by Ira Straus
In the near-medium term, only one thing can plausibly stop global warming and head off the growing dangers from its continuation -- and so give carbon reductions time to work. It is: reflecting away more of the incoming sunlight. This is technically called
"Solar Radiation Modification" (SRM).
In most media articles, sadly, carbon and emissions
reductions are misleadingly described in as the only answer. The proposals for them often
are quite extreme, on the theory that they must become more extreme since they're the only thing to do. Yet at the same time they are inherently inadequate for dealing
with the dangers of warning.
SRM is a less extreme solution than many of the instant-reductions proposals on emissions, because it does not severely damage to the economy. And unlike emissions reductions alone, it has a good chance of actually working to get the problem under control in a short enough amount of time.
That makes SRM, in reality, the precondition for success with carbon emissions.
In return, carbon emissions reductions are needed alongside the SRM. They are necessary for an enduring solution. But they can help significantly only in the longer term. By themselves, they cannot stop the warming from continuing to worsen for decades. SRM is essential for the short-medium term: it alone could reduce the global temperature in real time.
Warming is perpetuated by policy planning obstruction
Unfortunately, there
has been a dangerous obstruction of SRM on the policy discussion and planning level. SRM
has not been sufficiently researched to know how to do it well and safely -- or
even to be entirely sure it can be
done well and safely.
The necessary research has been long delayed, sometimes actively suppressed. Some dislike it ideologically -- as a competition to their own preferred program, or even for not punishing the Western economy and society severely enough.
It is a bitter situation.
Some entrenched interest groups have preferred to add to the damages to the world from warming rather than solve the problem. Solving it could threaten their belief systems and political arguments, and could reduce the costs spent on their programs.
Other groups, fearing the extreme costly programs often proposed for emissions reductions, and suspicious of the motivations as hostile to their society, have turned to denial of the problem of global warming. While many use as a proxy for avoiding the proposed policies, some have come believe in the denial and oppose any action.
The two sides focus more and more on their mutual enmity, at the expense of what is needed. This has obstructed progress far too long and dangerously.
More and better research and development on SRM is something that has come to be urgently needed. It is, in fact, the only thing that could turn the program of carbon reductions into a relevant and realistic solution for global warming, by supplementing its long-term usefulness with means also for managing the near-medium term risks.
Can we break out of the
vicious circle in the warming debate?
Too much of our
discussion refuses to face this reality. It ends up in a deadly cycle of
symbiotic denials – and an escalating cycle of unrealism:
1. First, a “believers”
side shows, mostly accurately, a catastrophic climate danger.
2. It demands
increasingly costly measures against the danger, yet inherently insufficient
ones.
3. It avoids adding, and
usually avoids even mentioning, the only measures -- basically SRM -- that
could potentially enable us to prevent the catastrophe.
4. Instead it calls for
ratcheting up the old, inherently insufficient measures still higher; still
without getting even close to adequacy for managing the problem.
5. Others – the
“skeptics” -- reject this believers’ program as both extreme and irrelevant;
and often deny the danger itself. They often win politically, in face of the
costs and seeming inefficacy of the believers’ program.
6. The believers call
the skeptics “deniers” and blame them for the problem, without facing their
own, symbiotic denial of what is needed for policy realism and even for basic
adequacy for tackling the problem.
7. Reason is squeezed
out by the symbiotic blindnesses on both sides.
8. The feeling of
helplessness grows. Given the constriction of the debate to a framework that
rules out any solution, it makes sense to be left feeling helpless. It is the
only logical point in this cycle.
9. The cycle
repeats itself, but at a ratcheted-up level: in worsened conditions, with heightened
dangers, nearer dangers, more damages already endured, greater irrationalities
on both sides -- and the discussion focused on costlier yet still inherently
inadequate policies.
It is truly a vicious
circle. It ensures that the dangers from the warming will continue worsening.
We need to break out of it.
The Way Out
To get out of the cycle
of helplessness, we must enlarge the discussion and start talking about real
solutions, beginning with SRM.
Fortunately there are new sprouts shooting up for this larger discussion. A few of them are more
significantly placed in the public square than in the past. I
link one here, to which my own feeble efforts contributed. It shows that, no matter
what the seeming odds, the effort is worth making.
The bulk of the discussion
is still, to be sure, trapped in the vicious circle. But a growing part is not.
This is a reason for
hope. And a reason for proceeding with greater confidence in moving the larger discussion
forward.
