation; and (5) there is an international prohibition on outdoors research.”

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Boyd, Philip W. (2016): Development of geopolitically-relevant ranking criteria for geoengineering methods

Boyd, Philip W. (2016): Development of geopolitically-relevant ranking criteria for geoengineering methods. In Earth’s Future, n/a‐n/a. DOI 10.1002/2016EF000447.

“Here, I use the Pinatubo archives to develop a range of geopolitically-relevant ranking criteria for a suite of different geoengineering approaches. The criteria focus on the spatial scales needed for geoengineering, and whether large-scale dispersal is a necessary requirement for a technique to deliver significant cooling or carbon dioxide reductions. These categories in turn inform whether geoengineering approaches are amenable to participation (the ‘democracy of geoengineering’), and whether they will lead to transboundary issues which could precipitate geopolitical conflicts.”

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Friends of the Earth: Paris Climate Agreement Demands a Radical Transformation Rather Than Risky Technologies for Climate Protection

Friends of the Earth; Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung; Misereor (2016): Kurswechsel 1,5°. Wege in eine klimagerechte Zukunft. Berlin. Available online at www.bund.net/fileadmin/bundnet/pdfs/klima_und_energie/161028_bund_klima_energie_kurswechsel_broschuere.pdf

Press release on a German brochure on climate politics. “In their joint publication, “A change of course: How to build a fair future in a 1.5 degree world,” the three organizations present the dangers posed by global warming to food security and ecosystems and analyze so-called negative emission technologies such as geoengineering, offsetting of emissions, and BECCS (bioenergy with carbon capture and storage). In contrast to these questionable technologies, the policies to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees – as stipulated in the Paris Agreement – that are presented in the joint publication are not only geared toward climate mitigation but also put poverty reduction and[nbsp] climate justice at the center of attention.”

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Science Daily: New biochar model scrubs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere

News article on Woolf, Dominic; et al. (2016). “An economically viable model to scrub carbon dioxide from the atmosphere has been developed to thwart runaway, point-of-no-return global warming. The researchers propose using a “bioenergy-biochar system” that removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in an environmental pinch, until other removal methods become economically feasible and in regions where other methods are impractical.”

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NERC: Announcement of Opportunity: Greenhouse Gas Removal from the Atmosphere

“NERC, the Engineering [&] Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the Economic [&] Social Research Council (ESRC), the Department for Business, Energy [&] Industrial Strategy (BEIS), the Met Office Hadley Centre and the Science [&] Technology Facilities Council (STFC) are inviting research proposals for a new four-year research programme on Greenhouse Gas Removal (GGR) from the Atmosphere.”

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