4 ms·

I know geo-engineering schemes are well-intentioned, but I'm worried that once productionized, country-specific motivations are going to move from "status quo"

I know geo-engineering schemes are well-intentioned, but I'm worried that once productionized, country-specific motivations are going to move from "status quo" to "arms race" Yeah we all know global warming will cause chaos etc, but some countries will be net winners, and some net losers. Canada and Russia have a lot to gain from global warming, with sea routes and more farmland. African nations, Bangladesh, India have huge amounts to lose. Once we have sequestration technology working, would anyone put it past the Indian / Egyptian / etc governments to set a goal CO2 PPM below the "historic" status quo to lower temperatures for the benefit of their people? Would anyone put it past Russia to be upset about this and intentionally release methane to counteract the cooling effect? I think it would be very hard to prevent weaponization of this tech; "keep everything how it is" is easy to say but I don't think will actually happen.

TeMPOraL 10y ago
One would hope that the MAD doctrine would kick in and curtail at least more blatant attempts at offensive geoengineering. On the other hand, at this point we can't really afford not to do anything. So it might be worth the risk to actually try and implement such a scheme.
graeme 10y ago
>Canada and Russia have a lot to gain from global warming, with sea routes and more farmland. Is this really true? I'm Canadian. I think we have less to lose, but I'm not sure we'll gain. Currently we have a boreal forest wildfire larger than Delaware that's still burning out of control and already destroyed much of Fort McMurray. From what I've read, the Boreal forest is at risk of fire and ecosystem death, and not much is suited to replace it in the near term due to soil quality. We'll also lose cities due to sea level rise.
- hughes 10y ago
  "More farmland" to me reads "highly sensitive to drought". Warmer does not mean better if it brings with it less rain.
  - ktRolster 10y ago
    Look at all the water available in Canada, you can even see it on the map: https://www.google.com/maps/@50.6040128,-73.1500427,7z https://www.google.com/maps/@50.6040128,-73.1500427,7z Not all of Canada is like that, of course, but in parts they get a lot of rain
dragonwriter 10y ago
> Canada and Russia have a lot to gain from global warming, If Canada stands to gain big and the neighboring country that outspends most of the rest of the world combined on its military stands to lose big... Well, I wouldn't feel secure about Canada's gains.
- derefr 10y ago
  It's a shame we can't just temporarily erase all the geopolitical boundaries, let everyone stuck in a "climate death zone" pick up and move to the nearest hospitable region (with public-works-sponsored rebuilding at the destination), and then put the countries back on the map as simple Voronoi polygons delineating the places each group of people ended up—basically the way most US states were created, but on a larger scale and for environmental rather than political/religious reasons. (Hell, if we had done that a long time ago, maybe humanity as a whole could have abandoned the hotter parts of the middle-east and the colder parts of Canada+Russia, and nobody would be fighting over those today, any more than people fight over Antarctica.)
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    The hotter parts for the Middle East overlap substantially with the location of valuable resources, so I don't think that would work.
    - derefr 10y ago
      So do the colder parts of Canada and Russia. It's an interesting coincidence. :) But do imagine if we had had the sense to abandon all those places a good thousand years or so before we figured that out. We'd probably be treating such land as the treaty equivalent of "international waters"—not anyone's in particular, because nobody has the resources to live there to defend it. So oil there would be treated roughly like (an easier-to-access version of) oil in the middle of the Pacific ocean, or oil in Antarctica: the subject of fraught international negotiations, perhaps able to be steamrolled by a treaty-organization like OPEC, but otherwise politically inaccessible.

TeMPOraL 10y ago

One would hope that the MAD doctrine would kick in and curtail at least more blatant attempts at offensive geoengineering. On the other hand, at this point we can't really afford not to do anything. So it might be worth the risk to actually try and implement such a scheme.

graeme 10y ago

>Canada and Russia have a lot to gain from global warming, with sea routes and more farmland. Is this really true? I'm Canadian. I think we have less to lose, but I'm not sure we'll gain. Currently we have a boreal forest wildfire larger than Delaware that's still burning out of control and already destroyed much of Fort McMurray. From what I've read, the Boreal forest is at risk of fire and ecosystem death, and not much is suited to replace it in the near term due to soil quality. We'll also lose cities due to sea level rise.

hughes 10y ago
"More farmland" to me reads "highly sensitive to drought". Warmer does not mean better if it brings with it less rain.
- ktRolster 10y ago
  Look at all the water available in Canada, you can even see it on the map: https://www.google.com/maps/@50.6040128,-73.1500427,7z https://www.google.com/maps/@50.6040128,-73.1500427,7z Not all of Canada is like that, of course, but in parts they get a lot of rain

dragonwriter 10y ago

> Canada and Russia have a lot to gain from global warming, If Canada stands to gain big and the neighboring country that outspends most of the rest of the world combined on its military stands to lose big... Well, I wouldn't feel secure about Canada's gains.

derefr 10y ago
It's a shame we can't just temporarily erase all the geopolitical boundaries, let everyone stuck in a "climate death zone" pick up and move to the nearest hospitable region (with public-works-sponsored rebuilding at the destination), and then put the countries back on the map as simple Voronoi polygons delineating the places each group of people ended up—basically the way most US states were created, but on a larger scale and for environmental rather than political/religious reasons. (Hell, if we had done that a long time ago, maybe humanity as a whole could have abandoned the hotter parts of the middle-east and the colder parts of Canada+Russia, and nobody would be fighting over those today, any more than people fight over Antarctica.)
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  The hotter parts for the Middle East overlap substantially with the location of valuable resources, so I don't think that would work.
  - derefr 10y ago
    So do the colder parts of Canada and Russia. It's an interesting coincidence. :) But do imagine if we had had the sense to abandon all those places a good thousand years or so before we figured that out. We'd probably be treating such land as the treaty equivalent of "international waters"—not anyone's in particular, because nobody has the resources to live there to defend it. So oil there would be treated roughly like (an easier-to-access version of) oil in the middle of the Pacific ocean, or oil in Antarctica: the subject of fraught international negotiations, perhaps able to be steamrolled by a treaty-organization like OPEC, but otherwise politically inaccessible.