Thread by @DKeithClimate

1/13 Is solar geoengineering like nuclear weapons?

In critiquing the SCoPEx experiment Ray Pierrehumbert @ClimateBook compared our work to helping North Korea get nuclear weapons.

So, time for thread #2 debunking solar geoengineering's BS mountain

https://twitter.com/ClimateBook/status/1359126915404230657

2/13 This is not personal. Ray, you are an amazing scholar & human. In the early '90s helped me on meridional energy transport. We have enjoyed dinners talking about shared love of the northern wilds. I am jealous of your musical ability, and wish to count you a friend.

3/13 But, Ray, do you truly think our experiment is as bad as if we were helping a crazed dictator get nuclear weapons?

Nuclear weapons threaten to burn us alive without warning. They are machines of death:

https://twitter.com/DKeithClimate/status/1118857297457889281

4/13 Solar geoengineering is uncertain and has risks but there is abundant evidence that it could help reduce climate risks. Particularly for the most vulnerable. That a combination of emissions cuts and SRM might be less risky than emissions cuts alone.

nature.com/articles/s4146…

5/13 Ray, you often personalize support for research (see below) because it's rhetorically effective to paint this a one Gates funded Harvard proff (me).

Rhetorically effective but false.

It's not about me or you. See examples in next 3 tweets:

thebulletin.org/2017/06/the-tr…

6/13 #1 The US National Academy has endorsed research on this topic in reports spanning 30 years and will likely do so again this week.

Similarly, the UK Royal Society and House of Commons....

7/13 #2 Three major environmental groups NRDC, UCS, and EDF have all backed research, including field research.

Support is larger in poorer countries where climate impacts will be larger
tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…

8/13 And #3 let's not forget CBD Decision XIII/14 which is a formal international agreement that “more transdisciplinary research and sharing of knowledge among appropriate institutions is needed....

cbd.int/decision/cop/?…

9/13 Ray, Where are the computer simulations finding nukes could save millions of lives?

You probably just overclaimed. But what drives you and others, looking at you @billmckibben, to make such claims? I this the tone of debate you want?

10/13 Ray @ClimateBook let's disagree transparently & respectfully.

One of your frequent claims is that once started, SRM must be maintained for millennia. If true I would oppose SRM. But it's not true as you graciously conceded last time you spoke publicly at Harvard.

11/13 SRM could be used temporarily without CDR to reduce rates of change a major driver of climate harms. (See Figure 1 from keith.seas.harvard.edu/files/tkg/file…)

12/13 So, Ray, do still hold to your "forever" claim? Or did I hear you correctly when you graciously conceded the point at this talk.

Let's have a debate that honors that fact that solar geo offers hard choices. If it was "barking mad" no one sensible would bother with it.

13/13 geoengineering.environment.harvard.edu/event/seminar-…

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