Dear John,
Ah - the ONLY way forward reminds me of Thatchers TINA....In truth we have a hundred thousand ways forward but only a few will make a great deal of money for the promoters and much of this will be surrounded by PR aka Shell and Exon Mobile's soft soaping the public on their key role as the energy saviours of human kind...
I'm old fashioned and believe in reforestation of almost everywhere and the divergence of human sewage as a mass feed for new generations of greening - but there's usually little money involved in shit stirring...
Mark's point about the military industriall complex is telling since those systems are already being put in place - a fence across Libya to prevent migration in to Europe from Black Africa and the new TELOS armed robotics for European security coming out of the EU (See Statewatch's Brilliant neoconopticon)
A key issue for grand concepst like Geoengineering is unforseen conseqences... I tell our students that Carl Benz just wanted to get to work earlier and avoid shovelling horse shit - - but inadvertanly he created the motorway networks of the world, the petrodollar economy, the Midde east wars, changes in the courting habits of American adolecents and of course runaway climate change - all of which were more impactful that his desire to get to work faster - and my driving experience in towns these days makes me think it would be faster on horseback...
So beware of promoting geo engineering as a universal technical fix, if it fucks up some other country not involved in the universal plan and perhaps not of the same religeous convictions as the planners, the men with guns, bombs and tanks will not be far behind....
Steve
Hi Mark,
I can understand your abhorance of geoengineering. I think it is very natural, as our society has done enough damage already with our CO2 emissions, biofuel from food, etc. However that damage has to be undone, if we are to prevent catastrophe, particularly from ocean acidification and from methane release and ice sheet disintegration in the Arctic. Unfortunately the only way to halt the acidification is by reducing CO2 below 350 ppm - and possibly much lower - and the only way to do this is through carbon dioxide removal (CDR). And unfortunately the only way to cool the Arctic, in time to prevent catastrophe, is by solar radiation management SRM. This is a matter of climate science. I challenge you (or anybody else) to show that CDR and SRM are not a necessary part of the solution.
Cheers,
John
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Mark Levene wrote:
John,
with great respect, when you suggest ' Perhaps we should introduce Nafeez etc ..to geoengineering' you mean yourself and those who might support you. Crisis Forum's list is just that: a list where issues such as this can be debated. But we have no policy line per se. As I think you know, I for one abhor the idea of geoengineering and say a little more why I do in:
Stefan Skrimshire's just published Future Ethics, Climate Change and Apocalyptic Imagination (London and New York: Continuum, 2010)
- ŒThe Apocalyptic as Contemporary Dialectic: From Thanatos (Violence) to Eros (Transformation),š 59-80.
that's the plug for me, and the others of us from the Crisis Forum network (Stefan and Alastair) who are in the book.
But otherwise, I think we all need to be sensitive and respectful of each other, given that we do NOT all agree on 'solutions' or indeed even (dread as the implication may be) that there have to be "solutions". It may be , of course that those solutions will be mandated and carried through whether I and others like it not -( that of course, is my point...it will be the military-industrial-security apparatuses of the hegemonic power-centres in the world today which will be the drivers...) but this remains for the future. So long as CF is CF and not an arm of the powerful state or corporate sector, we will need to argue these things as autonomous, free-thinking individuals....
go well,
mark
on 1/10/10 8:20 am, John Nissen at [log in to unmask] wrote:
Hi David,
I followed up on the author. The degree of crisis we are facing is well described here:
http://nafeez.blogspot.com/2010/09/sliding-toward-climate-catastrophe.html
The solution has to involve geoengineering, to reduce CO2 levels well below 350 ppm, and to cool the Arctic, although people are for ever saying that geoengineering itself is too dangerous! Here's the latest:
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=53021
Perhaps we should introduce Nafeez and the Policy Institute to the idea of geoengineering.
Cheers,
John
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David Cromwell wrote:
Hello,
Išve got hold of this book below and it looks highly relevant to the very motivation behind the setting up of the Crisis Forum (and this mailing list). Well worth close examination...
Best wishes
David Cromwell
==
http://www.plutobooks.com/display.asp?K=9780745330532& <http://www.plutobooks.com/display.asp?K=9780745330532&>
A User's Guide to the Crisis of Civilization And How to Save It
Product Description
It often seems that different crises are competing to devastate civilisation. This book argues that financial meltdown, dwindling oil reserves, terrorism and food shortages need to be considered as part of the same ailing system.
Most accounts of our contemporary global crises such as climate change, or the threat of terrorism, focus on one area, or another, to the exclusion of others. Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed argues that the unwillingness of experts to look outside their own fields explains why there is so much disagreement and misunderstanding about particular crises. This book attempts to investigate all of these crises, not as isolated events, but as trends and processes that belong to a single global system. We are therefore not dealing with a 'clash of civilisations', as Huntington argued. Rather, we are dealing with a fundamental crisis of civilisation itself.
This book provides a stark warning of the consequences of failing to take a broad view of the problems facing the world and shows how catastrophe can be avoided.
About The Author
Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed is Executive Director of the Institute for Policy Research and Development in London. He has taught international relations, contemporary history, empire and globalisation at the School of Global Studies, University of Sussex and the Politics & History Unit, Brunel University. His previous books include The War on Truth: Disinformation and the Anatomy of Terrorism (2005) and Behind the War on Terror: Western Secret Strategy and the Struggle for Iraq (2003).