Wednesday, December 06, 2006

- Prometheus: Scott Saleska on Tuning the Climate Archives

- Prometheus: Scott Saleska on Tuning the Climate Archives: "Let's say air capture, or any of the many geoengineering options being widely discussed (e.g. my colleague here at the UofA, Roger Angel's recent idea* to block 1.8% of the incoming energy with a gadget at the L1 Lagrange orbital point), ends up being feasible in a few decades. And let’s say we actually reach the point where we can, as Roger [Pielke, not Angel] suggested, tune the atmosphere’s CO2.

What level do we tune it to? And who gets to decide that level? The 'worst off' individual (to follow Rawls famous 'Theory of Justice')? Then we probably let the Maldivians decide, since under current projections, sea level rise could completely wipe them off the map. Places like Russia, on the other hand, would probably prefer to have some moderate global warming, because that probably would give them better agriculture in Siberia, and ice-free ports on the north Atlantic."

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