Latest / Saving the World From Bad Ideas / Bad Idea #9 "Dimming the Sun?!" with Cynthia Scharf

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Bad Idea #9 "Dimming the Sun?!" with Cynthia Scharf · Saving the World From Bad Ideas

0:00
Far from meeting the 1.5 goal, we're actually headed toward 3C,
0:05
and that's terrifying. And when the realization of that
0:10
started to sink in with governments, with NGOs, with the
0:15
media, other people, then there was interest.
0:19
Interest born of fear. As I said, these are
0:22
technologies born of desperation, Desperation that we
0:26
may not be making those goals. And right now the evidence is
0:31
we're not. Research is happening on this
0:34
technology. Putting your head in the sand
0:37
and pretending that isn't happening is much riskier than
0:43
learning as much as you can about it.
0:46
What are the pros? What are the cons?
0:48
What don't we know? How might it affect future
0:51
generations? How might it affect agriculture?
0:55
How might it affect geopolitical security?
0:58
It's quite scary to think that the vast amount of research
1:02
being funded is being done by private actors who are not
1:05
accountable to any citizenry. There's no transparency
1:10
requirements on this, so the research should be transparent
1:14
and it should be accountable, and in that sense, publicly
1:18
funded research is really what is needed at this point.
1:23
Welcome to saving the world from bad ideas.
1:26
I'm Mark Linus, and I've had a few bad ideas in my time.
1:29
I used to go out in the night time to destroy GMO crops, and I
1:32
also posed nuclear power. But then when I looked at the
1:35
science, I found I got it wrong. Oops.
1:37
I've learned the hard way that none of us are right all the
1:39
time. So now I'm here to challenge the
1:42
assumptions that we all too often take for granted because
1:44
the future depends on us getting it right.
1:47
Cynthia Schaff, welcome to Saving the World from Bad Ideas
1:50
podcast. Hope you're well today.
1:53
Yes, I am. Thank you for having me on.
1:55
Well, I'm very much looking forward to getting into our
1:58
conversation. You've got a pretty amazing CV
2:01
just looking at all the things you've done.
2:03
You're currently a senior fellow at the Centre for Future
2:06
Generations, which is a think tank based in the Netherlands.
2:08
Is that right? Brussels, Brussels, Brussels.
2:11
Sorry. And you've been at the Carnegie
2:14
Climate Governance Initiative, you've published in Foreign
2:17
Policy, Science, Fortune, Bloomberg News.
2:21
You work, you work with the American Geophysical Union,
2:24
Lawrence Livermore and Sandia National Laboratories.
2:26
You've been working with the with Ban Ki Moon, the former
2:30
secretary general of the United Nations.
2:31
I mean, anything I've missed out on this list because it's, it's
2:34
pretty impressive. No, that that's good.
2:37
Thank you. OK.
2:39
So, but what, what drew you to the climate interventions issue,
2:43
which we want to talk to today? I'm kind of keen to, to get into
2:46
the path that you've had as a, you know, as a climate
2:49
professional for, you know, for a, for a long time and someone
2:52
who's been, you know, involved in different lines of work with
2:54
different audiences about why you think this is an issue that
2:57
we that we should talk about. And of course, this, the theme
3:00
of this podcast is saving the world from bad ideas.
3:03
And maybe the bad idea that you're saving the world from is
3:07
dimming the sun. I don't, I don't know whether
3:09
you're pro or anti dimming the sun, but it's the climate
3:11
intervention that comes up top in most people's lists.
3:14
And you know, do you talk about climate interventions?
3:18
Do you talk about geoengineering?
3:19
What's the sort of terminology that we should start off with
3:22
here? Yeah, there's there's a lot of
3:24
different terms for a particular set of technologies.
3:28
So the official name according to the IPCC is Solar Radiation
3:33
Modification, SRM. Within that category there are
3:37
several different types. One is brightening clouds over
3:41
the ocean, another is thinning cirrus clouds.
3:45
But the type of technology used most often, which is the most
3:50
well researched to date, also the most controversial, has a
3:55
very long name, Stratospheric Aerosol Injection or Sai.
4:01
And probably 90% of what we focus on in the think tank I
4:05
work for is Sai. If I can give you a visual about
4:10
this, maybe that would help. Please do.
4:12
Please do. Yeah, it sounds really
4:14
technical, but actually it's a pretty simple idea.
4:18
And it's based on a natural analog volcanic explosions.
4:24
So the explosion that researchers referenced most
4:27
frequently is a giant explosion in Mount Pinatubo in the
4:32
Philippines in 1991. And when that happened, tons of
4:37
sulfur went into the stratosphere.
4:41
It spread and it cooled the Earth.
4:44
So think of this as aerosols that are like sunscreen or a
4:49
parasol. They go into the stratosphere.
4:51
So that's probably twice the height of commercial air flight.
4:56
And they circulate around the globe with the winds in the
4:59
stratosphere, and they reflect sunlight back to space.
5:04
It's really a simple idea. The thought of doing it is
5:10
terrifying, if I could put it in the word.
5:14
These are technologies born of desperation.
5:19
So the origin of this idea was actually back in 2006 by Nobel
5:25
Prize winning chemist Paul Critson.
5:29
And at that time he was concerned that humankind was not
5:34
making the kind of advances needed to arrest catastrophic
5:39
climate change. He wrote a paper and kind of
5:42
threw out this idea into the rest of the world.
5:45
It has taken a long time for there to be serious pick up on
5:50
this. It is still a very small
5:52
community of researchers who look into SRM.
5:57
It has for the duration of that 2006 to, you know, 20 year
6:02
period been seen as fringe science.
6:05
Not something to take seriously. I would say in the last five
6:10
years, that attitude is shifting.
6:13
It's certainly shifting in the research community, but it is
6:17
also searching, excuse me. It is also evolving in the
6:21
policy sphere as well. To answer your question about
6:26
climate interventions versus geoengineering, climate
6:31
interventions can be a wide array of different technologies.
6:35
It could be SRM. It might also be something like
6:40
developing plastic curtains that lower beneath the sea level and
6:46
help glaciers from sliding off into the sea.
6:49
It could be space mirrors. There's there's a wide range.
6:53
It sounds like a Hollywood, you know, scenario.
6:56
So there's a lot of those within the broader term of climate
7:00
intervention. But what we focus on in our
7:03
think tank is SRM, and within that specifically, the kind that
7:07
acts like a parasol that reflects sunlight back into
7:11
space. Yeah.
7:12
I mean, I've looked into these climate interventions a bit
7:14
myself, and I think the stratospheric aerosol
7:17
injections, the only one worth discussing really, The rest of
7:19
them are kind of bonkers. Not scalable plastic curtains in
7:22
the ocean. I don't think so.
7:23
So let's focus on the one that might actually be doable.
7:27
Whether it's desirable or not, it's a totally different issue.
7:30
And you described it as terrifying.
7:32
But if it's so scary, why are you working on it?
7:34
I mean, what what's what are you?
7:36
Having see why I'm working on it.
7:38
So I I worked for eight years in the office of the former
7:41
Secretary General Ban Ki Moon. I was a senior member of his
7:45
climate team before, during and after the Paris Agreement.
7:50
It was an amazing opportunity. But I must say, even at the
7:54
time, I was really harboring doubts that humanity would take
8:01
the necessary action at the speed and scale required to keep
8:07
humanity safe, not only our generations, but most
8:11
importantly future generations. And I started reading about
8:15
geoengineering, and I was terrified.
8:19
And what really scared me was the realization there is no kind
8:24
of international safety net to prevent this from happening.
8:29
There is no comprehensive governance framework that would
8:33
prohibit an actor or actors from doing large scale outdoor tests
8:39
from potentially even deploying Sai stratospheric aerosol
8:44
injection. Moreover, there is no place in
8:48
the UN system or in the general multilateral system worldwide
8:53
where this issue, with all its various complications and
8:57
implications, would land neatly. It isn't in the UNF Triple C, in
9:03
the COP framework that Paris is built around.
9:06
It's not necessarily in the Convention on Biological
9:09
Diversity, the Montreal Protocol.
9:11
There are bits and pieces that fit within different types of
9:16
international processes, but there's no one comprehensive
9:21
knitting together of governance that would be a deterrence to
9:26
someone doing that. And personally when I was
9:29
reading about it, the fact that a technology like Sai, if used
9:36
at a global scale would change the climate for every single
9:41
country in the world, but the impacts would not be equal.
9:47
So you would. Climate change is already
9:50
dividing the world into climate winners and losers.
9:54
Sai would do the same thing, and the fact that there was nobody
9:59
kind of minding the store, if you could put it that way, that
10:03
there were no sufficient guardrails or even guidelines
10:06
around this terrified me. So I started reading about it,
10:11
and when I left the UN, it's the issue I wanted to work on
10:15
because no one else was working on it.
10:18
And at that time there was a small private foundation, VKRFVK
10:22
Rasmussen Foundation, that was putting together a grant to
10:27
enable a small team to start kick starting discussions about
10:32
this problem. Why is there no governance?
10:35
What can be done? What is this technology?
10:38
What are the risks? What are the benefits?
10:40
What don't we know? And so there was a small team of
10:43
us, about 10 people on average, and we worked together for seven
10:48
years. And the idea was to work
10:50
ourselves out of a job, which is not what most NGOs want to do.
10:57
And I say that because the mission was to kick start to
11:01
catalyze a discussion with governments, with all relevant
11:07
UN agencies, with NGOs around the world, with think tanks.
11:13
Coming from a position of, you know, what research is happening
11:17
on this technology, putting your head in the sand and pretending
11:22
that isn't happening is much riskier than learning as much as
11:28
you can about it. What are the pros?
11:31
What are the cons? What don't we know?
11:33
How might it affect future generations?
11:36
How might it affect agriculture? How might it affect geopolitical
11:40
security? I mean, there's 1001 questions
11:44
you can ask, similar questions to climate change, I might add.
11:49
And thinking about how can those governments Start learning about
11:55
this? And we deliberately tried very
11:57
hard not to be for SRM and not to be totally against it, but to
12:05
say, make a judgement yourself. Here's the best information that
12:10
we can provide. It's up to you, ex government,
12:14
what you think of this, what you want to do with this.
12:17
You know, we're a small NGO. We represent no one.
12:20
We don't claim to, but learn about it and start having these
12:24
discussions because this is serious.
12:27
And so over the span of seven years we did work ourselves out
12:31
of a job. We ended in 2023.
12:35
We spoke to over 60 national governments, I would say pretty
12:39
much all the G20, a number of climate vulnerable countries, a
12:44
number of the Pacific Islands, most of the major international
12:50
climate NGOs that you're aware with, aware of think tanks,
12:54
etcetera, etcetera, all the heads of relevant UN agencies.
12:59
And if I could just describe that interaction when we began,
13:03
I think people only took the meeting to be polite.
13:07
Several of us had worked with Secretary General Ban Ki Moon,
13:11
so we supposedly had some source of credentials.
13:15
We weren't completely insane, but I think people took the
13:18
meeting because it was out of politeness and deference to, OK,
13:23
you're, you're former UN, you know, you're not completely
13:25
wacky. And it took a long time to get
13:30
the conversation from that stage of incredulity and disbelief to,
13:37
Oh my God, the world is really in a serious position with
13:43
regard to making progress on limiting climate impacts and
13:48
reducing the worst harms, just both now as well as in future
13:52
generations. Far from meeting the 1.5 goal,
13:56
we're actually headed toward three to three C, And that's
14:00
terrifying. And when the realization of that
14:05
started to sink in with governments, with NGOs, with the
14:09
media, other people, then there was interest.
14:13
Interest born of fear. As I said, these are
14:16
technologies born of desperation.
14:19
Desperation that we may not be making those goals.
14:24
And right now, the evidence is we're not.
14:28
What does this look like? That we need to know more, We
14:31
need to see more research and that kind of ethos has helped
14:37
infuse the work that I currently do in a new Brussels based think
14:42
tank. However, we are much more
14:44
focused on the EU, on member states in the EU, the European
14:49
Commission, helping them better understand the risks, the
14:54
potential benefits, the unknowns.
14:57
What don't we know? What are the impacts?
15:00
What are the impacts on security?
15:02
That's a very relevant question right now and that's a growing
15:06
area of of the research in general.
15:09
So that's a broad overview. I'll stop there, but hope that
15:13
was helpful. Thank you.
15:14
No, that was very helpful. Actually, we did a recording a
15:18
few weeks ago with Oliver Morton, who's who wrote that
15:23
book. I think it's called The Planet
15:25
remade all about this issue some time ago now.
15:28
I think it's probably like 10 years old.
15:30
And yeah, so we talked a lot about this.
15:32
And during that conversation, I was sort of almost edging on it.
15:36
Oh, maybe we should, maybe we should actually do this, you
15:38
know, And it was an interesting conversation because it felt
15:42
like a very transgressive thing to even consider in that
15:45
there's, there's people up there, you know, there's whole
15:47
moratorium out there on, I mean, not just on deployment, but
15:51
actually on research. And almost in terms of almost,
15:55
it feels like they, there's people who want to shut down
15:56
this conversation entirely. And it sounds like that's not,
15:59
that's not your agenda, right? You don't, you're not saying
16:01
this should happen. You're not saying it shouldn't
16:03
happen, but you're saying people need to be better informed,
16:05
particularly climate vulnerable countries, people who are going
16:08
to be affected by this, which causes everyone on earth.
16:11
And then the question of governance, like who, who gets
16:14
to decide, particularly given that the the risks and the
16:17
benefits are never going to be equally shared.
16:19
But like you say, it's we're heading into a, into a climate
16:23
emergency on top of the existing climate emergency.
16:26
I mean, the, if you look at what's happened, you'll be all
16:29
over this, I know. But if you look what's happened
16:31
to sea temperatures in the last 18 months, there's been this
16:35
step change which the climate physics community is still
16:39
trying to get get a handle on. Really some aspects may maybe to
16:43
do with the Earth's albedo, the reflectivity having changed due
16:47
to perhaps the removal of sulfates from coal and from
16:51
marine shipping and stuff. So talk to me about the what's
16:56
happened in the last two or three years and how that's how
16:58
that's changed how you you're seeing this issue.
17:01
Yeah. As I mentioned, these private
17:04
discussions moved from a place of anxiety incredulity into a
17:11
phase of deep anxiety as the realization that progress on
17:16
Paris is not anywhere near where it needs to be in the private
17:21
sector as well in terms and in the areas of climate finance.
17:25
And then of course, loss and damage.
17:27
We, excuse me, we're very, very far from creating a stable, safe
17:33
environment. And I would say that the
17:37
interest now is really colored by moral hazard.
17:41
And that's a very legitimate position.
17:45
Moral hazard, meaning if we talk about this, if we research this
17:50
technology, is it going to replace our interest, the
17:55
finance, the political momentum that we need to go into what we
18:00
know we have to do, which is traditional mitigation, reducing
18:06
emissions to zero and then net negative as quickly as possible,
18:11
Scaling up adaptation, meeting our promises on climate finance,
18:16
which we certainly have not done in the last 15 years, and
18:22
adaptation. And in that context, people are
18:27
interested in learning, but they don't want to see interest in
18:33
this technology overshadowing those other things.
18:37
And what I always say to people is this is not a solution.
18:43
Anyone who tells you it is is seriously deluded.
18:48
It is not a solution. It is not a substitute for doing
18:54
all those other things that we should have been doing over the
18:57
last 30 years in my adult lifetime.
19:00
And we haven't been doing sufficiently.
19:03
At best, at best it is a potential supplement to relieve
19:10
near term humanitarian suffering.
19:13
Because currently there is nothing else in the policy
19:19
toolbox, nothing else that scientists know that could lower
19:25
global temperatures within a decade and lower them at a
19:30
significant level. Even if all emissions fell to 0
19:35
overnight globally, which of course they're not going to, we
19:40
still would not be able to lower temperatures for several decades
19:45
because the amount of heat built into the climate system.
19:49
This technology, I often call a seductive technology seductive.
19:56
I mean in the sense of politically seductive.
20:00
Why? It's fast acting.
20:03
You get results within people's lifetime.
20:07
Again, nothing else that we're aware of right now is going to
20:10
have any kind of a, a cooling effect that quickly.
20:15
Second of second of all, it's fairly cheap.
20:20
Fairly is obviously a relative term.
20:22
But if you look at direct costs for what Sai might encompass,
20:28
direct costs are on the order of 10 to 20 billion a year.
20:34
Obviously, you're going to have the indirect costs of perhaps
20:36
needing to build new air bases, the infrastructure, the supply
20:41
infrastructure, all of that. But even 10 to $20 billion
20:46
compared to the trillions of dollars it will take to
20:50
decarbonize the global economy, you see the scale is different.
20:55
So it's fast, it's relatively cheap.
21:00
Last and not least, there's really no pesky I I use that
21:05
ironically pesky international prohibitions against using this.
21:11
So imagine a populist nationalist government where
21:17
Climate Act impacts are severe, people turn to their government
21:23
and say do something. We are literally dying by going
21:31
outside to farm or to fish. Wet bulb temperatures are above
21:36
40 C, and that isn't so hard to imagine in the next decade or
21:42
two. And this wet bulb temperature is
21:44
important because that's the temperature above which humans
21:48
literally cannot survive biologically in that
21:50
environment, right? Exactly.
21:51
Exactly. So the public or a significant
21:55
portion of the public says to its leaders, do something.
22:00
We are dying. We don't care what other
22:03
countries think. We don't care necessarily about
22:07
what happens 100 years from now. We are dying.
22:11
Do something. Sai is really the only
22:16
technology that would again have an immediate impact and a
22:22
specific government would not need to wait 1520 years while an
22:29
internationally comprehensive treaty process or governance
22:34
framework is developed. And I say that knowing that
22:38
international policy on climate has taken years and years to get
22:43
us where we are now, whereas was not born overnight.
22:48
It was the result of years of backroom conversations, further
22:54
information, knitting together alliances, doing the diplomatic
22:59
work so that 195 countries could agree on a process.
23:05
So it is very politically seductive in that sense that
23:10
it's fast acting, it's cheap, and if a government wanted to
23:14
deploy it, there is nothing right now that would in
23:17
international law prohibit them from doing so.
23:22
And that's a frightening concept.
23:24
Hmm, And I think it's not just humanitarian, umm, reasons.
23:29
I mean, I work on coral reefs, uh, in the Maldives and
23:33
elsewhere. And I recently was at a
23:35
conference where scientists from around the world were comparing
23:40
different projects that they have for coral IVF and, you
23:44
know, enhanced evolution to, to thermal tolerance.
23:47
And all of these projects which scientists have got either in
23:50
the lab or even in the, in the, in the oceans to try to
23:53
desperately save coral reefs because they're going to be
23:57
functionally extinct within a decade or two.
24:00
Uh, we've already seen 3/4 major coral worldwide coral bleaching
24:04
events, uh, which are essentially, you know, wiping
24:07
out one of the world's most significant biomes.
24:10
And actually, I, I never said this in the meeting, but the
24:13
only thing I can think of actually which would save the
24:15
coral reefs on a global scale would be Sai because it it turns
24:18
down the temperature. Actually that's a really
24:21
interesting example you brought up about coral reefs.
24:24
There is a form of SRM currently being used, not Sai but a form
24:30
called Marine Cloud Brightening, and the Australian government
24:33
has been funding experiments over the Great Barrier Reef and
24:38
there's been really no public push back.
24:41
And in fact the acceptance has been quite remarkable.
24:46
The framing is something along the lines of we're protecting
24:49
our natural resource, we're protecting something that is
24:53
unique and beautiful and intrinsic to Australia and
24:57
perhaps using this kind of technology we can really save
25:00
those reefs. So they're interested.
25:05
So it's not just humanitarian suffering as you say, although
25:09
the effects, the potential effects of something like Sai on
25:14
ecosystems are much less studied and well known.
25:20
And one of the most serious challenges and drawbacks to
25:26
using Sai is that in changing the temperature very quickly,
25:31
you have to keep using Sai for decades, if not a century or
25:39
longer, because you're not addressing the cause of the
25:44
problem. You are not reducing greenhouse
25:47
gas emissions from the atmosphere.
25:50
So again, not a solution, at best a supplement.
25:56
So you need to keep using it until the world decarbonizes,
26:03
until the world goes net negative, until carbon dioxide
26:08
removal technologies are scaled at a much, much higher level
26:14
than currently is anticipated to bring us to that safe place
26:18
where the world can then wean itself off of Sai safely.
26:24
But if those conditions are not met and say Sai had been used
26:31
for the 10 years or 20 years and was suddenly stopped, whether
26:37
that was because country X didn't want to continue it,
26:40
whether there was a military action that shot down planes
26:45
distributing the aerosols, whatever the reason, then
26:49
temperatures would very quickly shoot back up to where they
26:54
were. And that amount of change in
26:57
temperature is devastating to most ecosystems.
27:03
The official term for this is called termination effect.
27:08
Termination shock. Yeah, termination shock, yes, I
27:12
call it climate boomerang, right.
27:14
Temperatures go down and then wow, very quickly go up again.
27:19
And that is a real serious issue that requires a lot more study
27:24
and is a great reason for having caution around looking at some
27:28
of these technologies. But there are also, you know,
27:32
these potential benefits could wet bulb temperatures that are
27:37
life threatening to hundreds of millions of people around the
27:39
world who work outside. If those temperatures were
27:44
reduced, would that enable them to live?
27:48
What about future generations? Are we making a choice that
27:55
might improve prospects for future generations, or
27:59
conversely, condemn them to using a technology for decades
28:04
again, if not a century or more? That is very risky and might
28:08
have impacts. We have no idea what they might
28:12
look like at this point. Yeah, because with termination
28:15
shock, which I agree is probably the most scary issue when, when
28:19
this the the solar geoengineering thing is, is
28:25
discussed is that you have this differential really between what
28:28
the planet's temperature would be without the sun shade and you
28:34
know, and what so the the cooling that's being delivered
28:38
means you've got this imbalance and it could if you suddenly
28:41
take the sun, take the sun shade away, you could get very, very
28:44
rapid temperature rise. And in fact, I even suggest in
28:48
my book, I've got a got a book coming out on nuclear war soon,
28:51
which is, you know, that's like the most extreme example of
28:56
sunshade in that you, if you, if you burn all the cities, you
28:59
make it completely dark. And, and the solar radiation of
29:03
the surface comes to 0. And you get this nuclear winter,
29:07
which has been known about since for a long time now, since the
29:09
80s. And I think there's been some
29:10
crossover actually between the solar, the stratospheric aerosol
29:15
injection issue and nuclear winter because it's the
29:18
mechanisms are pretty similar actually, but it's just the
29:20
magnitude of it. But yeah, I mean, I think I
29:23
think this could be a mechanism for mass extinctions where
29:25
you've got very, very long term increases in greenhouse gases
29:29
and then suddenly you have a volcanic winter superimposed on
29:31
it. And you get that kind of climate
29:32
boomerang that you were talking about, which is a thing that
29:34
would really stress ecosystems and would probably lead to mass
29:37
extinctions of many, many species.
29:39
Yeah, absolutely. Strangely enough, I actually
29:42
started my career decades ago in arms control and I remember Carl
29:47
Sagan talking about nuclear winter in the 80s.
29:49
And yeah, it's both subjects are contain a lot of emotion packed
29:59
into them. They both have global
30:02
implications. Obviously SRM is not a weapon.
30:07
First of all, the person who would or the actor who would be
30:10
deploying SRM would also have effects and and presumably they
30:14
would think they would benefit from them.
30:16
That's why they might go ahead and deploy.
30:19
So it is not a precise target by any means.
30:21
It's quite the opposite. It would be very easily
30:25
detectable for Sai to go at a global scale.
30:30
The idea would be to have 100 or more jets flying at twice the
30:36
height of commercial airspace and releasing on a 24/7 basis a
30:42
certain amount of aerosols into the stratosphere that the winds
30:46
would then disperse around the planet.
30:50
And that kind of infrastructure is something that only a few
30:55
governments could really handle at this point.
30:59
You would have to have access to air bases around the world.
31:04
The planes that would be needed for this are not yet developed.
31:09
We don't need a major scientific breakthrough.
31:12
This. This is not fusion.
31:13
There is no major scientific breakthrough needed to develop
31:17
Sai, But the planes that would disperse it need to be
31:21
developed. They need certain types of
31:23
engines and they need to carry a large payload.
31:26
That's an engineering problem. It's not a scientific challenge
31:30
per SE. And so taking 10 or more years
31:33
to get to that level where they could globally deploy, that's
31:37
happening very, very quickly. But it is not, again, the
31:42
scientific challenge that's difficult.
31:45
It's the governance challenge. How do we govern a technology
31:49
that affects everyone, but not equally?
31:54
Whose finger is on the global thermostat?
31:57
Who makes that decision? How?
31:59
Based on whose criteria? What science?
32:01
What other factors? Really complicated questions.
32:05
Well, let's get into governance in a bit and but I want to just
32:09
finish up on the engineering aspects and ask you how far you
32:13
think that research should continue on the engineering
32:17
challenges that would come up from this.
32:19
So are you saying that the, the, the engineers should be
32:23
developing these planes which could deliver a, you know, a
32:26
sulfate payload to the upper stratosphere?
32:29
Or are you saying that, you know, we should just talk about
32:32
it? I mean, obviously there's
32:32
computer modelling, which is fairly non controversial and
32:36
that that can that can be done. But when it comes to actually
32:38
building, you've got, you know, you've got to test things and
32:41
you've got to start putting some sulfates up there and see what
32:43
happens. And when these pilot projects,
32:45
even tiny, tiny things have been attempted, they've been, they've
32:49
been shut down. So how should research continue
32:54
on this issue, do you think? Yeah, it's a very good question.
32:58
The amount of research done on SRM compared to the amount of
33:01
research done on climate change broadly is still very, very
33:05
small. As I said, it's been seen as a
33:07
fringe issue. It's only starting to come into
33:11
the mainstream in terms of climate science.
33:15
There was mentioned in the last IPCCA R6 report of SRM small
33:21
amounts of mention and discussion.
33:24
There will be something in AR 7 as far as I know, but there's no
33:28
special report by the IPCC on this.
33:32
UNEP issued a report in 2023. UNEP and WMO again are looking
33:37
into this to. See.
33:39
Sorry, that's just to get through the acronyms.
33:41
People who don't know UNEP's the United Nations Environment
33:45
Program. Yeah, and WMO is a world
33:48
meteorological organization. Correct.
33:50
Correct. Yeah, Sorry about the alphabet.
33:52
Alphabet. I personally and the think tank
33:56
I work for believe that research should happen right now, not
34:00
necessarily on building the planes, but what are the impacts
34:04
we might see the potential risks out there, risks in the near
34:10
term, risks over the medium and long term.
34:13
What are some potential benefits?
34:16
How might it affect agriculture, photosynthesis, coral reefs,
34:21
melting of glaciers? Could it potentially arrest or
34:26
avert climate tipping points? All these questions are valid
34:31
questions. None of them have definitive
34:34
answers. But I can see why opponents
34:36
don't want research to to take place, because the facts that
34:42
you have knowledge about how you might do this makes it more
34:45
likely to happen. It's a bit like, you know, you
34:47
don't have to worry too much about nuclear arms control if
34:49
you don't do the Manhattan Project and figure out how to
34:51
build a nuclear bomb in the 1st place.
34:52
So I can I can understand why people who are implacably
34:57
morally opposed perhaps want to stop all research on this.
35:01
And do you accept, conversely, that allowing research to
35:04
continue actually does make it more likely to ultimately be
35:07
deployed? Yeah, we're going back to the
35:09
moral hazard argument that if there's serious interest in
35:13
funding and research happening on this issue, it'll crowd out
35:16
and substitute for what we know we have to do.
35:19
That is a real concern. It's the slippery slope argument
35:22
as well. Once you start down this road,
35:25
is it just inevitable that you end up developing it and using
35:29
it? So there's this really difficult
35:31
challenge right now between needing to know more but
35:36
preventing slippery slope and giving the public assurance that
35:40
we're not cooking something up in a laboratory that is going to
35:43
be used just because it's there. So the way various policy makers
35:49
have looked at this is OK, yes, more research.
35:55
The vast majority of it is in climate modelling.
35:58
There have only been. There was an experiment that was
36:02
going to be hatched in Sweden back in 2022 by Harvard's solar
36:07
geoengineering program. It would not have released any
36:12
aerosols. It was a commercial balloon that
36:14
would fly high into the stratosphere and measure how the
36:17
winds affect dispersals. But they did a really poor job
36:23
of engaging with local communities and a local
36:27
indigenous community, the the Sami people in that region of
36:31
the world protested that they were not consulted.
36:35
They were not brought into these conversations.
36:38
And other climate actors learned from them that this was
36:42
potentially to take place. There was serious pushback and
36:45
the experiment was cancelled. So right now there has been no
36:50
testing outdoors any scale of what it might look like to put
36:54
these aerosols into the stratosphere.
36:58
Of course, modeling only can go so far as well.
37:03
A model is under ideal conditions, ideal perhaps
37:07
climatic conditions. But when you're talking about
37:10
potentially using Sai, you have to look at the geopolitical
37:14
context as well, which is extremely important.
37:18
And so how do we increase our knowledge and at the same time
37:22
give public assurance that this isn't automatically going to be
37:26
used? And the way the awkward way it's
37:29
been approached thus far is saying, let's have a moratorium
37:34
on deployment or large scale outdoor testing, whether that's
37:38
within a certain region. So for example, in December,
37:42
just a few months ago, the European Union published 3
37:46
reports on SRM saying, yeah, lots of uncertainties, lots of
37:53
unknown questions, unknowns. We need to do no more.
37:56
We need more research. At the same time, they called
37:59
for a moratorium in the EUA. Moratorium is only as good as
38:06
its ability to deter those actors who are most likely use
38:13
it. So framing a moratorium in a way
38:17
that you bring along those actors who are most likely to
38:20
use it is a delegate diplomatic political challenge.
38:25
And right now we don't have an easy answer for holding these
38:30
two polarities to in a balance the the research needs.
38:34
On the other hand, the need to give public assurance that we
38:38
are not on that slippery slope. And because we're looking into
38:42
it, we're going to abandon everything we've done in the
38:44
last 30 years and automatically use this.
38:48
But maybe a way around that is to actually introduce a
38:51
governance mechanism which includes a more a very explicit
38:54
moratorium on deployment. But a research program is
38:58
attached to that, which allows research to continue and us to
39:02
develop the well and to gain the knowledge that we'd need to
39:05
fully consider this. But without, you know, the, the,
39:09
the moratorium on deployment then puts a, you know, a wall at
39:13
the bottom of the slippery slope, if you like.
39:14
So it doesn't. It doesn't automatically just
39:16
happen by by by default. Exactly.
39:19
So that's that's what people who look at the governance are are
39:22
thinking about. And there's a lot of questions
39:25
about what that word even should be.
39:27
Is it a moratorium? Is it a ban?
39:30
Is it hit the pause button? Is it agreement on non
39:34
deployment? Each of those terms, they seem
39:37
like they're synonymous, but they actually have different
39:39
legal implications and political implications.
39:43
But that really is the formula thus far.
39:44
Let's do research but make sure we have a hard stop, that we're
39:48
not going outside and doing this at scale.
39:51
I mean, I'm not completely convinced about the political
39:54
moral hazard argument because I don't think people care about
39:57
climate change that much anyway. I mean if you look at.
40:00
The major political trends at the moment, you know, I don't
40:03
want to get sidetracked talking about Trump, but you know,
40:05
climate's pretty much a dirty word.
40:07
And it's not because, you know, and they've stopped.
40:09
They're stopping all mitigation and stopping even all reference
40:11
to it. It's literally like an official
40:13
programme of denial. But that's not because they
40:16
think they can do geoengineering if they need to.
40:18
It's because they don't. Well, they just don't because
40:20
they're just in full scale denial about the issue and have
40:23
no plans to address, address climate at all.
40:27
So, you know, it's humanity is much more stupid than people
40:32
think. I believe who who worry about
40:35
moral hazard because we'll, we'll just, you know, like the
40:39
boiling frog or whatever. We'll, we'll just walk into this
40:41
future because it's in our short term interest to, to, to not
40:44
take difficult decisions. Yeah, the boiling frog metaphor
40:48
is pretty apt, I have to say. I've been working in climate for
40:51
15 years now and that also worries me a great deal.
40:56
However, I think when you see impacts that start devastating,
41:01
to put a crudely wealthy countries in cities that have
41:06
major impact financially, commercially, politically,
41:10
serious impacts that affect rich populations simultaneously or
41:15
within a short span in different areas of the globe, I think
41:20
there will be increased willingness to address this
41:23
problem. We're not there yet.
41:27
And those scenarios entail massive suffering.
41:30
So by all means, I'm not suggesting calling for massive
41:34
suffering so that people wake up, but that might be what it
41:38
takes. And in those moments of
41:43
desperation, the desire for a quick and easy answer, which as
41:48
I said, is not an answer but could easily be framed that way,
41:52
could be real, it could really take hold in people's minds.
41:56
Yeah, because, I mean, there's there's zero chance of 1.5.
41:59
I mean, the Paris Agreement was lovely, but it came up with
42:02
targets that we were never going to meet.
42:04
And perhaps that helped to focus more effort on mitigation and
42:08
the clean energy transition. We'll never know.
42:10
But it's not as if 1.5 is a is a realistic target.
42:14
It's over. It's pretty much in the rearview
42:17
mirror already with the world being above 1.5 at least at
42:19
least last year. And, you know, it's not going to
42:21
get cool again, not not by itself.
42:25
And the same goes, I mean, you said a three degree world.
42:27
Yeah, it's like 2.7. I think if you take all of the
42:30
current NDC's, which are the nationally determined
42:32
contributions under the Paris Agreement, which is like what
42:35
governments plan to do. So we're heading into a three
42:37
degree world. That's a world without coral
42:39
reefs, with large areas of the subtropics too hot for humans to
42:42
inhabit, huge impacts on food supply and all the rest of it.
42:47
I mean, I would be surprised if there wasn't more discussion
42:50
about something simply because of how quick quickly it would
42:54
operate the the sort of solar sunshade, because you could cool
42:58
things down from one year to the next or even even more quickly
43:01
than that. Whereas, you know, even if you
43:03
start panicking and you reduce carbon emissions very quickly
43:05
when you're in this three degree world, it's still, you know, as
43:08
you say, it's still a decade or two or three or four before that
43:11
has any impact on the planetary temperatures.
43:13
Yeah, we try to encourage policy makers to think about this
43:18
technology not in the climate we have today, but the climate we
43:22
would have 10 or 15 years from now or 50 years from now.
43:26
So that the the comparable scenario in their mind is, oh
43:30
wow, we're almost at 2° now it's the year 2040 or 2050.
43:35
Things are getting bad, quite bad.
43:38
What do we do then? And so looking at the risks of
43:42
that two degree world or the world between 1.5 and two, as
43:48
contrasted or compared with the risks of using this emerging
43:54
technology that we've never tried before outside it has lots
43:57
of unknowns though. They're risks on both sides of
44:01
that Ledger, real, serious risks, future generations.
44:05
We don't know how severely climate impacts at 2° will
44:10
affect generations 200 years from now.
44:13
There's some research going on, and that's great, you know, and
44:17
the same breath, we don't have your research on that, on solar
44:20
irradiation modification either. So that's why more research is
44:24
needed, because perhaps there's a point at which the research
44:28
says this is way too dangerous for the world to even attempt.
44:34
There is way too much risk in this.
44:37
We looked into it, we gave it our best shot scientifically,
44:40
and we are telling you this is an insane idea.
44:43
It has too much risk. That is worth doing the
44:46
research. It is worth knowing that answer.
44:51
It absolutely is. What kinds of risk, other than
44:53
termination shock, what kinds of risks do you think might make
44:56
that you know, might be enough to say right?
44:59
This is just never, never going to be possible.
45:02
It could very easily be not just environmental risks, but
45:06
geopolitical risks. Right now, they're really only a
45:11
few countries that would have the capability to deploy Sai.
45:16
You can probably think of the countries, but eventually when
45:20
those planes are built, it isn't going to be that hard for others
45:24
to pile into this. And so when the models look at
45:27
how Sai might be used, it's in a scenario where there's one actor
45:32
operating according to what the science tells us is the safe
45:36
trajectory. The real world, as we know, is
45:40
much messier. And Sai might very well be used
45:45
as a tool of geopolitical soft power.
45:50
It's not like nuclear weapons. It is not a military weapon, but
45:55
you would certainly cause great instability if it were used.
46:00
Again, massive changes every country in the world.
46:03
Some countries benefit, some countries do not.
46:06
Do not. Who's making that decision based
46:10
on what legitimacy, what process, etcetera, etcetera.
46:14
That could very easily trigger a geopolitical conflict.
46:19
Or take another example, a country where you know, there
46:23
are 40° wet bulb temperatures and huge parts of the population
46:28
cannot go outside to farm or fish.
46:32
Public puts pressure on the government, whether that's an
46:35
authoritarian government or a democratic government.
46:37
There is public pressure to do something.
46:40
The do something moment the government decides, OK, science
46:44
is telling us this is kind of our best shot at trying to save
46:47
lives. Now we're going to give this a
46:49
go. They do that, and two weeks
46:54
later there's a major drought or there's a catastrophic flood in
47:00
a neighboring country. The attribution for what Sai may
47:06
or may not 'cause will take years of careful study of
47:12
aerosols in the stratosphere and what the impacts will be.
47:15
So a scientifically airtight, legitimate argument about what
47:21
Sai actually caused is going to take years.
47:24
But the person living across the border and seeing this within
47:28
weeks is automatically going to think you did this, pointing to
47:33
his neighbor, You did this, You caused it.
47:35
And within, you know, a matter of weeks, you're going to have a
47:38
massive conspiracy theory crisis, political finger
47:42
pointing. Is this a cause of war?
47:44
Is it going to trigger a conflict?
47:46
It could very easily escalate at this point.
47:50
And right now, the UN Security Council has never had a briefing
47:55
about this issue. There were, we were actually in
47:59
my previous work thinking about putting together a very informal
48:04
briefing under the Aria formula in the UN Security Council.
48:08
What is this thing called Sai? What does it do?
48:11
What are the risks, the benefits, etcetera, etcetera.
48:15
NATO is very aware of Sai. I'm sure in China they have a
48:21
small research program that's at the unclassified level.
48:25
I can imagine at an unclassified level there are certainly people
48:28
looking into this, probably the same in Russia, but you can see
48:34
how this might really trigger geopolitical instability and or
48:38
a conflict so far beyond the whole ecosystem climate
48:42
potential risk. Yeah, because it's, you know,
48:45
whoever the actor is that's doing Sai is they're going to
48:49
get to blame for literally every climate impact that happens
48:51
thereafter. I mean, yes, if your drought
48:54
kills a million people in the Horn of Africa, then you just
48:56
killed 1,000,000 people and nobody.
48:58
And you can't say you didn't, because you're you're now in
49:00
charge of the world's climate in a very direct sense.
49:03
Exactly. There's also scenario, again,
49:05
more on the geopolitical side, where country A deploys and
49:10
country B says, hey, wait a minute, you can't set the rules,
49:13
we're going to deploy too. And you have consecutive
49:17
deployments, which only complicates the potential risks.
49:22
But because deployment is seen as a tool of geopolitical soft
49:26
power, the big countries want to get in the game and they want to
49:30
be able to have influence on what might be happening.
49:34
And none of that is being modelled right now because the
49:37
amount of compute you would need to do that is so vast that it
49:41
hasn't been attempted at this point.
49:44
But certainly that's a more realistic scenario than a
49:48
scenario where country A, based on the best science, is going to
49:53
deploy based on what the science says in a gradual, A gradual,
49:58
carefully monitored manner, not responding to the political
50:02
situation, but to what they think is safe science.
50:06
It's an idea that is not going to happen.
50:09
I I I completely agree. I mean, I think you have to
50:11
model not just the global climate, but you have to model
50:15
human psychology because in some ways, you know, I think, I think
50:19
the, the moral calculus that we humans have puts a very big
50:23
distinction between advertent and inadvertent impacts for
50:26
something. It's a bit like the difference
50:27
between murder and manslaughter where somebody's dead.
50:30
But whether you're meant to do it or not is is changes
50:34
everything. Exactly, Exactly.
50:37
So when I say there's more research that's needed, it's not
50:40
just. Sorry, sorry.
50:42
I think we, I think we get there for a second.
50:43
I was just saying we've, we've done inadvertent geoengineering
50:47
for well, forever and, and we've been doing it in reverse by
50:51
removing sulfate aerosols from the, from the troposphere.
50:54
And that means therefore that, you know, putting them in the
50:58
stratosphere might just be reversing that balance, but it's
51:01
not because it's, it's advertent.
51:02
And that changed, as I say that moral calculus changes
51:05
everything. Yeah, that's one of the key
51:08
definitions of geoengineering, is a deliberate manipulation of
51:14
the climate system. Deliberate.
51:17
I was going to say on the point about research and human, human
51:20
behavior. So we need research on the
51:22
physical sciences, but we really need research as well on social
51:26
sciences, you know, human psychology, risk communication,
51:31
behavioral economics, all of you know, anthropology.
51:35
What what has what has happened in societies in centuries past
51:39
where there was a major climatic change or natural disaster that
51:44
therefore called the government into a crisis of legitimacy?
51:48
You know, we need to look at a broad array of fields that might
51:53
inform how a decision on deployment should be looked at.
51:57
It's not just about physics. It's about a lot more than that
52:01
as well. Yeah, I mean, you've had so much
52:05
experience in the UNF Triple C, the Framework Convention of
52:08
climate Change and the cops and all of this, so you're probably
52:11
a better person to ask this question to than anyone.
52:14
Can you imagine a governance mechanism that might work in
52:19
making the decision about Sai? What would it look like?
52:22
Would it be, you know, would you have 190 countries deciding by
52:25
consensus? Would it be, you know, an annual
52:28
meeting? Would it be some?
52:28
What would? How would, how, how could that
52:30
look? Yeah, that's a really tough
52:32
question that I don't have a straight answer for and I think
52:36
all of us are kind of grappling with.
52:39
But it needs to contain certain elements or criteria. 1 is
52:43
political diplomatic legitimacy. This is a technology that would
52:48
affect every country in the world.
52:50
So at some level of the governance framework, all
52:54
countries need to have a say in what they think about this.
52:58
From the most powerful country to the most climate vulnerable
53:01
countries. They all need to have a say.
53:04
And they also need to have access to internationally vetted
53:09
research. Developing countries are
53:13
suspicious that the global N is going to ever live up to its
53:17
climate promises, whether that's on mitigation targets or finance
53:22
or anything else. So some of them do have an
53:25
interest in this technology because if it gives their
53:29
population a few more years to to live, to survive, that's
53:33
real. But so the legitimacy factor has
53:37
to be part of this discussion about how it's governed.
53:41
There also needs to be on a realpolitik criteria here, which
53:46
countries have the capability to do so and would be most likely
53:51
to do so. So how might you deter or govern
53:55
a decision that the powerful countries might want to make on
53:59
their own? Is there some kind of a break on
54:02
that? It needs to be based on
54:05
internationally vetted science. So science that's in the IPCC or
54:10
that UNAP, again, UN Environment Program or the World
54:14
Meteorological Organization has said is credible and robust.
54:19
It's not enough just to say MIT or Cambridge thinks this is the
54:25
best science, that there's distrust in the global S for a
54:28
lot of very good reasons. So it needs to be
54:31
internationally vetted. And access to running those
54:35
kinds of models needs to be not in just the elite universities
54:39
in the North, but also in emerging economies and countries
54:43
in the global S where their own scientists can be looking into
54:46
this issue and looking at various models of deployment.
54:50
So they're the issue of the science.
54:52
There's the issue of the political diplomatic legitimacy.
54:57
And then there's a question, how might governance account for
55:00
future generations? And this is an issue that's
55:04
really close to my own heart. I work for a think tank called
55:09
the Center for Future Generations.
55:12
I'm a mom, and I got into this field in part because it was
55:17
pretty terrifying to me as a parent to think about what my
55:20
daughter's future might look like.
55:23
How do we account for what a decision on deployment might
55:27
look like for future generations?
55:30
Do we want to put them into this equation somehow?
55:33
Do they get a seat at the table? You know, there are governments,
55:37
I think in Finland and maybe elsewhere right now where future
55:40
generations are being embedded in governance processes.
55:45
So how do we account for all these things?
55:47
Right now there is no one UN body or treaty process in which
55:54
this issue fits into neatly. Not the UNF Triple C, the Cops,
56:00
not the Montreal Protocol, not the Convention on Biological
56:04
Diversity, although each of these could be looking at
56:07
certain parts of it. Already in 2010, the Convention
56:11
on Biological Diversity had some language about geoengineering
56:16
research and its effects on biodiversity.
56:20
It was guiding, it was guidance to parties.
56:23
It was not a legally binding decision.
56:28
The Montreal Protocol is relevant because one of the
56:32
potential adverse impacts of Sai might be to damage the ozone
56:38
layer. That's serious.
56:41
That's what the Montreal Protocol was created to help
56:44
protect the ozone layer and help build it back.
56:47
So the Montreal Protocol has some relevance.
56:51
The UN Environment Program has relevance in that it is looking
56:56
at emerging scientific challenges, environmental
56:59
challenges for the world. But right now, if there was a
57:02
crisis and a country that had the capability to deploy at a
57:07
global level did, there's no one body that says, hey, you can't
57:13
do that. Well, as I said, there's been no
57:16
discussion at the UN Security Council, which is the only organ
57:20
of the United Nations system that is legally binding.
57:24
But that's a scary situation to be in.
57:27
Yeah, maybe the first step should be for the IPCC to do a
57:30
special report. I mean, it'd be, you know,
57:33
smarter ideally for humans to look at the science before they
57:36
decide on on on implementation or something, rather than
57:40
oftentimes the science, you know, is brought in to fulfill a
57:43
policy goal that's already been or to justify policy goal that's
57:45
already been agreed. But it'd be nice to get that the
57:47
right way around. So maybe that's something you
57:49
could put put some real pressure on there and get countries in
57:52
the IPCC to advocate doing this. Yeah, there's been discussions
57:56
about that. A lot of people have the that
57:58
desire that an IPCC special report would give legitimacy to
58:03
discussion of this issue and to to addressing some of the very
58:06
difficult questions it raises. The next AR 7, the next IPCC
58:11
report, as I said, we'll have some information on this, but
58:15
nothing like a special report. There have been people calling
58:19
for a special report on tipping points that hasn't emerged yet
58:24
either, but those reports can have a really major impact.
58:29
If you look back to 2018, the IPCC did a special report on
58:33
1.5°. There were headlines around the
58:37
world about what that report said.
58:41
And of course, that was after Paris.
58:42
The 1.5° target has already been agreed, yes.
58:45
Yes, the 1.5 target was a political target.
58:48
It was decided on political factors.
58:50
It was never based on a careful analysis of the science, but
58:54
that report three years later in 2018 did have an impact.
58:59
So those kinds of reports with international legitimacy are
59:03
really important. Yeah.
59:05
And and just finally, I mean, I mentioned to Oliver Morton
59:08
actually when we were discussing this that I have another role
59:11
which is this climate sorry science advisor with the climate
59:14
vulnerable forum. And you mentioned climate
59:15
vulnerable countries a lot. And this is 70 countries from, I
59:19
don't know, Mozambique to, uh, to, to Rwanda.
59:23
It's the least developed countries, the African
59:25
countries, the small island States and so on.
59:27
And I've, you know, I think they should be the ones who are
59:31
really better informed about this and able to, to try and
59:35
figure out what's in their interests.
59:36
Because if anyone has the moral, you know, dimensions of this,
59:41
it's because they're in the front lines of the climate
59:44
crisis, because of the, and then they have least capacity to
59:47
adapt and the least climate resilience.
59:49
So you know, the, the droughts, the floods, the hot
59:52
temperatures, I mean people, if people are dying, people are
59:54
dying in climate vulnerable countries first.
59:57
Right, right. I completely completely agree
59:59
with you. And you asked about what some
1:00:01
kind of ideal governance might look like.
1:00:03
Perhaps climate vulnerable countries get 2 votes instead of
1:00:07
1. I mean, there are different ways
1:00:09
of looking at this, you know, how do, how do I we might have
1:00:12
one country, one vote as the overall legitimacy democratic
1:00:16
process. But do more powerful countries
1:00:19
get more than one vote? Do climate vulnerable countries
1:00:22
get more than one vote? Do countries that are having
1:00:27
massive population growth and huge young populations, do they
1:00:30
get more than one vote? Because again, the use of Sai
1:00:35
would not be turn on, turn off. It would be if we're using this
1:00:40
in a safe manner, safe as in quotes, it has to happen
1:00:45
gradually over decades while the world does the decarbonization
1:00:51
going to net negative, etcetera, etcetera.
1:00:53
So this technology will color the future of future
1:00:58
generations. And we believe it's really
1:01:02
important for young people who are active in the climate
1:01:05
movement or in any movement to learn about this technology so
1:01:11
that they are informed and they're free to make whatever
1:01:14
judgement they want to make about this.
1:01:16
But it's their future and who's deciding their future?
1:01:21
They should be at the table as well.
1:01:24
Yeah, 100% and I'm actually just fine there.
1:01:26
I'll ask you some for some advice.
1:01:28
So this podcast is produced by We Planet where international
1:01:33
environmental activist network, you know, pro science.
1:01:37
So we, you know, we're in favour of nuclear power and GMOs and
1:01:40
things because those are sort of the smart, the smart options
1:01:42
really which science science would support.
1:01:45
And where does, where does Geo engineer?
1:01:48
What does Sai map onto the kind of that that kind of, you know,
1:01:52
matrix should should we be out there advocating for it?
1:01:55
Because we're pro science environmentalists and we
1:01:58
recognize the urgency of the climate situation.
1:02:01
You know, this shouldn't be on the back burner and shouldn't
1:02:03
be, you know, ruled out of order about even discussing it.
1:02:06
What? What should we as an
1:02:07
environmental activist, global environmental activist network
1:02:10
be doing on on on on SAII? I would say research, research
1:02:14
is needed and specifically publicly funded research.
1:02:18
What's been happening in the last few years, I mean literally
1:02:21
like last two or three years, is private money coming into this
1:02:25
area to fund research from Silicon Valley, from hedge
1:02:30
funds, from the finance and tech sectors putting money.
1:02:34
There's now a private company, an Israeli company now
1:02:38
registered in California that is developing some kind of material
1:02:42
that would be dispersed, and they're doing it.
1:02:44
They're a commercial company, so they think there's some kind of
1:02:47
profit in this. It's quite scary to think that
1:02:52
the vast amount of research being funded is being done by
1:02:55
private actors who are not accountable to any citizenry.
1:03:01
There's no transparency requirements on this.
1:03:04
You know, this is a global project that affects everyone.
1:03:08
So the research should be transparent and it should be
1:03:11
accountable. And in that sense, publicly
1:03:14
funded research is really what is needed at this point.
1:03:18
And again, not not just on the hard science, but on social
1:03:22
sciences, risk communication, behavioral psychology,
1:03:27
governance, international relations, security,
1:03:30
international politics, all of these things.
1:03:33
So publicly funded research. And again, ideally that is
1:03:38
reviewed by the IPCC so that there's a peer review process
1:03:42
and it gives it more legitimacy, but certainly not anywhere near
1:03:48
deployment or large scale outdoor testing.
1:03:51
Again, that hard wall there. But yeah, we need to know more,
1:03:55
and it's much better if it's being funded by governments
1:03:57
because at least then there's some kind of accountability
1:04:00
mechanism. Well, thank you for that advice.
1:04:03
I think we'll take it. I mean, for a pro science group
1:04:06
to, to, to demand or ask for more publicly funded science, I
1:04:10
think is eminently the sensible way forward.
1:04:13
So thanks. Thanks, Cynthia, so much for
1:04:15
your, well, the depth of your expertise, your honesty in
1:04:19
sharing your thoughts on this very controversial issue.
1:04:22
I hope you can come back and talk to us again about it in
1:04:25
future and anything else that you're working on.
1:04:28
But for now, just thanks. Thanks so much for joining us.
1:04:31
Well, you're very, very welcome. It was a pleasure and I hope in
1:04:35
the future that you bring aboard some young people and talk about
1:04:37
this issue because again, it's it's their future.
1:04:40
Definitely. We'll certainly try to do that.
1:04:42
Thanks so much. All right.
1:04:43
Thank you. Thanks so much for listening to
1:04:48
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1:04:52
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1:04:54
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1:04:57
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