Friday 31 January 2014

A new framing

I am at a very interesting meeting (EuTRACE partner meeting - www.eutrace.org) and we are discussing framing. I novel (I think) idea hit me. There are several framings, none of which are ideal. As a general discussion 'CE' is challenging because there are many different techniques that work on varying spatio-temporal scales, with variable costs, impacts and social responses. Is afforestation really appropriate to be lumped in with CE and do they have, for example, the same time moral issues. CDR/SRM is also challenging, for similar reasons (although better if you recategorize ocean fertilization separately) or, as per EuTRACE use three exemplars (I think we've decided on BECCS, SAI and OF). A 'per technique' framing is better, but as the number of techniques and technological imaginaries expands, this becomes a real challenge. My idea is to regroup the techniques by where they act - i.e. land-based, ocean-based and atmospheric. I think this makes for an interesting new framing which I hope to explore over the next few days. It would put roof-whitening with afforestation and biochar, which, instinctively, makes some sense (in terms of scale of impact, level of personal responsibility, justice and governance). I think I need to think about this a bit, but, as always, I am using the blog as brain dump/aide memoir.





Saturday 25 January 2014

Quickie

OK - two brief things (it's exam week).

1). Two counter points to Al Gore's 'you're all bonkers and should be ashamed of yourself' bullshit...

Mine (actually a response to earlier comments) -

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/oct/08/climate-engineering-geoengineering-climate-change

Josh Hortons -

http://geoengineeringpolitics.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/ipcc-acknowledges-likely-need-for-cdr.html

2) I got challenged (indirectly) into trying to get my feelings on stratospheric SRM into one tweet (hashtag, actually). It was in response to me appearing (accidentally) on the comedy blog 'the bugle'
http://thebuglepodcast.com/ A student had tweeted the link with the hashtag #SayNoToReflectiveParticles (listen to the blog for details - number 256 about 16 mins in).
 
I wrote this. On reflection I think it's OK....

#SayNoToReflectiveParticlesUnlessItIsClearThatInactionWillDoMoreHarm.
 
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