The Moratorium on Geoengineering

[Wayne Hall]

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/29/AR2010102906365.html?hpid=topnews

Geoengineering sparks international ban, first-ever congressional report

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 29, 2010; 8:05 PM

A senior House Democrat from Tennessee issued the first congressional report on geoengineering Friday, just as delegates from 193 nations approved a ban on such research under a global biodiversity treaty.

The debate over whether humans should explore ways to manipulate the climate has taken on increased urgency over the past year, as efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions linked to global warming have encountered political roadblocks in the United States and elsewhere.

The measure adopted under the Convention on Biological Diversity, which recently concluded in Nagoya, Japan, states "that no climate-related geo-engineering activities that may affect biodiversity take place, until there is an adequate scientific basis on which to justify such activities and appropriate consideration of the associated risks for the environment and biodiversity and associated social, economic and cultural impacts, with the exception of small-scale scientific research studies" under controlled circumstances.

While some scientists and environmentalists have called for geoengineering research as a precautionary measure against catastrophic global warming, activists hailed the moratorium as a way to keep individual actors from altering the climate. The prohibition does not apply to the United States, which has yet to ratify the convention.

House Science and Technology Committee Chairman Bart Gordon (D) said his report was "in no way meant as an endorsement of climate engineering," but instead an effort to give "insight into where existing federal research capacities lie that could be leveraged for these activities."

"Climate engineering carries with it a tremendous range of uncertainties and possibilities, ethical and political concerns, and the potential for catastrophic side effects," Gordon said, adding, "If we find ourselves passing an environmental tipping point, we will need to have done research to understand our options."

The National Science Foundation is best positioned to take the lead on the matter, according to the 56-page report, which also identifies several other agencies that can play a key role.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration should lead research into ocean fertilization and injecting sulfates into the stratospheric ozone layer, the report states, while the Energy Department should direct high-end computing geoengineering research and "any federal research program into air capture and non-traditional carbon sequestration."

In Japan, delegates to the convention warned that such study should be limited and not stray into actual scientific trials.

"Any private or public experimentation or adventurism intended to manipulate the planetary thermostat will be in violation of this carefully crafted U.N. consensus," said Silvia Ribeiro, Latin American director of ETC Group, a grass-roots advocacy organization.

But Ken Caldeira, an environmental science professor at the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology who testified before Gordon's panel last year, said countries need to "undertake studies on what we might do" in a climate crisis, given the current trajectory of carbon concentrations in the atmosphere.

"Nobody likes the idea of engineering Earth's climate," Caldeira wrote in an e-mail. "Unfortunately, at some point, our other options may be even more unpleasant."

[Wayne Hall]

Debate with Global Skywatch
globalskywatch.com/chemtrails/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2850#Post2850

[Wayne Hall]

Video criticising US non-support of moratorium
globalskywatch.com/chemtrails/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2963#Post2963

[Wayne Hall]

www.commondreams.org/view/2010/11/02-5

Published on Tuesday, November 2, 2010 by The Guardian/UK

We've Been Conned. The Deal to Save the Natural World Never Happened

The so-called summit in Japan won't stop anyone trashing the planet. Only economic risks seem to make governments act
by George Monbiot

'Countries join forces to save life on Earth", the front page of the Independent told us. "Historic", "a landmark", a "much-needed morale booster", the other papers chorused. The declaration agreed last week at the summit in Japan to protect the world's wild species and places was proclaimed by almost everyone a great success. There is one problem: none of the journalists who made these claims has seen it.

I checked with as many of them as I could reach by phone: all they had read was a press release which, though three pages long, is almost content-free. The reporters can't be blamed for this – it was approved on Friday but the declaration has still not been published. I've pursued people on three continents to try to obtain it, without success. Having secured the headlines it wanted, the entire senior staff of the convention on biological diversity has gone to ground, and my calls and emails remain unanswered. The British government, which lavishly praised the declaration, tells me it has no printed copies. I've never seen this situation before. Every other international agreement I've followed was published as soon as it was approved.

The evidence suggests that we've been conned. The draft agreement, published a month ago, contained no binding obligations. Nothing I've heard from Japan suggests that this has changed. The draft saw the targets for 2020 that governments were asked to adopt as nothing more than "aspirations for achievement at the global level" and a "flexible framework", within which countries can do as they wish. No government, if the draft has been approved, is obliged to change its policies.

In 2002 the signatories to the convention agreed something similar, a splendid-sounding declaration that imposed no legal commitments. They announced they would "achieve by 2010 a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss". Mission accomplished, the press proclaimed, and everyone went home to congratulate themselves. Earlier this year the UN admitted the 2002 agreement was fruitless: "The pressures on biodiversity remain constant or increase in intensity."

Even the cheery press release suggests all was not well. The meeting in Japan was supposed to be a summit, bringing together heads of government or state. It mustered five: the release boasts of corralling the president of Gabon, the president of Guinea-Bissau, the prime minister of Yemen and Prince Albert of Monaco. (It fails to identify the fifth country – Liechtenstein? Pimlico?) A third of the countries represented couldn't even be bothered to send a minister. This is how much they value the world's living systems.

It strikes me that governments are determined to protect not the marvels of our world but the world-eating system to which they are being sacrificed; not life, but the ephemeral junk with which it is being replaced. They fight viciously and at the highest level for the right to turn rainforests into pulp, or marine ecosystems into fishmeal. Then they send a middle-ranking civil servant to approve a meaningless and so far unwritten promise to protect the natural world.

Japan was praised for its slick management of the meeting, but still insists on completing its mission to turn the last bluefin tuna into fancy fast food. Russia signed a new agreement in September to protect its tigers (the world's largest remaining population), but an unrepealed law in effect renders poachers immune from prosecution, even when they're caught with a gun and a dead tiger. The US, despite proclaiming a new commitment to multilateralism, refuses to ratify the convention on biological diversity.

It suits governments to let us trash the planet. It's not just that big business gains more than it loses from converting natural wealth into money. A continued expansion into the biosphere permits states to avoid addressing issues of distribution and social justice: the promise of perpetual growth dulls our anger about widening inequality. By trampling over nature we avoid treading on the toes of the powerful.

A massive accounting exercise, whose results were presented at the meeting in Japan, has sought to change this calculation. The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) attempts to price the ecosystems we are destroying. It shows that the economic benefit of protecting habitats and species often greatly outweighs the money to be made by trashing them. A study in Thailand, for instance, suggests that turning a hectare of mangrove forest into shrimp farms makes $1,220 a year but inflicts $12,400 of damage every year on local livelihoods, fisheries and coastal protection. The catchment protected by one nature reserve in New Zealand saves local people NZ$136m a year in water bills. Three quarters of the US haddock catch now comes from within 5km of a marine reserve off the New England coast: by protecting the ecosystem, the reserve has boosted the value of the fishery.

I understand why this approach is felt to be necessary. I understand that if something can't be measured, governments and businesses don't value it. I accept TEEB's reasoning that the rural poor, many of whom survive exclusively on what the ecosystem has to offer, are treated harshly by an economic system which doesn't recognise its value. Even so, this exercise disturbs me.

As soon as something is measurable it becomes negotiable. Subject the natural world to cost-benefit analysis and accountants and statisticians will decide which parts of it we can do without. All that now needs to be done to demonstrate that an ecosystem can be junked is to show that the money to be made from trashing it exceeds the money to be made from preserving it. That, in the weird world of environmental economics, isn't hard: ask the right statistician and he'll give you any number you want.

This approach reduces the biosphere to a subsidiary of the economy. In reality it's the other way round. The economy, like all other human affairs, hangs from the world's living systems. You can see this diminution in the language TEEB reports use: they talk of "natural capital stock", of "underperforming natural assets" and "ecosystem services". Nature is turned into a business plan, and we are reduced to its customers. The market now owns the world.

But I also recognise this: that if governments had met in Japan to try to save the banks, or the airline companies, they would have sent more senior representatives, their task would have seemed more urgent, and every dot and comma of their agreement would have been checked by hungry journalists.

When they meet to consider the gradual collapse of the natural world they send their office cleaners and defer the hard choices for another 10 years, while the media doesn't even notice they have failed to produce a written agreement. So, much as I'm revolted by the way in which nature is being squeezed into a column of figures in an accountant's ledger, I am forced to agree that it may be necessary. What else will induce the blinkered, frightened people who hold power today to take the issue seriously?

© 2010 Guardian News and Media Limited
George Monbiot is the author of the best selling books The Age of Consent: a manifesto for a new world order and Captive State: the corporate takeover of Britain. He writes a weekly column for the Guardian newspaper. Visit his website at www.monbiot.com

[Wayne Hall]

news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/10/proposed-biodiversity-pact-bars-.html

Proposed Biodiversity Pact Bars 'Climate-Related Geoengineering'
by Eli Kintisch on 26 October 2010, 5:55 PM |

ScienceInsider has obtained draft text from negotiators at the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Nagoya, Japan, in regards to a proposed bar on geoengineering research. If it is passed, the language could broadly affect a whole field of research still taking shape. That emerging field is laid out in a new U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on the field, released today.

The statement, proposed to be part of the official communiqué of the meeting, declares that "no climate-related geoengineering activities that may affect biodiversity take place, until there is an adequate scientific basis
on which to justify such activities and appropriate consideration of the associated risks for the environment and biodiversity". The text goes on to define geoengineering as either techniques that reduce the amount of sunlight striking the ground or suck carbon out of the atmosphere.

In an e-mail, geochemist Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution of Washington slams the proposed text as making "no sense." He says the words "may affect" could "devastate" efforts to do even small-scale experiments that would not have climatic effects. Also, he says, by not saying "may affect negatively," the statement could actually bar efforts that would increase biodiversity, such as increasing the biodiversity of a farm for the purpose of large-scale sequestration of carbon using plants.

But Pat Mooney of the ETC Group, a Canadian environmental group, called the proposed text a "a step in the right direction. … It's important that governments are recognizing that there should be controls on who messes with the thermostat." By including the broad phrase "may affect," he said, the language would serve a "precautionary" role in controlling actions whose impacts may be unknown.

The meeting runs for two more days, but negotiators say that the text is unlikely to be revised.

It's unclear how the statement might be enforced, as nations have not considered CBD decisions "legally binding" in the past. One hundred sixty-eight countries are signatories to the CBD treaty; the treaty has not been ratified by the United States. But it has had effects on several scientific research areas, including genetically modified plants. A joint India-Germany experiment in ocean fertilization—one type of geoengineering —was nearly scuttled last year when two German ministries argued over the relevance of a CBD bar on such work at sea. After some paperwork, the experiment was allowed to progress.

Full proposed text:

8 (w) Ensure, in line and consistent with decision IX/16 C, on ocean
fertilisation and biodiversity and climate change, in the absence of science-based, global, transparent and effective control and regulatory mechanisms for geo-engineering, and in accordance with the precautionary approach and Article 14 of the Convention, that no climate-related geoengineering activities (1) that may affect biodiversity take place, until there is an adequate scientific basis on which to justify such activities and appropriate consideration of the associated risks for the environment and biodiversity and associated social, economic and cultural impacts, with the exception of small scale scientific research studies that would be conducted in a controlled setting in accordance with Article 3 of the Convention, and only if they are justified by the need to gather specific scientific data and are subject to a thorough prior assessment of the potential impacts on the environment.

(1) Without prejudice to future deliberations on the definition of geo-engineering activities, understanding that any technologies that deliberately reduce solar insolation or increase carbon sequestration from the atmosphere on a large scale that may affect biodiversity (excluding carbon capture and storage from fossil fuels when it captures carbon dioxide before it is released to the atmosphere) should be considered as forms of geoengineering which are relevant to the Convention on Biological Diversity until a more precise definition can be developed. Noting that solar insolation <<sp?>>is defined as a measure of solar radiation energy received on a given surface area in a given hour and that carbon sequestration is defined as the process of increasing the carbon contact of a reservoir/pool other than the atmosphere.

and

9 (n) Taking full account of the views and experiences of indigenous and local communities, small farmers, fishers and livestock keepers, compile and synthesize available scientific information on:

1. The possible impacts of geoengineering techniques on biodiversity and associated social, economic and cultural impacts;
2. Governance options for regulating geoengineering activities; and
3. Options on definitions and scopes of geoengineering, and make this information available for consideration at a meeting of the SBSTTA prior to the eleventh meeting of the COP;


(alternative to 9n)
(n bis) Taking into account the possible need for science-based global, transparent and effective control and regulatory mechanisms, subject to the availability of financial resources, undertake a study on gaps in the existing related mechanisms for climate-related geoengineering relevant to the CBD, bearing in mind that such mechanisms may not be best placed under the CBD, for consideration by the SBSTTA prior to a future meeting of the COP and to communicate the results to relevant organisations.

Meanwhile, the GAO report highlights more than $100 million worth of federal science projects that might be relevant to various geoengineering approaches. Only a few projects, costing a total of $2 million, are directly related to the field.

[Wayne Hall]

www.digitaljournal.com/article/299588


Convention on Biodiversity imposes moratorium on geoengineering
By Stephanie Dearing.



Nagoya - The 10th Convention on Biodiversity, hosted by Japan this year, wrapped up Friday with a new and improved agreement intended to protect global biodiversity.
Only those nations that are signatories to the Convention on Biodiversity are bound by the new agreement set into place during the Convention. A press release issued by the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) on Friday said the "historic decisions" reached during the convention means signatory parties
"... Agreed to at least halve and where feasible bring close to zero the rate of loss of natural habitats including forests;
- Established a target of 17 per cent of terrestrial and inland water areas and 10 per cent of marine and coastal areas;
- Through conservation and restoration, Governments will restore at least 15 percent of degraded areas; and
- Will make special efforts to reduce the pressures faced by coral reefs.
Parties also agreed to a substantial increase in the level of financial resources in support of implementation of the Convention."
Tucked away in this muted announcement are the details. One such detail was a moratorium on further geoengineering projects, a decision feted by the ETC Group. The ETC Group has lobbied tirelessly for increased protection of what some call "mother earth." The moratorium means, said ETC's Latin American Director Silvia Ribeiro,
“Any private or public experimentation or adventurism intended to manipulate the planetary thermostat will be in violation of this carefully crafted UN consensus.”
However, the moratorium will not apply to those nations which have not ratified the Convention, and the United States is one of those nations not affected.

After the ETC Group proposed a ban of geoengineering, a scientist wrote a letter to the CBD's newsletter, [Square Brackets] saying the proposal would mean large-scale activities such as tree planting would also be banned. The author of the letter was Professor John Shepherd who heads up the Royal Society Geoengineering Working Group, and is co-chair of the Royal Society's Solar Radiation Management Governance Initiative.

Geoengineering is a term that encompasses a variety of methods people might undertake to combat climate change. Hands Off Mother Earth describes geoengineering as "... large scale schemes that intend to intervene in the earth’s oceans, soils and atmosphere with the aim of combating climate change." In other words, altering the earth in order to stop climate change. This can be done through a variety of means, such as
"... blasting sulfate particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun’s rays; dumping iron particles in the oceans to nurture CO2-absorbing plankton; firing silver iodide into clouds to produce rain; genetically engineering crops to have reflective leaves; spraying seawater into clouds to make clouds whiter; dumping large quantities of plant matter into the ocean or turning it into charcoal for burying in soils."

ETC's Executive Director, Pat Mooney lauded the moratorium, saying

“This decision clearly places the governance of geoengineering in the United Nations where it belongs. This decision is a victory for common sense, and for precaution. It will not inhibit legitimate scientific research. Decisions on geoengineering cannot be made by small groups of scientists from a small group of countries that establish self-serving ‘voluntary guidelines’ on climate hacking.

What little credibility such efforts may have had in some policy circles in the global North has been shattered by this decision. The UK Royal Society and its partners should cancel their Solar Radiation Management Governance Initiative and respect that the world’s governments have collectively decided that future deliberations on geoengineering should take place in the UN, where all countries have a seat at the table and where civil society can watch and influence what they are doing.”
Some nations, fearing the negative impacts of climate change, are not willing to relinquish the potential offered by geoengineering. The United States Committee on Science and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives just issued a report on geoengineering, which the Committee calls "climate engineering." The Committee said

"... reducing greenhouse gas emissions should be the first priority of any domestic or international climate initiative. Nothing should distract us from this priority, and climate engineering must not divert any of the resources dedicated to greenhouse gas reductions and clean energy development. However, we are facing an unfortunate reality. The global climate is already changing and the onset of climate change impacts may outpace the world’s political, technical, and economic capacities to prevent and adapt to them. Therefore, policymakers should begin consideration of climate engineering research now to better understand which technologies or methods, if any, represent viable stopgap strategies for managing our changing climate and which pose unacceptable risks."

The decision to proceed with experiments that could have vastly negative repercussions for the earth and its systems and inhabitants is a not unusual. The Royal Society also blames the pressure of climate change for the impetus to tinker with the earth's systems.

"... Man-made climate change is happening and its impacts and costs will be large, serious and unevenly spread. The impacts may be reduced by adaptation and moderated by mitigation, especially by reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. However, global efforts to reduce emissions have not yet been sufficiently successful to provide confidence that the reductions needed to avoid dangerous climate change will be achieved. This has led to growing interest in geoengineering, defined here as the deliberate large-scale manipulation of the planetary environment to counteract anthropogenic climate change.

However, despite this interest, there has been a lack of accessible, high quality information on the proposed geoengineering techniques which remain unproven and potentially dangerous."

The moratorium, reported ETC Group, means governments around the world will be asked
"... to ensure that no geoengineering activities take place until risks to the environment and biodiversity and associated social, cultural and economic impacts have been appropriately considered. The CBD secretariat was also instructed to report back on various geoengineering proposals and potential intergovernmental regulatory measures."
Carbon capture and storage was left out of the moratorium.


Read more: www.digitaljournal.com/article/299588#ixzz14OukiILA

[Wayne Hall]

Press conference of the ETC group on the geoengineering moratorium:
webcast.cop10.go.jp/player.asp?id=2902&type=ondemand

[Wayne Hall]

One thing to note about all our truth movements.

Up until now the game has been simple: the other side lies, our side tells the truth.

This makes it all too easy, for the other side. Whenever anyone tells the truth, attack them, demonize them.

Perhaps we don't really start to make progress until we have dissemblers (i.e. hypocrites) on our side also.

This may be the service that has been performed for us by the ETC group.

[Wayne Hall]

New allies in France:
acdn.france.free.fr/spip/breve.php3?id_breve=1086&lang=en

[Wayne Hall]

The Moratorium: the implications

10 November 2010

The Geoengineering Moratorium

under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity

On 29 October 2010, the Tenth Conference of the Parties (COP 10) of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) adopted a decision that amounts to a de facto moratorium on geoengineering and, almost as importantly, affirmed the UN’s leadership in addressing these issues. Since then, many commentators (both those opposed to and supportive of geoengineering) have circulated erroneous statements concerning the import of the decision. In this note, ETC Group addresses some of the misunderstandings about a decision we consider to be an extremely important step forward.

Moratorium: (Who cares?) Although governments and commentators often use the word “moratorium” (or “de facto moratorium”) when speaking of the geoengineering decision, this language does not appear in formal texts within the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. But the decision carries considerable political clout. The 193 State Parties of the CBD are unanimously urging themselves and the world’s three UN members who are not Parties to the Convention to invoke the precautionary approach and prohibit geoengineering activities at least until a number of conditions are met: The prohibition applies (1) as long as there is no “science based, global, effective, transparent control and regulatory mechanism”; (2) in keeping with the precautionary approach and the obligations of Article 14 of the Convention <1>; (3) until there is an adequate scientific basis to justify geoengineering and (4) appropriate consideration of risks to the environment, biodiversity as well as social, economic and cultural impacts. The only exceptions that are specifically provided for are small-scale scientific research studies that would meet four specific conditions <2> . Much of the geoengineering research currently underway (computer modeling, for example) would be allowed under this exception but virtually no open field trials of geoengineering technologies could meet all 4 conditions.

Of course, all agreements emanating from a Conference of the Parties are by consensus (except in unusual circumstances where a government requests a reservation) but it is rare for the COP to reach a consensus position on such a politically controversial issue. In recent years, for example, other proposals for moratoria on genetically modified trees or GM fish – proposals that are supported by the majority of the world’s governments – have failed to achieve the necessary consensus. The new moratorium is particularly strong and unique because of its breadth – encompassing geoengineering on land, sea, and air (although it does not include weather modification or Carbon Capture and Storage)<3>.

Governments adopted the moratorium carefully and in close consultation with their capitals. The CBD’s member governments have been discussing geoengineering in the form of ocean fertilization (stimulating the growth of algae to absorb CO2) and/or solar radiation management (blocking sunlight) since SBSTTA13 (the intergovernmental Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice) met in Rome in February 2008. Following its recommendation, COP 9 adopted the moratorium on ocean fertilization in Bonn in May 2008. When, in February 2009, two Ministries in the German government clashed over an experiment that contravened the moratorium, the international community publicly and privately expressed its diplomatic displeasure. The failure of the German experiment to demonstrate ocean fertilization’s efficacy strengthened commitment to the moratorium and, when the issue of ocean fertilization came up again on the agenda at COP 10, no government spoke against that moratorium.

The CBD’s scientific subcommittee (SBSTTA 14) met again in Nairobi in May 2010 and discussed the possibility of broadening the moratorium to all forms of geoengineering. As a result of their deliberations, a draft proposal for a moratorium was forwarded to COP 10. Indeed, at COP 10, geoengineering was on the agenda under three different items: New and emerging issues, Marine and coastal biodiversity, and Biodiversity and climate change. Heading into the two-week conference, the CBD secretariat, among others, described geoengineering as one of its most significant agenda items.

Implications for CBD non-Parties: (Can the moratorium be ignored?) Andorra, the Holy See and the USA are the only UN members that have not ratified the Biodiversity Convention. Despite the fact that the USA normally has one of the largest delegations attending CBD meetings and it is a signatory to the Convention, it is technically under no obligation to honour the moratorium. Having signed the treaty and declared its intention to ratify, however, the U.S. government typically adheres to CBD decisions. Certainly, such a strong expression of international will cannot be easily ignored.

Enforcement: (Does the COP carry a stick?) Formally, the CBD has the intent but not the capacity to enforce the de facto moratorium. This is true of the majority of intergovernmental agreements (other than trade agreements and some military treaties). Informally, however, governments that have participated in establishing a consensus decision try hard not to violate such decisions and they risk their credibility and diplomatic reputations if they do so.

Decisions of the CBD are, in fact, decisions of its member governments. Those decisions then apply in every intergovernmental forum. One hundred and ten states were represented at COP 10 by Cabinet-level Ministers of Environment – very often the same Ministers and many of the same negotiators that will meet under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Cancun at the end of November. Commentators who have suggested that the CBD decision is irrelevant appear to know little about intergovernmental relations and even less about climate change negotiations.

Review/Rescind: (Can it be overturned?) Any future COP could choose to review and either strengthen or rescind the moratorium. However, any alterations must be unanimously accepted by all governments. The moratorium against “Terminator technologies” (seeds that are genetically modified to be sterile) established at COP 5 in 2000 was aggressively challenged by, among others, Canada and New Zealand, in 2005 and 2006. Despite considerable pressure, governments reaffirmed the moratorium in Curitiba in 2006, prompting the Brazilian President to declare the defense of the moratorium as one of COP 8’s major victories. Indeed, the de facto moratorium draws much of its strength from the negotiating governments’ recognition that – once established – it will not easily be removed.

Language: (Omelette not Hamlet?) The exact language of any CBD decision is the result of long, laborious (and, usually, late-night) negotiation among delegates, the majority of whom do not have any of the six UN languages as their mother tongue. As the skilled Austrian chair of Working Group 1 at COP 10 acknowledged, the result is not poetry. Due to the complexity of international legal interpretations, there’s a tendency to fix as many subordinate clauses to a single sentence as possible and to attach as many concepts within a single paragraph as can be managed. The result is decidedly inelegant. Governments participating in negotiations, however, understand the intent.

Next Step – ICENT: (Time for a Policy climate change?) A moratorium invoking the precautionary principle is essential when gaps in knowledge are substantial, the risks are considerable, and the need for preventive action is imminent. In the absence of other timely mechanisms, moratoria represent a responsible and effective tool of international governance. In many instances, moratoria are UN member states’ best defense against unilateral action by powerful countries or corporations. In the 16 years since the CBD came into force, ETC Group has promoted three moratoria on new technologies: COP 5 (2000) adopted a moratorium on Terminator technologies; COP 9 (2008) agreed to a moratorium on ocean fertilization; and, now, COP 10 (2010) has approved a moratorium on all forms of geoengineering.

It should be evident to all Parties that another approach is preferable. The United Nations system needs a monitoring and evaluation mechanism that would allow it to review and comment on new technologies as they move from discovery to diffusion and before commercialization. An authoritative, transparent and participatory mechanism established with credible and predictable processes would reduce risk both for science and economies as well as for society and the environment.

Governments should recall that the United Nations had some of the necessary building blocks to perform this function until 1993 when, after heavy lobbying from transnational corporations, it effectively abolished both the UN Centre for Science and Technology for Development (UNCSTD) and the UN Centre on Transnational Corporations (UNCTC) one year after the adoption of Agenda 21 at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro (the Rio Earth Summit).

ETC Group proposes that the UN establish an International Convention for the Evaluation of New Technologies (ICENT). The current moratoria – and others that may arise at the CBD or in other UN bodies concerning nanotechnology and synthetic biology, for example – make it clear that it is time for a “political” change in climate. The Rio +20 Summit to be held in Brazil in May 2012 should formally launch negotiations that lead to ICENT. In the months ahead, ETC Group and its partners will offer specific suggestions to facilitate ICENT negotiations.


CBD MORATORIA TEXTS


COP 5 (2000) Decision on Terminator seeds (GURTS) <4>:
Recommends that, in the current absence of reliable data on genetic use restriction technologies, without which there is an inadequate basis on which to assess their potential risks, and in accordance with the precautionary approach, products incorporating such technologies should not be approved by Parties for field testing until appropriate scientific data can justify such testing, and for commercial use until appropriate, authorized and strictly controlled scientific assessments with regard to, inter alia, their ecological and socio-economic impacts and any adverse effects for biological diversity, food security and human health have been carried out in a transparent manner and the conditions for their safe and beneficial use validated.


COP 9 (2008) Decision on Ocean Fertilization <5> :
Requests Parties and urges other Governments, in accordance with the precautionary approach, to ensure that ocean fertilization activities do not take place until there is an adequate scientific basis on which to justify such activities, including assessing associated risks, and a global, transparent and effective control and regulatory mechanism is in place for these activities; with the exception of small scale scientific research studies within coastal waters. Such studies should only be authorized if justified by the need to gather specific scientific data, and should also be subject to a thorough prior assessment of the potential impacts of the research studies on the marine environment, and be strictly controlled, and not be used for generating and selling carbon offsets or any other commercial purposes…


COP 10 (2010) Decision on Geoengineering <6> :
Ensure, in line and consistent with decision IX/16 C, on ocean fertilization and biodiversity and climate change, in the absence of science based, global, transparent and effective control and regulatory mechanisms for geoengineering, and in accordance with the precautionary approach and Article 14 of the Convention, that no climate-related geoengineering activities* that may affect biodiversity take place, until there is an adequate scientific basis on which to justify such activities and appropriate consideration of the associated risks for the environment and biodiversity and associated social, economic and cultural impacts, with the exception of small scale scientific research studies that would be conducted in a controlled setting in accordance with Article 3 of the Convention, and only if they are justified by the need to gather specific scientific data and are subject to a thorough prior assessment of the potential impacts on the environment…


* Without prejudice to future deliberations on the definition of geoengineering activities, understanding that any technologies that deliberately reduce solar insolation or increase carbon sequestration from the atmosphere on a large scale that may affect biodiversity (excluding carbon capture and storage from fossil fuels when it captures carbon dioxide before it is released into the atmosphere) should be considered as forms of geoengineering which are relevant to the Convention on Biological Diversity until a more precise definition can be developed. Noting that solar insolation is defined as a measure of solar radiation energy received on a given surface area in a given hour and that carbon sequestration is defined as the process of increasing the carbon content of a reservoir/pool other than the atmosphere.

________________________________________________________________________

<Endnotes>

<1> Article 14 reads:
1. Each Contracting Party, as far as possible and as appropriate, shall:
(a) Introduce appropriate procedures requiring environmental impact assessment of its proposed projects that are likely to have significant adverse effects on biological diversity with a view to avoiding or minimizing such effects and, where appropriate, allow for public participation in such procedures;
(b) Introduce appropriate arrangements to ensure that the environmental consequences of its programmes and policies that are likely to have significant adverse impacts on biological diversity are duly taken into account;
(c) Promote, on the basis of reciprocity, notification, exchange of information and consultation on activities under their jurisdiction or control which are likely to significantly affect adversely the biological diversity of other States or areas beyond the limits of national jurisdiction, by encouraging the conclusion of bilateral, regional or multilateral arrangements, as appropriate;
(d) In the case of imminent or grave danger or damage, originating under its jurisdiction or control, to biological diversity within the area under jurisdiction of other States or in areas beyond the limits of national jurisdiction, notify immediately the potentially affected States of such danger or damage, as well as initiate action to prevent or minimize such danger or damage; and
(e) Promote national arrangements for emergency responses to activities or events, whether caused naturally or otherwise, which present a grave and imminent danger to biological diversity and encourage international cooperation to supplement such national efforts and, where appropriate and agreed by the States or regional economic integration organizations concerned, to establish joint contingency plans.

2. The Conference of the Parties shall examine, on the basis of studies to be carried out, the issue of liability and redress, including restoration and compensation, for damage to biological diversity, except where such liability is a purely internal matter.

<2> They (1) are conducted in a controlled setting; (2) would not have impacts beyond national jurisdiction (in keeping with CBD Article 3) ; (3) are justified by the need to gather specific scientific data and (4) are subjected to thorough prior environmental impact assessment.

<3> On these definitional issues, see ETC Group, Geopiracy: The Case Against Geoengineering, November 2010, pp. 4-7. Bolivia in fact commented on that exclusion in a footnote, stating: “The exclusion of carbon capture and storage from this definition is not to be interpreted as an endorsement of carbon capture and storage technologies under this Convention, pending a full consideration by the Conference of the Parties of its impacts on biodiversity in general.”

<4> Annex 3: Decisions Adopted by the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity at Its Fifth Meeting, Nairobi, 15-26 May 2000UNEP/CBD/COP/5/23 p. 88, available online at www.cbd.int/doc/decisions/COP-05-dec-en.pdf

<5> COP 9, Decision IX/16.C Ocean Fertilization under Biodiversity and climate change, available at www.cbd.int/decision/cop/?id=11659

<6> Convention on Biological Diversity, Advance Unedited text, 2 November 2010, Biodiversity and Climate Change, Decision as adopted available online at www.cbd.int/nagoya/outcomes/

________________________________________________________________________

[Wayne Hall]

www.alternet.org/story/148587/the_doomsday_machine_and_the_race_to_save_the_world%3A_geoengineering_emerges_as_plan_b_at_the_11th_hour?page=entire

The Doomsday Machine and the Race to Save the World: Geoengineering Emerges as Plan B at the 11th Hour

How close are we to space sunshades, mountaintop painting, 'fertilizing' the oceans with iron, and redirecting hurricanes? Closer than you might imagine.
October 25, 2010

When it comes to climate change, any discussion of "cap and trade" legislation usually generates a bit of controversy, but there is another proposition for tackling our global warming woes that should be causing even more friction -- the little-known set of futurist techno-scenarios collectively known as geoengineering. At the opening plenary of the Convention on Biological Diversity last week in Nagoya, Japan, the ETC Group -- the same civil society outfit that led the charge for an international ban on Monsanto's infamous "terminator seed" a decade ago -- called for a moratorium on geoengineering experiments. The group's new report, Geopiracy: The Case Against Geoengineering, calls geoengineering, "a political strategy aimed at letting industrialized countries off the hook for their climate debt."

This emergent set of planetary-scale technologies is attracting millions of dollars in investment; it is high on the research agenda at the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the UK's Royal Society; and it is being promoted by the scientists behind it as "the only practical way to protect biodiversity." At the same time, the Washington Post has called it, "Playing God with the weather," and a leading indigenous peoples' organization called it "an assault on the sacred."

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change defines geoengineering as, "The deliberate large-scale manipulation of the planetary environment." David Keith, a leading proponent, gave the definition a touch more animus when he noted, "Climatic geoengineering aims to mitigate the effect of fossil fuel combustion on the climate without abating fossil fuel use; for example, by placing shields in space to reduce the sunlight incident on earth."

The mental image conjured by "shields in space" begins to put flesh on the bones of what geoengineering is. Keith's declaration that a key objective of geoengineering is to maintain the status quo of fossil fuel use tells us its principle intent, and begins to hint at what its critics consider to be the grave error at the heart of the approach. Faith Gemmill, an indigenous woman from Arctic Village, Alaska and Director of REDOIL (Resisting Environmental Destruction on Indigenous Lands) says, "Geoengineering is a way for scientists to remain in denial and for governments to avoid responsibility."

The Shape of Things to Come

Geoengineering technologies fall into three categories: Weather Modification, Solar Radiation Management, and Carbon Dioxide Removal and Sequestration; each is already under intensive research, computer modeling and experimentation.

The first category, Weather Modification -- generally covering "chemical cloud seeding" and "storm modification" (the redirecting of hurricanes) -- is, conceptually, the mother of all geoengineering technologies, already practiced at significant scale in the U.S. and China. In the words of the ETC Group report, such techniques demonstrate "a classic 'end-of-pipe' response that addresses neither the causes nor the mechanism of climate change, but seeks only to alter its outcomes."

The second set of methods is found even more literally at the end of the pipe: Carbon Dioxide Removal and Sequestration technologies attempt to remove CO2 from the atmosphere after it has been released. This is done either by mechanical means, through "carbon-sucking machines" (part of the arsenal deployed to put the "clean" in the dubious notion of "clean coal"), by modifying chemical cycles through "Ocean Fertilization" (introducing volumes of iron or nitrogen to the ocean) and "Crop Residue Ocean Permanent Sequestration" (dumping massive amounts of biomass into the sea), or by creating new carbon sinks through manipulation of species (GE algae) and ecosystems (burning biomass through pyrolysis and burying the resulting carbon, popularly promoted as "biochar").

Biochar provides an interesting perspective on both the broad range of geoengineering proposals, and the appeal. Called Terra Preta de Indio by European settlers, biochar was invented as a soil conditioner in the Amazon centuries ago; its ability to sequester carbon was recently discovered by scientists. It is perhaps the least fantastic-seeming geoengineering approach, boasting supporters such as James Lovelock and Bill McKibben's group 350.org, with a bright green image that appeals to the same demographic that, in principal, likes compost toilets. A precipitous rise in interest in the potential world-saving properties of biochar led to the recent establishment of the International Biochar Initiative, which is lobbying the UN for carbon credits.

While elegantly simple in theory -- the direct introduction of carbon into agricultural soils -- the factor that would give biochar its world-saving quality would be deployment on a massive scale; the biochar lobby proposes planting half a billion hectares of tree plantations, then burning them and tilling the resulting charcoal into the ground.

Even setting aside thorny ethical questions of patenting traditional indigenous knowledge, the scale of application required to have a global impact could lead, immediately, to a massive disruption of populations and livelihoods, quite possibly accompanied by large-scale violations of human rights.

The third category, Solar Radiation Management, evokes classic sci-fi through techniques such as "space sunshades" (trillions of small free-flying spacecraft forming a cloud a million miles above the earth), "space mirrors" (a superfine reflective mesh between the Earth and the sun), "climate ready crops" (some engineered to have a high-gloss, reflective surface), and "mountaintop painting."

Altogether, the grandiose scope of these technologies evokes the scientific hubris of that ancient physicist Archimedes who said: "Give me a place to stand and with a lever I will move the whole world." A more recent tinkerer in biogeochemistry, John Martin, echoed that phrase in an early description of "ocean fertilization" when he said, "Give me half a tanker of iron, and I'll give you an ice age."

While Martin's comment, made three decades ago, was issued in apparent sarcasm, it belies an attitude, and a technological capacity, worth taking seriously. Indeed, the ETC Group took that particular technology seriously enough that it led the successful effort, beginning at a previous CBD meeting in 2008, to subject ocean fertilization to an international ban.

The Unlikely History of Climate Manipulation

In what seems like one of the little jokes of history, Bernard Vonnegut, the brother of novelist Kurt Vonnegut, was on the ground floor of geoengineering when he discovered in the 1940s that by seeding clouds with silver iodide pellets, you can -- sometimes, under very unpredictable circumstances -- stimulate rainfall. Since then, cloud seeding has enjoyed both agricultural and military uses, most notably in thousands of missions over Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh Trail and, more recently, to ensure good weather during the Beijing Olympics and to fill hydropower reservoirs in California.

The notion of heightening the reflectivity of the earth's surface has been around since at least 1965, when President Johnson's Science Advisory Committee suggested addressing global warming by spreading reflective particles over the oceans.

The notion is currently embraced by counter-culture icon Stewart Brand (founder, in 1968, of Whole Earth Catalog) and his close ally, Dr. Lowell Wood. Wood, the man behind Ronald Reagan's ill-fated Star Wars program, and a protégé of the late Doctor Edward Teller (the real-life Doctor Strangelove and inventor of the hydrogen bomb) initiated another strain of the geoengineering lineage when he gave a provocative talk in 1998 called "Geoengineering and Nuclear Fission as Responses to Global Warming."

Wood's presentation captured the imagination of fellow researcher Ken Caldeira, who, as a 25-year-old activist in 1982 had helped organize one of the largest anti-nuke demonstrations in U.S. history; Caldeira initially tried to disprove Wood's hypothesis, but ended up convinced of its potential for cooling the earth.

Wood and Caldeira are currently conducting joint experiments to mimic the action of a volcanic eruption by releasing sulfate particles into the stratosphere.

"The idea that you can tinker with natural systems to delay climate change seems entirely ludicrous," said Pat Mooney, the Director of ETC Group, last week at the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity. "We began to look at this issue in 2007, and the only reason, frankly, that we took it seriously at all was because there had already been experiments by governments related to ocean fertilization. And what we noticed was that it didn't work, and every time it didn't work there were more experiments saying, let's just make it bigger next time to see if we can make it work then. At the same time, we saw the private sector getting involved with an interest in generating carbon credits. So we took the matter to the U.N."

Plan B from Outer Space?

Like an example of existential satire from the mordant pulp science fiction of a Kurt Vonnegut novel, geoengineering might appear to those outside the scientific community like a strange, disquieting fantasy -- technologies bearing the dimensions of a classic sci-fi doomsday machine, with the key difference that their prime directive is not to destroy the world, but to save it.

Climate science leaves no doubt that a dramatic urgency to "save the world" is fully merited. The UNFCCC negotiations have thus far resulted only in strengthening foundations for market-based climate policies that promise to balloon corporate profits while sinking small island states and coastal territories; there are no binding targets for reducing emissions; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts that the Arctic may be free of summer ice within 30 years; and major ecosystems are teetering at the edge of tipping points from which there will be no return.

It is of course the very urgency of the crisis that forms the geoengineers' bedrock justification for planetary-scale climate interventions. Last year the Royal Society, Britain's equivalent to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, published a report called Geoengineering the Climate: Science, Governance and Uncertainty, which concluded that geoengineering "does not present an alternative to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which should still be the focus of efforts to avoid dangerous climate change." However," says John Shepherd, chair of the group responsible for the report, "this is proving to be difficult."

It is the apparent lack of political will on behalf of the world's governments, and the apparent inability to "leave the oil in the soil and the coal in the hole," in the parlance of social movements, that leads the Royal Society and other geoengineering proponents to argue the need to move quickly in developing what is being increasingly referred to as "Plan B for the climate."

In a note to a climate science listserv this month, Ken Caldeira wrote, "Given the inertias in both the climate system and our energy infrastructure, climate engineering approaches may be the only practical way to protect the biodiversity of Arctic ecosystems." In the same note, he launched an outright attack on the ETC Group: "At the upcoming meeting of the Convention on Biodiversity in Nagoya, Japan, the ETC Group is engaged in efforts to try to ban research on ways to protect biodiversity.... By being against research on systems that could protect biodiversity, the ETC group threatens Arctic biodiversity."

Who Controls the Thermostat?

There is no question that technological interventions on a planetary scale should raise anxiety about global 'side-effects'; risk of failure, and risk of accidents, are inherent to any technology, as nuclear disasters at Three-Mile Island and Chernobyl and the massive oil spills from the Ecuadorian Amazon to the Gulf Coast make frighteningly clear. Even a cursory look at more "human-scale" technologies like genetically-modified crops, agrochemicals, and waste incineration show that, once new elements are released heedlessly into the environment, they cannot be recalled, nor can the damage they cause be undone. But equally problematic are the factors that the Plan B approach so easily dismisses: the ethical and political implications.

The report from ETC Group points out that several international treaties could be violated by geoengineering, including the Convention on Biological Diversity, the UN Environmental Modification Treaty (ENMOD), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the International Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. With reference to this last, hard-won treaty, Tom Goldtooth, Director of the North-America-based Indigenous Environmental Network, has called geoengineering "a violation of our rights and our sovereignty," and "a continuation of the technological nightmare that's been imposed on our peoples for five centuries."

Faith Gemmill, also of the Indigenous Environmental Network, calls geoengineering "a political tactic to allow the causes of the current crisis -- and therefore the crisis itself -- to continue." In a specific counter to Ken Caldeira's claim toward protecting Arctic ecosystems, Gemmill said, "There is no doubt that [geoengineering solutions] will perpetuate our situation in Alaska."

Geoengineering also involves potentially thousands of patents and proprietary claims, making it a venture capitalist's dream; one patent owned by David Keith, the scientist who co-manages the Gates Foundation's $4.6 million geoengineering research fund, bears the official patent explanation, "Carbon dioxide capture method for generating carbon credits."

Critics like the ETC Group and the Indigenous Environmental Network tend to see geoengineering as a smokescreen that wealthy nations use to avoid both emission reductions and political commitments. Neth Daño of ETC Group, who is from the Philippines, notes that, "The key players are all from the global North; not a single developing country is involved in this effort, and there is no process to allow developing country governments to be involved in decisions to which we are the most vulnerable."

In a recent exchange, the Royal Society's John Shepherd charged that ETC's analysis is "based on fear and suspicion"; ETC Group's Sylvia Ribeiro countered by saying, "It is possible to be both knowledgeable and suspicious. After all, these are the same governments, industries and scientists responsible for climate change, who have spent trillions of dollars to protect their industries while allowing a billion people to go hungry."

While various manifestations of the geoengineering fantasy might, in fact, be able to temporarily cool the planet, the strictly technological approach to climate tends to forget that global warming is not the problem. The multiple aspects of ecological crisis -- global warming, species die-off, the disruption of water cycles, ocean acidification, depletion of soil nutrients, extreme weather events, and unprecedented levels of social inequality, economic marginalization, extreme poverty, and war -- are, arguably, mere symptoms of a common problem. That problem, simply put, is vast overuse of the Earth's finite resources. And, given the nature of the dilemma, there may be no lever large enough, nor ground firm enough -- short of ending fossil fuel exploitation -- to make the Archimedean prophecy of geoengineering bear out.

Jeff Conant is a writer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is the author of 'A Community Guide to Environmental Health' (Hesperian Foundation, 2008) and 'A Poetics of Resistance' (AK Press, 2010).

[Wayne Hall]

morphcity.com/home/87-geoengineering-climate-ghous-plan-b

[Wayne Hall]

Some response at a forum (in Australia) to the proposition that we should be focused on the moratorium:

www.truthnews.com.au/radio/wordpress/?p=378&cpage=2#comment-35145

This is what he says:
"Here we have the Australian delegates for the Convention of Biological diversity:

www.cbd.int/countries/contacts.shtml?country=au

Time to start asking questions. Spread the word far & wide.

Keep it real. Dont flood them with bollocks. They exist, we want to know why & we want it to stop. This technology has been banned. The fact it has been banned presupposes its existence & the evidence is in the sky. There’s a plethora of means to prove such a thing. There’s nothing to fear. We’ll get over it. We always do. The minute we dont, we’ll cease to exist. If you believe this is a possibility & do nothing to exercise your right to answers it would seem you prefer to live in fear. Trust me. There’s nothing to fear except that of our own construction. This is a matter for all of humanity to decide not a handful of people."

People in every country should be doing this. Of course the US is not a signatory to the moratorium, but Canada is. Get to work on the Canadians.

[Wayne Hall]

Paper submitted to the British "Royal Society" on
"Solar Radiation Management"

The question Rebecca Campbell asks here "if the purpose of solar radiation management" is benignly to prevent global warming, why is it done even now in secret??" is a question that is often asked by Nikos Katsaros, Greece's best-known anti-chemtrails campaigning scientist.

Rebecca goes on to say that "many of the now environmentally-conscious public would accept this explanation if it were publicly given", something which is quite possibly - and unfortunately - true, but it is still a surprising remark to come from a person whose views on climate change, as far as I know, tend towards anthropogenic climate change scepticism. Surely climate change sceptics would not number among those who would "accept this explanation". Does not G. Edward Griffin in "What in the World are they Spraying" make heavily ironical remarks about how "when the truth comes out" the geoengineers will say "we did it for your own good". He might joke about this, but is the joking a sign of possible future "acceptance" Perhaps I should make this a real question to G. Edward Griffin rather than a rhetorical question.

In fact this idea of a future "coming clean" on the part of the geoengineers has always to me seemed the least likely of possible outcomes, and also a factor that makes one wonder just where present official policies of deceit over geoengineering can possibly lead and what the ultimate result of them will be.

I cannot see how the geoengineers and their corporate and military-industrial-complex backers after so many years of telling lies are going to be able to negotiate a future "coming clean". Their way of handling the contradictions of their policies consists in telling one story to one clientele: climate change scepticism for the conservatives, and another story: climate change scare-mongering and, surreptitiously, geoengineering to the other: liberals, leftists, ecologists.

Internally consistent, dispassionate, persuasive, hype-free scientific narrative is precisely what they have never been able to deliver. How will this be able to change in future? The logic of the political system obliges them to act as they do. They cannot just decide to act differently.

The historian and anti-nuclear activist E.P. Thompson, one of the leaders of the non-aligned European anti-nuclear movement of the nineteen eighties, promoted a satirical quasi-Marxist notion he called "exterminism", which he saw as a phenomenon underlying the nuclear arms race of the "two superpowers", the USA and the Soviet Union. He saw the Cold War as structured around an "inertial deadlock", whose objective by-product was the nuclear arms race.

I would like to argue that this same inertial deadlock has been reproduced in today’s climate controversy. The protagonists today are not the competing nuclear superpowers of the USSR and the USA but the climate activists on one hand and the climate skeptics on the other. And both sides of that controversy have their supporters, and even to some extent their origins, in the nuclear weapons laboratories of America’s side (the winning side) of the Cold War.

The experiences that led E.P. Thompson to his theory of inertial deadlock were youthful experiences of membership of the Communist Party. At a certain point he decided that defending pro-Soviet policies of “defensive” nuclear weapons possession was sterile and counter-productive. He went on to become one of the founders of Britain’s Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and a pioneering supporter of the demand for British unilateral nuclear disarmament.

I see many similarities between the stance of the old-style supporters of “defensive” Soviet nuclear weapons possession and present-day climate change activists who are still unaware of the role of geoengineering in the climate change debate. They have been co-opted into defending one side of a scenario of “inertial deadlock”. When the other side, the more aggressive “sceptic” side, gains the upper hand, as occurred with the “Climategate” scandal in the runup to the December 2009 Copenhagen climate summit , they are thrown onto the defensive, and remain locked into the defensive mode. They are becoming increasingly aware that they are “not winning”.

But who IS winning? The climate change skeptics?? They are not winning either. They are as disoriented at “winning” the climate change debate as they were by winning the Cold War.

Climate change has become the magic wand for justifying a whole array of destructive policies from nuclear power generation through genetic modification to carbon trading and geoengineering. Neither the climate change skeptics nor the climate change true believers who are ignorant of geoengineering (the majority) can resist the power of the magic wand: they remain participants in the bipolar debate of mainstream politics whose aim is – precisely – to reproduce the inertial deadlock.

The skeptics remain skeptical even of valuable breakthroughs achieved by the other side, such as the moratorium on geoengineering pushed through at the Nagoya Convention on Biological Diversity. The climate change true believers engage in skirmishes over side-issues: the “don’t nuke our climate” initiatives that focus only on the most blatant and superficial forms of disinformation: the idea that nuclear energy is “clean” and “carbon free”.

Rebecca Campbell’s paper on “Solar Radiation Management”, submitted to the Royal Society, is an excellent starting point for debate and a powerful exposure of the most obvious kind of deceit involved in the “dialogue” with the public that the Royal Society is now trying to initiate.

But the deceit goes much deeper and will not be able to be adequately analysed until other sectors of civil society: the climate change movement, the anti-nuclear movement, begin to show a capacity for much more radical self-criticism and self-understanding.

The anti-nuclear movement is in such dire straits at the moment that perhaps some progress can be expected with them, some opening of the mind towards the realities of “chemtrails”, for example.



"Solar Radiation Management": A Sunblock on the Light of Truth

The mission of science should be to discover the truth of nature; the mission of philosophy is to discover the nature of truth. It is only when the nature of truth is respected that the truth of nature can be discovered. Respect for the nature of truth is called intellectual and moral honesty, and it is intellecual and moral honesty that would seem to be lacking in this call for papers on the feasibility and desirability of what is here being euphemistically termed "solar radiation management". This is because what is being benignly portrayed here as being merely proposed has, for at least the past fifteen years, been clandestinely practiced, against the very ethics by which authentic, ethical
science is supposedly to be governed.

Among the ethical and legal principles of science which "solar radiation management" aka "geoengineering" aka "persistent airborne aerosol spraying" aka "chemtrails" violates are the Precautionary Principle, the Principle of Informed Consent, the Disclosure of Initiating Parties, the Nuremberg Principles Concerning Experimentation on Civilian Populations, the UN Declaration of Human Rights and the constitutional rights of the peoples of various nations over which such aerial "solar radiation management" is presently being practiced without either public approval or credible explanation.

If, as this request for papers implies, the purpose of "solar radiation management" is benignly to prevent global warming, why is it even now being done in secret, since many of the now environmentally conscious public would accept this explanation if it were publicly given? Why is its genesis, technology and those responsible for what we see as persistent airborne aerosol spraying in our skies throughout the world always kept unknown to us? Why is this institute, like so many academic, military and government institutions, and major environmental organizations engaging in the deception that they have no prior knowledge of that which can be so readily observed by all who simply choose to look up and without preconception behold the sky?

Empirical observation is the first step of the scientific method. It is the empirical observation of many throughout the earth that our skies are being filled by aircraft-delivered manmade clouds that wash out their color and blot out the sun. Further, it is the observation of many independent -- as opposed to government, corporate and academic-affiliated -- researchers that these lingering web-like manmade clouds are composed of toxic heavy metals, known pathogenic organisms and unknown nanoparticulate and cellular configurations, the latter capable of passing the human blood/brain barrier into the human brain and nervous system with heretofore unforeseen consequences.

It is also a fact that a certain transnational agricorporation has filed for a patent for heavy metal-resistent genetically modified seeds. This includes the very toxic heavy metals that have been determined by independent scientific researchers as being present in persistent toxic airborne aerosol spraying that your organization implies does not yet exist in a call for papers to comment on a present practice as if it were a future theoretical possibility.

It would seem that, even as sunblock deflects sunlight from the human body, and allegedly still-potential geoengineered persistent aerosol spraying deflects sunlight from the earth, such specious calls for academic papers as this one deflect the light of truth from authentic scientific and journalistic investigation. It purloins time better spent in identifying and holding accountable those who covertly conduct such dangerous
experiments as these on civilian populations and their environment; those clandestine practitioners who officially and fraudulently claim to have only abstractly considered "solar radiation management" which, as practiced, violates fundamental scientific ethics, human and natural rights, and universal law.


-- Rebecca Em Campbell

[Wayne Hall]

Ôwo extremely relevant articles by Rady Ananda


coto2.wordpress.com/2010/12/06/rebranding-geoengineering/#comment-9479

radyananda.wordpress.com/2010/12/06/un-climate-concern-morphs-into-chemtrail-glee-club/

Rady Ananda has added her signature to the Open Letter to "Hands Off Mother Earth".
www.enouranois.gr/english/indexenhandsMotherEarth.htm