Transcripts For CSPAN2 Debate On Climate Engineering 20131222

Have this conversation. [laughter] [applause] [laughter] thank you. And linderman was not a top ranking scientist but he was, of churchills social class and political convictions, and most usefully he was skilled in the art of flattery. When criticized for his unhealthy closeness to linderman, churchill responded love me, love my dog. Even so, churchill always retained a healthy skepticism. In a 1937 article published oddly enough in the news of the world, the article titled live in a world controlled by scientists, churchill wrote, there are secrets to mysterious man in his presence taken no. Secrets which once penetrated may be fatal to Human Happiness and glory. But the busy hands of the scientists are already fumbling with the keys of all the chambers hitherto forbidden to mankind. I think the words have a very contemporary relevance. While perhaps not all would today concur to churchills conviction that our rooms best left a lot. I think most would agree with him that moral development, self control and legal institutions led well behind our formidable scientific insight and technological prowess. It would be much better, churchill declared, to call a halt in material progress and discovery rather than to be mastered by our own apparatus, our own technology and the forces which it directs. A engineered world would be one in which the conditions of our daily life are set by experts far away where human nobility, as churchill might have put it come is no longer possible, but only because we would be inhabiting an artificial world but because we made it necessary to inhabit an artificial world. Given that humans are proposing to engineer the climate because of a cascade of institutional failures and self interest behaviors, any suggestion that the deployment of a social will be done in a way that fulfilled the strongest principles of justice and compassion would lack credibility, to say the least. We find ourselves in a situation where you engineering has been proposed because of our penchant for deceiving ourselves and inflating our virtues. Fhs Global Solution cannot be found, who can believe in a just geoengineering regime. David conference for the solar system would more effectively in some parts of the world than in others. In some areas it may exacerbate drought. In others, floods. The temptation of those who control the heat shield to manipulate it anyway to put their own interests first would be ever present and almost irresistible. No wonder nations of the south are leading early moves mainly to the convention of biological diversity to impose restrictions on Geoengineering Research. So whatever the motives and professionalism of Geoengineering Research is, and i certainly dont question davids, the idea is already attracting a range of actors with a diversity of purpose and standpoint, not all of them admirable. I think its naive of researchers to imagine that they can isolate themselves in a cocoon of scientific neutrality, nor can they absolve themselves of responsibility for how their schemes might be used or misused in the future. We are, after all, talking about technologies designed to regulate the condition of life. Once the political corporate and military players become involved, the transfer the transfer experts will is how control of how its used. Actually i think its more complicated than that. Those experts, when it comes to crunch, will have a choice to go with the authorities plan or to get out. The exemplars here i think are Robert Oppenheimer and again Edward Teller. Both of whom play vital roles in the Manhattan Project to build the first a ton of weapons. Oppenheimer, often called the father of the atom bomb, spent much of the post hiroshima years trying to mimic the spread of Nuclear Weapons. So while oppenheimer worked to restrain the monster that it helped to create and thereby earned the ire of the authorities, Edward Teller worked to place himself at the very center of a Nuclear Arms Race and attain the kind of power that country and of by other scientists. And he could do so because he was the most aggressive advocate of Nuclear Weapons. Including the use of Nuclear Explosions for Civil Engineering projects creating new harbors with nuclear bombs, for example. When controlling the World Climate become central to the exercise of global strategic and military power as Nuclear Weapons did in the postwar era, which part will today Geoengineering Research is take, oppenheimers or turn once . If davids efficacy persuades one or more governments to embark on it and Global Climate control becomes a strategic weapon, or if it goes badly wrong but is pursued nevertheless where it will where will it stand . Lets go a bit deeper on the politics of geoengineering. Because i think it goes to the very heart of anxieties that many people have about embarking on solar geoengineering. Failures of political structures and moral weaknesses have prevented us from reducing Carbon Emissions consistent with the scientific warning. Yet these very same failures provide the political and social landscape from which those planes packed with overt acid will be launched. The first question must be whether geoengineering leaps over these moral and political obstacles, or whether they will, in fact, corrupt or undermine attempts at installing this global solar shield. So what were the obstacles to plant a that have led us to be talking about plan b . I think there are perhaps five of them. The first obstacle has been the power of the fossil fuel lobby. Geo engineering leads over these hurdles or at least pushes it off into the future. But it may also corrupt plan b because autofill tube is unlikely to back you engineering as a substitute for carbon abatement rather than a means to buy some time until we have enough political and economic incentives to introduce Renewable Energy sufficiency and so on. Exxon, Conoco Phillips and shell are dipping their toes into the researching of geoengineering. The secondary has been the weakness of political leaders and institutions with governments trading off signs against interest and there is no reason to believe that geoengineering will escape that i admire. Instead, people will become mired in it opened up new divides, one in which the Clear Authority of Climate Science, including geoengineering science, will be lost again. The third difficulty has been the elusiveness of global agreement. For some, the capacity of geoengineering to abyei the need for international consent is its defining virtue. Yet it may well take it from a situation of anguished indecision to one of outright conflict. The fourth is Climate Science to not. As i suggested, geoengineering has a mysterious power to bypass the objections of even the most fervent deniers, but at what cost. They will not accept strategy of using geoengineering to buy time, which is effectively what david advocates. Buying time is nearly buying time to do what they have resisted. They want a substitute for parents on fossil fuels, one that insulates the prevailing systems in change. They want to prove those greenies run. Davids slow ramp up scheme does not disarm denial capitulates to it and he may soon find he has to give up his insistence that geoengineering is acceptable only if its accompanied by emission cuts. Hes gone halfway in his new book by arguing it should cause us to ease the pressure to cut emissions. Finally, and ill finish on this point, one of Public Resistance to carbon taxes and the like, which has surely been a major obstacle to political progress in responding to the science, in my country as well is here. Solar geoengineering effortlessly leapfrogs this obstruction economists, including scott fear, have told us it will be incredibly cheap. By buying a time, david expects the technological process will avert the need for price penalty on fossil fuels in order to achieve decarbonization. But what a gamble this is. In the United States without a carbon penalty, we are seeing substantial investment and low emission technologies to be sure, quite rapid investment, but we are also seeing a massive and frightening expansion of new oil and gas fields. And around the world, huge new coal mines. We may find that it is fossil fuels rather than cheap renewables that fly in the window of opportunity opened up by geoengineering. Now, the verdict seems straightforward. Solar geoengineering cannot leapfrog the obstacles to decarbonization. One way or another most of the forces that have blocked plan a. Are likely to be double play and be. Only in the ideal world of a World Without politics does solar geoengineering have a chance of working as david describes it in his book. A techno fix event is an attempt to apply a technological solution to a problem that is essentially social and political. Sometimes techno fixes work. Often the same political and social problems just reappear in another form. And that is what will happen in my estimation if davids solar geoengineering advocacy succeeds. Thanks very much. [applause] thank you, clive, very much. We will turn it over to david keith. Thanks a lot. I will start by saying, scott did a great job introducing the basic idea. And i would just say one crucial difference, scott said instead of having emissions. And icon editing almost everybody else involved with this, has been Crystal Clear about that wouldnt work. It may or may not make sense to do that but if it doesnt make sense as well as cutting emissions, nothing you do to reduce the amount of sunlight and this sort geoengineering does anything to change longterm risk of putting carbon any atmosphere. So theres no way that these counties get you out of the long remedy to stop putting carbon in the atmosphere. Im going to First Responders do things i said he for circling back to say things about the hard underlying social questions and questions about how to take about relationship of people and nature that are raised here. Clive makes an assertion first of all, very serious and sensible problems but he in a way i dont understand implies that i and other people like me hold views that we dont hold, never held in consensus say that we dont hold. I dont understand why he is doing that. I want to bring some of those out. Lets start with a simple technical one. He said alan robot was the first person to raise this objection about the detectability of the signal. Not only is that not true, actually was myself and doug and kim who published the paper calculating how long that is. Its not deniers, its 20. Its even harder. So if you do that kind of slow route that it would take more like 20 years to attack the signal, not 10. Theres other signals it detects and but it should give you some pause and this may not be the simplistic figure objection that you heard, or maybe something about clydes star he was leaving out when you go find it. You can seek let you that the first people to raise this was us. Clive says its naive for scientists to isolate themselves and you can tune of scientific neutrality. Yeah, thats why i quit my job in physics 25 years ago because the connections to Nuclear Weapons and begin to work on socially development things. Thats what i walked out of the lab and spent a lot of time working with lawyers and activists learning how to teach in Public Policy institutions, doing Implicit Research on the ways in which science is not isolated from the world and the ways in which political and social worse shape what happens in science. I spent a lot of my career working on that. So its kind of odd. I mean, i have lots of things i do wrong and make mistakes, and the fundamental thing is it shouldnt be personal. But clive has taken the time to say its opposite of what actually thing. I think you have to ask yourself why. The answer is simple. Easier to attack dogs when they are strong. There are very good reasons that we shouldnt geo engineer but painting a straw dog, make people say things they dont say, i think its a kind of weak way to do it and i think its because its actually very hard to engage the really serious choices that these technologies bring a. I think there are, in fact, some very substantive views and there are some the same ones that clive has brought up to the fact that no doubt decisions will not and should not be made by scientists. One thing i spent a lot of my career doing is emphasizing while scientists may know more facts than other people, their values ought to count absolutely no more than anybody elses in Public Office decisions. Thats why we worked in decisionmaking context, a lot of the work at Carnegie Mellon is to try to find ways to figure out Public Values and incorporate them into decisions. Because technocrats when they begin to design something always subconsciously building a set of dice into one thing right after it. And not the way i think Public Policy ought to work. A few others to illustrate this, im sorry to do this personal stuff but i think its relevant. A few other clues that might make you think theres something a little odd about the way slide presented that. The first person that im aware of to write about the military history of a kind of old cold war climate was me. Thats not as i got all right but that was precise because i was deeply concerned about these military connections that i spent a lot of time writing about that. David as he is doing has written a book about the. The first person i would use the term moral hazard in this context was me in the same article in 2000. Because of concerns very realistic and i think wellfounded and correct concerns that these technologies may well lead to less emphasis on cutting emissions and will certainly lead to their abuse by parties like the harvard institute. I dont find any missed at all about their stats. They are paid front man for fossil fuel industry and they will of course deny the Climate Science and they will embrace things like this is the means to do. Nothing surprising. Thats what theyre paid to do. Lets not confuse our conversation about what the real issues are here. Finally, and they just have to keep doing this and then i will stop, clive says i believe it will divert the need to put a price on carbon. Im mystified since i spent so long doing the opposite arguing that absolute best have a price on carbon to reduce. In order to effectively mobilize efforts, and no amount of technological innovation is going to solve our problems without social consensus. When you solve them, Just Technology never does the job. So im kind of puzzled by that and i hope that a response, clive will think of the but less of a kind of painting me as a guy who doesnt get it all and think about whats wrong with these ideas, and i think there are good things wrong with them, and what we as a species, as a people act on to do. Its a hard question we should be engaged with, not exactly who said what to whom. Let me restate. I would say the hard problems here are basic science is hard and interesting and fun to play with but the really hard questions are also true. Theres a pretty good Scientific Consensus that giving small amounts of this would have nearterm benefits, and longterm benefits that are substantial and our worldwide for most people. That doesnt mean you should necessarily do. There are good reasons not to do it but thats a fair summary. We can talk about the science more if youd like. The really hard questions are who decides to use this power. How will we manage the fact that some people will most certainly use it as an excuse to avoid emission cuts. How specifically do we construct policies that enable us to get some of the benefits this technology appears to offer, real benefits to people now living in this generation in terms of reduced Climate Change benefits both the people and benefits we dont have and another way to provide, given the timescales of carbon in the environment. Under what conditions is it ethical to do this . And how does it change our leadership in the Natural World . I want to talk about that for a minute and then close. Arguments for Environmental Protection have become increasingly technocratic. Part of this has nothing to do with geoengineering but theyre tied together in my mind anyway and hopefully you will find them useful. When somebody, maybe a researcher who loves her rain forest, maybe they worked on insects in the rain forest and spent the career and they just love the. When they go to testify to positions of power, to congress or what have you, they often talk about ecoservices holding carbon or the fact that there may be lots of genetic material that can be producing wonder drugs, overall this is called under the rubric Ecosystem Services and thats the language in which most people talk. One of the Committee Talks about that in terms of thinking about the cute danger that climate poses to people. Not only to people and not all problems are there just because they pose acute dangers to people. I think clive is an extreme version of this. Take all the morelli out of it and it makes an easy choice. Thats nice, it docks all the moral questions about intergenerational equity and Mother Nature comes on its own insulin. I would say arguments about the utility of nature have merit. We are cutting folks who care about the Natural World are cutting their sexual but not drunk to talk about the nonutilitarian ways in which we might want to preserve the natural. I suspect many people care about. Theres polling data that show that many people care about this even though they dont say explicitly in policy debates. I think its pretty important for geoengineering because while there are costs and benefits we get climate warning to people and their are ways in which we did adapt, pay money to insulate you much further from the environment, if you actually want to weaken the rate of, slow the rate of Climate Change, a combination of Climate Change in mans a progression of land from nature, humans appropriation that is causing the extinction spasm that we are creating, and causing sort of drastic changes to the Natural Environment is a combination of those two things, slowing down the rate of Climate Change could significantly reduce that stress. So the most obvious answer is that its crazy. The most obvious answer is that you cant make things more natural by some engineered top down system which controls the whole world. I think thats a good answer and its an answer which might lead you, answer but some people say we should never do it. I dont think its a complete answer. There are plenty of cases where we attempted to what are effectively engineered solutions to try and help make the natural system more like it was before we messed with it. I think theyre interesting analogies between what i and others are proposing to research and potentially do anyway of solar geoengineering and the proposals that are made to reintroduce mammoths or passenger business which are both possible, to bring it back to a world more like the one before we messed with it. To give you a personal anecdote, as a boy i worked with the parents who are both biologists to help build these boxes to reintroduce the falcons were bred and moved and this help to reduce toxins into this part of the world. Reintroduce them after theyve been destroyed by ddt. The analogy is stronger that reintroduction would not have worked, would it be meaningless if it not first dealt with the ddt problem. Not perfectly, but a massively restricting what went to the food chain and fats in animal. I think the analogy is strong here, too. So the use of solar geoengineering cannot itself solve this problem, but doing it in combination with cutting emissions could reduce the effect on more than it is technically possible to do by doing a mission cuts alone. So to be clear about what im advocating, most of all i advocate a Series Research program. This topic was effectively a taboo for decades. It was known for a long time so the first reports about this topic come from the 1960s about the same time the first modern reports on Climate Change and it was, in fact, interwoven with Climate Change. If you go back and Read National academies report energy and climate 1977, in 1982 report or mits man, picking up women at that point, impact on the environment. All of those reports talk about the use of technologies as part of the context of the climate problem but then as it became more political, the talk was effectively suppressed. I think because of the fear of the topics that clive is raising, the fear of whats often called the moral hazard. And then this burst forth again in 2006 when paul kurtz and wrote an article that said exactly nothing in but by the person who sent it and the stature of someone who is unimpeachable credentials to understand the ozone layer, really kind of bold the cork out of the bottle to use an overused metaphor, and now we have this exponential amount of Research Going on. So i recommend a real program. I think its crucial because the biggest risk i see here are risks to do with different natural interest going against each other and distorting and shaping the way that could be very harmful to people in the Natural World. I think its crucial to be publicly funded. What we want to do is avoid as much as possible institutional locking. You want to avoid building big centralized government institutions and private institutions that control this and tried to great diversity. So i would like to see funding that spends most of its monday on people to say how this would not work and all the reasons they wouldnt work. Both the recent that are narrowly technical and the bigger ones to do the interaction with the technical system in human system. For example, again to try to jab at clive about my job, i and several people have been thinking explicitly about how delays in decisionmaking in the human system can create really catastrophic behavior where cuban decisions about implementing with time delays can create catastrophic behavior, and its an example of the way interaction of human decisionmaking and this technology can be harmful. I think its crucial that it have a minimum corporate interest and that it focuses in a diverse way on funding groups to show wont work and then in funding some groups to figure out explicitly how it would work. Its hard to do all that and im not naive about the fact its all going to magically happen and there wont be corruption. I think there will be but i think the challenge is is clear how to make it happen in a useful way. Why advocate this . The fundamental reason to this real problem that these technologies in the balance of the evidence we have so far could materially reduce the risk for natural ecosystem in the next half century. The habit i find among some colleagues to think only about the long run of our history and said correctly that this technology does nothing to manage very long range impact of co2 in the climate system which goes on for millennia, thats true but theres a kind of moral mistake there. That implies the next generation or so that w weve actually have direct connection with dont count. And finding ways to reduce the impact to them are somehow a marginal thing and i think its important thing. We have a direct moral responsibility. Its tempting to say of course that this is the wrong answer and the simple answers is you just had the nations now. The reason is not simply industrial capitalism run amok and it said simply corruption possible industry. We have built up a system that in material terms supports the of illumination and publication of transportation in ways quite irrespective of whether its the capital system or the old soviet system or what have you got deep enough also to economy. That is not the statement we cant change if absolutely can change. You cant just turn it off tomorrow, not without actually putting lives at risk or even a very concerted effort to cut emissions that would involve hard law to push fossil fuels, i think realistically that takes like half a century to bring emissions to zero. But, of course, daily commissions are not what is the climate problem. It comes from the past emissions. But even once you bring emissions to zero, the climate risk is because of the a cumulative co2 in the air. So cutting emissions and solar radiation are complementary, and that cutting emissions run a longterm risk, and solar geoengineering manages to some extent, so far as we now know, some of the short run risk from that in the air. They do Different Things and they could serve as cop was. One is not a simple substitute for the other. Thank you very much. [applause] thank you, david. Im going to now allow clive i think wants to respond somewhat to david. David may want to respond somewhat to clive, but after so many minutes of this ive got to try to close that initial discussion. I have some questions of my own, which i think some of you are likely to share, or i think will help eliminate or at least intended to illuminate the top of for a wider audience and then after i ask a few questions we will go out to the audience. Thanks very much, scott. I just want to clarify that because, listening to david respond to my critique of his argument of his book, i am left puzzled. Because theres a more know i want david and. David said, you know, you say in your book, you advocate research. Youre in favor of substantial Research Program into geoengineering, and then you say solar geoengineering but if the Research Supports early promise i would then choose gradual deployment. Now, typically in the various reports and thinking about the justification for research into geoengineering and the possibility of deployment, there are three arguments given but for some is the emergency response. We get into some kind of imminent climatic emergency, some massive arctic methane or Something Like that. And we need something on the shelf, plan b to stop that from happening so we can then, so dont go beyond a point of no return. Paul cressmans argument in favor of research in solar geoengineering. Is my concern was what will happen when china and india start cleaning up their smog problem by putting catalytic converters on their cars and scrubbers under coal fired power plants and whatever. And all of the people are currently dying from smog no longer died because that smog is pressing the woman, we could have a short spike in warming, therefore we made a plan b. The second kind of response or justification is we want to substitute abatement and this is why the conservatives i mentioned and some economists, the kind of people he associates with, theres a cheaper option your why do we have to bother with difficult process of restructuring our economy for just geoengineering . And the third argument which i think is quite respectable, the most defensible one is the buying time argument. We need to engage in geoengineering. Because there obstacles are too great at the moment, and so g. We joo engineered for four or five decades or whatever it might take, these obstacles will go away so that we can implement production programs that we should be doing now. So when you say we should go into a program of groucho deployment beginning with, it could be possible around 2025, what is your justification . The buying time argument, which obstacles are going to be over, whilst we have solar shield in place . What will make it easier for us to reduce our Greenhouse Gas emissions . Thats not my argument. Im not sure i think you might be able, i think this is wishful thinking, construct a specific political ways to tie together limitation of srm with a mission cuts. But im frankly not that excited. I think that is not that likely but i think the fundamental reasons why its been hard to get a mission cuts to change, so is buying time in certifying political time, i find that kind of nonsense. I think we need to focus, and the in focus a lot of my efforts on how we can change the politics now to get emissions cuts. So the short answer is, i dont see the argument. I dont make it. Why do it . Because of me, clive, the actual risk of Climate Change are not series. This isnt an intellectual game. There are real risks going on. Let me finish. So there is good evidence that people are actually losing crops from heat stress during the growing season and thats affecting portions of the other world now. A couple years ago, ice t. A couple weeks, you can see the glaciers are back almost all of them from the 1960s, and so were the glaciers are on the map and in 1960 data you can see as you ski day after day that those glaciers are back two, four, eight kilometers. So these things are happening and i think theres a real benefit to reducing them. And i dont need an emergency frame. I think the emergency framing is kind of overdone. Its a bit of a copout. Nobody i is is defining one in urgency anyway so to achieve argument to do this. Im arguing forward what i think of the most basic grounds, that acted would provide some benefits in terms of risks from the co2 we put in the air. It just doesnt work because as you know, there are you are scientists and im not. Solar geoengineering does not solve Climate Change. It suppresses one of the symptoms and that is the warming of the cool. It doesnt get rid of it. It suppresses it. As soon as you take away the solar shield all of that depressed warming comes rushing back. Which the issue put off the suffering. You put off the harms. Unless youre talking about solar geoengineering indefinitely for centuries to come. Is that which are talking about . No. First of all, you will know if you read the literature on Climate Impact, a lot of Climate Impact has to do with rate of change. So there are several answers the one answer is a simple answer. Lets assume that there is a certain pathway for co2 emission. So that the Climate Change that is going to lets say over 100 years, lets say you use solar geoengineering t tis by e same amount of change over 200 years. So 200 years out your exact same place you wouldv you would thet out. He happened would get done is divided by two of rate of change. Go read all the science reports come youll find a whole lot of how to do with rates. So thats one simple answer but the other answer but you have to ended after 200 years. Yes, you can spread out the impacimpacts over a longer perit sooner or later you have to stop it. Im asking what is going to change in the meantime . So im happy speed what is buying time i want you to answer my question. What is so bad about helping actual humans and now living, to whom i think of a more clear moral humans and about helping actual ecosystems . Why does that argument not attracted to . Because youve read my book and there are three kinds of things. One is because its not a simple matter just reducing the rate of warming by engaging aerosol spring. It is all kinds of other effects on the climate system as well. So its risky. The second kind of response is that theres every likelihood and this is the way the core of the argument i put about the politics engaging in this grant System Engineering is that actually the world will change if you engage in solar geoengineering, not in the way wed hoped and that is to allow these political and economic obstacles to be used, but what it may well do is actually make the a mission increase, about what then would have done. Because it will make it easier for people who are resisting carbon taxes to say look, whats the problem . Weve got this plan be so we can just pollute until the coal runs out in three or 400 years. You cant. And so thats the most profound danger, and when you argue in your book, its that we can reduce the harms, particularly for poor people by engaging in solar geoengineering and this is the compassionate thing to do, well, the truth is that if people who want to do nothing about time a change, they are the ones who be most attracted your book. So a couple things. First of all, if its true that the risk, technical risk are bigger, then, of course, my reading baby correctly of the current science is that the risks look a lot smaller than the benefits. To me thats a tactical question. Thats a reason to research. As to whether my book is soothing, i dont intend to be soothing. Its a funny i get from clive and other colleagues and over exaggerate the risk. Many people spelled out the ultimate risk here in terms of misuse is global expansion. You can do a worse thing to the world with this than you can with the weapons. Its hard to kill everybody with Nuclear Weapons. We are talking about one or 2 cut of solar installation. If he did eight or 10 cut for 100 years you will freeze the planet over the equator. That would kill everything on land. So this brings for the first time the power for humans to do that. And i talked about that explicitly as i think when you think about technologies used think about the very worst cases if they are misuse. If thats soothing, its a very strange meaning of the word sitting. I dont find a soothing at all. The middle question is really the hardwon. If i was certain the only effectiveness for sure was simply to cause people to emit more carbon, i wouldnt advocate. I think theres a clear risk thats true but i think the politics are hard to get. I think the are plenty of scenarios you can imagine some which appeared to be occurring, in which recognition, this is part of the recognition, and defined coupling of these technologies and cutting emissions. Remember, the amount that many people, clive and many people in this room, the amount we think in mission should be cut, say this about, the amount we are cutting is this about. Now today. And it is an argument which i did in the book, something called risk conversation, means with solar geoengineering, you might cut them a less than you otherwise would. Its whether we do better than almost nothing which is what we are doing now. And my guess is that the forces of certain if our mental activism, the site i think im on, will be able to couple these things so it would not be possible just to implement these technologies. Let me just at this point, im sure you to could continue. I just want to frame and stay on track. But i want to try to the reason we are here talking about this topic really is only because we havent addressed this problem corrected. Not because we dont take it seriously. So im a little concerned about the few that we should really pay much attention to geoengineering because we should do with it properly but we havent dealt with it properly. And taking seriously what science tells us about the impacts, that should be a great worry. There are two extreme positions i see. And extreme positions are helpful because the extreme. They clarify things for us. One is, and theres an Environmental Group that has been part of the strongest opponent to this idea, geoengineering, there against the id of the Technology Like when i read their webpage, they spend virtually no time talking about Climate Change as a problem. And what did you about Climate Change. One of the concerns i have is if you prohibit, prescribed day and geoengineering, you know, how could that be the central thing to do given the risks we face on the climate side . I think the question is mainly directed towards clive. Im not sure which are suggesting we should do. There are reasons why we havent but i think you are right by the way the geoengineering works and we like it, its not going to embolden us to do more to reduce, reduce emissions. So that is a problem. But are there no circumstances in which it should be used . Then theres another group, i think based in uk thats been principally concerned with something called catastrophic Climate Change, particularly the release of methane in the arctic. They are at the other extreme where they think we should use it now because they think that is the stabilizing the arctic, they think its a priority and we shouldnt risk going over any kind of cliff because that situation would be a runaway and irreversible. David, im surprised youre suggesting we should do in a kind of gradual world to manage Climate Change because there are these risks associated with the use of geoengineering itself and it seems to me it would be more plausible that you would use it when the alternative is so unacceptable that, however much you wish you didnt have to use geoengineering, it would be better if the two worlds, we could face. So what are your responses, both of you, to those extreme positions . Well, i write in my book nude to issue a warning about the political dangers of pursuing geoengineering. And i think that we can learn some very useful lessons from history when we start to think about the world transforming technologies and how they get used, and what i essentially did in my book, one of the main things is to map out the architecture of the political and ideological groups that are being drawn to it for. I mentioned the Oil Companies that have dipped their toes in the water. They ares billionaires who are deciding to put money into geoengineering for a range of purchases, some mobile, some very dubious. There are ideological bedfellows that are being drawn to it. Some quite peculiar ones. So im saying look, this is not a scientific question principally, although the science is pursuing, but we have the issue these warnings about what geoengineering means for Principal Task of, head off catastrophe from Climate Change. So im not opposed to research in geoengineering but i dont think it should be framed in terms of are you for or against it i think it should be framed this way. Under what government circumstances should research into geoengineering be pursued . Because at the moment weve got a free for all. Weve got eccentrics in russia doing all sorts of word things. Weve got rogue geoengineering fertilizing the ocean off the west of canada. Weve got this project falling over because somebody had a conflict of interest. Weve got startups. Weve got conservatives who resist all measures to cut emissions. In those of circumstances the way in which research is being pursued now i think is disastrous to what we need is an early, comprehensive government program, one which in particular the nations itself to have a powerful say in what kind of research is done, who owns the results, who funds it and have an influence should, god forbid, everybody thought essential to deploy some kind of geoengineering. I think thats a very important point. I want to return in a few minutes to governance because i think thats a central point. I hear you saying that youre not against doing research, so in that sense you are not that far apart. Let me just ask about deployment. Are there no circumstances the reason you do research if you want to find out if this might work, what its hazards are. It seems to me that infect even the distinction between research and opponent wouldnt necessarily be clear. Well, i see the risks of solar geoengineering being so great that i find it hard but not impossible to imagine circumstances in which i would, with the heaviest heart, imagine a boat say, well, humanity must engage in this appalling act. If we did get to the point, to tell you the truth i think solar geoengineering will be done. I think its very likely it will happen but it will be done for all the wrong reasons by the wrong people. I think will happen within the next 30 years. For me to support that, its a technology capitulation and im nowhere near the point of capitulating on the desired to see abatement. Where david is now in his new book advocating a path towards gradual deployment. Okay, so, david, so my question im hearing, theres more agreement than may have been apparent earlier. So not opposed to research and may even be i think we agree on much of the political risk. We are pushing and shoving but did it surprise you, youre going use it is because of our love for nature and concern for poor people and so one. Be careful. I am trying to be careful about this, distinction what i think which is an unusual point of view about a privileged person, from a particular social class that much more chance to be in the Natural World probably been all but one in a thousand people. And i absolutely dont think that is why im arching about what i think and what i would hope others would think. We all have our personal views. Got it. Spend every major report is being done on geoengineering which advocated more Research Funding of geoengineering. So unique, whatever your motives, gene, i dont doubt at all your love for nature and your desire to protect the peregrine falcon, although i dont think thats anyway cover both as an ingenious solution to taking control of the earths climate. But i think its disingenuous to say my you shouldnt count. Youve written a book which will probably be very influential. We read on the hill when rulemakers and some republicans already are, trying to thinking about hey, this solar geoengineering might be the answer. Spent let me try to answer your questions because clive also raised some good ones. So, you know, did you do this in us talking about, just using this to slow down, to be clear what we have in yet is distinguish several different class of things both cutting our emissions, but once we cut emissions we can see these Carbon Engineering to draw down. Thats a slower process until admissions are you, should be just like cutting emissions. Not quite right. Some of the technology should be. But in any case, one benefit conceivably of Going Forward that allows you to pull the concentrations found, but if you just think about slowing down the rate of change and get asked about what are the things we think are going to trigger the stabilities, thinking about our world are worried about, the edge is a slower rate of change from the little we know, often the whole point of these instabilities is sometimes you dont know them very well. Its hard to say exactly where these Tipping Points like. In fact, Tipping Point is an easy buzzword but doesnt capture the way much of the world works. What we dont know, we dont know what to buy but theres a fair judgment among the people i know it in the court of the climate geophysicist world but if you change more slowly, the risks are less of this kind of emergency outcomes. Although nobody can say exactly how much less. So theres some benefit to going slowly but theres a lot of shaking of head in the audience, so who knows . Thats one answer is i think there is some reason to believe that solar geoengineering could reduce the risk of us tripping over these points. Thats not true if you ramp up or down. So the point is if you ramp up and down, you get to the same total amount of Climate Change. And so that is counting and the and talking about how you under the circumstances, overall rates are lower than that. And that has some benefits in the way that i and many of the people understand climate risk. So thats one answer. The answer about whether you use it in an emergency, you have to tell with emergency is. In general, i think emergencies are probably not the kind you want to try untested technologies and so i say if you think you want to use in an emergency that might be a reason to try before the emergency to yet more sensible works and learn from it. Now, we do have a lot of experts in the audience, so im going to ask one more question and then going to ask for the great audience to offer their questions. And we have a microphone up there so the best thing, for people to ask a question, use the microphone for people can hear it through cspan. My last question been would be about the question of governance, which is a question of who decides. And wrapped up within that, everything we are concerned about, politics, ethics, science, all of it whether research is done in advance and so when. Ive been rather stunned at the variety of opinion that exists on this question of governance but i think everyone agrees that its important, but they dont agree how we should think about it or how we should revolve resolve the problem. Taking in extreme positions. Something that the there shoulde no restraints, that actually the thing you dont want is to have some United Nations agreement where unanimity is required and irresponsible countries have kind of the code, that if you want the restraint off of a country like the United States and less the United States the important thing about this technology is that lots of countries could do it. Lots of countries could do it. Not only one country could do it. Lots could do it. But now creates a situation where come even the countries that are able to do it may wish to have some arrangements that involve some kind of mutual restraint. Because each one of the others not to use but each once the freedom to be able to use it itself. The other view is that you need have im in favor of myself of a global agreement on this, because all countries would be affected by whatever is done. Thats not to say that every country should have veto. Thats completely different, but what a global agreement has is it acknowledges every country will be affected and it basically creates a space in which countries can in essence negotiate a bargain and work collectively to forget what is the best thing to do. But there are others people who think that there should be the equivalent of a veto. So im sort of curious about the exact what do you see as being the best kind of government arrangement for this really quite unprecedented technology . I think clive talks about the technologies to the Nuclear Weapons world. I think theyre accessible and thoughtful analogies. I think his comment about the way people think. Ive been struck a lot of the reading some the accounts of what people thought in the very first years since the bombs christian. Its interesting some of those people thought far ahead about the fundamental language i believe to be in fact, that weapons of the about are not really compatible with nation states as we understand nation states. The 19th century, if you like, we had a system of nationstates had this arbitrary powers to do their own thing and when they didnt agree, the ultimate thing they could do is settled by war. Then those wars would cost 50 of the population. Im not true blessing that but it was awful but that was something the political system could if you like, tolerate. With Nuclear Weapons you cant do that. You cant settle disputes between nationstates with wars. If were going to live on this planet we cannot have nationstates like before. You could argue we are slowly and painfully evolving towards over the time since the technology. I think in the long run the technology in the end there is only one thermostat for the climate, and if were going to manage this technology stably including decided not to use it or decide when to use it, and what it doesnt have instability that will lead to war between states and one i think it requires some kind of Global Governance force, that can comply states who might arbitrarily want to use it, not to use a. Said it requires a sort of reshaping of the Global Governance system. And has to do with many other technologies. Theres a series of farreaching profound technologies that make the old system of governance untenable. Exactly we do that, thats a very farreaching down 100 your answer. My nearterm answer is that we need to pretty quickly start to have multilateral agreements, first kind of agreements in principle thats a very good things about how its regulated than moving something up. Well, i think this gracious government is really going to be a huge one, that most nations again want to grapple with and if you are already starting to think about it now. With the report, surprising all of us except those who are involved, and including in some with policymakers, a recipe to geoengineering as a policy response to Climate Change the i say were surprised. One report where expecting it to be mentioned in the reports coming up in april. To change the definition of hostile to include solid g. I. Engineering. My preferred option be to develop the new protocol to Climate Change. The series of transparent tea, oversight, common evaluation amongst nations, ipc seaford zero Engineering Technologies and other things have time begin to us at which the infrastructure that would be democratic decision any deployment in the future. However, i think the politic is more likely, the more likely outcome. One scenario that i think is not out of the question is a 2030, 2035 there is a severe drought in northern china. Social unrest. People are going hungry. The common Society Government in beijing has stressed and the question they can be no way out other than to attempt to take control of the Climate Change precipitation patterns and try to hold on that way. The u. S. President may be approached to see if the u. S. With collaborate. I suspect domestic opposition in the United States to prevent in the u. S. President going along with it. They will make public statements suppose, but in fact we require doing it good well, there we go. Fiction or nonfiction. I pretty much agree with all of what clive just said. There we go there. Initially we started off with a lot of disagreement, but at least im struck that there is an agreement to. Let me ask to make sure that all parts of the audience. We have a microphone up to the front. We are being covered by cspan. People who would like to ask a question, peter, teacher identify yourself and ask your question for the microphone . That would degrade. It seems to me that geo engineering is made for tv, so its very appropriate we are being covered. I first met david at a meeting on this tribute it carbon capturing. I later saw him at a meeting, in much of our prestigious meeting in washington d. C. That focused largely a solar geo engineering. It struck me that not those two meanings is very different than that of the second one. There is a lot of staring into the abyss and philosophical discussion. The first is dominated by kind of practical issues of implementation. Both of you have written a book about geoengineering geared at that to start asking david, why did you write about that in a set of distributed carbon capturing . Thats easy. A company. Im out of running neck and was still it. Trying to develop ways to make carbon fields to supply out for biofuels to make transportation field of a a low carbon footprint. Ive done my best to manage the interest by 19 epidemic work comment by not speaking about it except through the company president. I now speak in front of green tech audience is. I only accept speaking engagements speaking on engineering. And im disappointed not to use the harvard had a Public Policy just to talk about how i think and what our company is doing. I forgot to introduce myself, which means real conflicts of interest. Im peter columbia and i work at Columbia University and monthly network on its carbon capturing. Thats interesting in its easy for the public to identify and in some case overlooked the conflicts of interest that arise in academia. To a certain extent, im not sure those are that easily separable. We are all having views and doing research on various topics and will eventually advocate for the topics we think are teen. Theres a standard in academia now where people are graduates units funded by their companies in this way that im comfortable with. The other difficulty, some of the stuff youve seen arising here, that because im doing them are intertwined and its messy. Theres a spec to from the kind were doing that i would say even clive would agree. It may or may not work, but it doesnt present really hard governance challenges that the kind of day putting in the ocean does there even bio chart is because its easy to quantify our thing will work or not work. Its easy in the kind of thing theyre used to regulating. But because its hard to explain all that, you get this business work i will say hes talking about solar geo sharing an attack about the oil industry money in the patent for much of which are backed not engineering. And because of that confusion, i generally dont do both. Questions are adding up. Francisco mckinney last at the microphone and introduce yourself . [inaudible] yeah, that might be good here and taking names so im going to i have a technical question because most of this [inaudible] destroys the impact being truly global and not contained in any geographic area, the effects understood now to benefit most people in most ecosystems. Now presently, it will affect everybody in some reasons. Maybe negatively impact. Now theres the governance issue that, well, theres obviously a power dynamic as it is and no matter whether this is a global u. N. Framework, ultimately the ones who can and will be able to do this are going to be countries like the u. S. And china. The regions and ecosystems better negatively affect it or simply those which will not have the power to say no. That raises a large distributed issue on the sanctity of engineering. Technically, do we know reasonably well with the distribution effects are and how that will impact how you feel the governance issue should be handled. Those are hard questions. First of all, theres no one geoengineering. Different games have different answers and even the one i study, we dont have very much. For example, a simplistic caricature of salty aerosol they show that it may not be reality. The effects are much more even than people had thought. That work is now replicated by a paper getting almost precisely the same two digit number that we got using 15 models to show us relatively equal. Does that mean its necessarily equal . No. I dont trust the models that much. We dont know very well. One other thing you said. Youre sort of assuming that many of us that its too much dominated by the wealthy in ways that are not equitable. A quality is anothers all the way around. If in fact not true but only a few powerful nations can do it. The aerospace with developers and do it easily. Many, many countries distribute around the world. Arguably, i wouldnt push this too far, one of these leveling to elegies in the same way as Nuclear Weapons are. Thats certainly a good thing. I think to come back, the bottom line is we can only make decisions in the end stably. You think of unstable situations. We can only stably make these are some strong binding local agreement. The profoundly important question, not convinced by the argument that its a level lighting technology. I mean, i dont see the world standing by and letting north korea take control of the worlds weather. I just make a different point. Its an extremely important point you make. We have to distinguish between differences in impacts that would result from the solar geo engineering and perceptions of impacts. Its really the perceptions of impacts. Its going to be partly based on scientists in america are saying. Its a very Interesting Development in a lot of investment, which is the counter to what is happening in the United States but also local perceptions of how it is change. If theres someone out there playing with the weather or people even think theres people out there playing with it, theyre like this crazy conspiracy. You can see youve only got a lot of upset people, but perhaps some International Role if people believe the nation is being damaged by activities, by u. S. , china or some powerful nation. Okay. Am going to be over here after that. I just want to grow little bit about the risks with the geoengineering will talk about. Your first alluded to risks. Does that run the risk of global acid rain . Doesnt run the risk of p. M. Five . What are the possible downsides of this . Sure. First of all, i divide these things into two categories. When i risk due to particular way of whatever method we use and that is inherently method dependent. The second thing of advocacy [inaudible] by magically turning down the sound doesnt compensate for all the risk of co2 in the rain. I think the mouse is what good the bad scenarios are getting letter from Climate Change and air assaults increasing from the core and we put there. That is fun and working on personally. Other risks have to do with the particles we put in transparency will fall into the lower atmosphere. Ive helped fund a study by Steve Barrett and encourage a study thats trying to some technology to study the risk of aviation to calculate how many people would die as a consequence of the air pollution that were putting in the stratosphere basically. The number who die from tropospheric pollution. Its not zero. If people die as much as a deliberate act, but different consequence for not putting on enough scrubbers on power plants. They both matter, but theres a difference in most law. Those are two of the most prominent. Acid rain is not an easy calculation to show that. The big concerns [inaudible] just a more general point is complexity. It seems to me over the last 20 years, climate scientists have made enormous advances in understanding how the climate system works. It is also true in a sense that we know less in the sense that as weve looked at it has just become vastly more complex. As we know, as soon as we talk about changing the climate system, we talk about the other components of the system, too. We talk about theory as a whole and assisted interfered with it changed in certain ways as a result of solid geoengineering and inevitably against substantial impacts. Its certainly true. You can also argue that risks are tied with how quickly we treat the forcing of the fundamental driver of climate. If you change it more slowly, youre reducing the fundamental driver creating the risk. Thats not an airtight argument, but its not a argument. It is also true and not an excuse to do anything. We can throw our pop can and it, too. We are dealing with a system under high stress of a whole of many, many times. Revolted the nitrogen cycle more than the carbon cycle. Weve offered the service of the land, even counting Climate Change. So while these stresses are there at once. We are in a kind of dynamic disequilibrium, which is dangerous, very dangerous is quite rightly said. That means you should refer back to some imaginary equilibrium. Its not equilibrium social system, and trying to tinker with this for fun. That would be crazy. We are in a dangerous disequilibrium. We have no easy way to land and i and others are looking at this as a potential way to reduce the risks that you cannot eliminate of how we can impact stability. Question here. Identify yourself. [inaudible] isles of a question about risks. I feel beautifully on your point, which is good on this important topic and has been a university. I think i understand davids point. Im not sure i understand class point. Im going to make a very emotional an emotional example to crystallize that. My understanding of davids point is basically september 11 has happened, might happen again. Very, very dangerous. The only thing we can do to prevent it is to invasion supremacy, maybe even waterboarding, et cetera. Those are all bad things, but hopefully we can control them. All in all the negative aspects of that are smaller than the risks of another 9 11. [inaudible] i warned you. But i dont understand about class point is are you saying that 9 11 versus the massive invasions of privacy, i think the risks theres other options to prevent 9 11, that are better, quote, unquote the invasions of privacy. Or are you saying the risks you listed around invasions of privacy, waterboarding, et cetera, in other words to you engineering are so big that you dont want to go anywhere near that, even if there is no other way to prevent 9 11 . Well, rather than trying to link it to that particular historical example, i just make the point that the two options in this case are not separable, theyre talking about geoengineering has a response to Climate Change. Changes the way people think about how we should respond to Climate Change other than geoengineering. In other words, it can and may reduce the incentives to pursue mission reductions. David and his book actually argued the logic of his position of gradual deployment is that we should engage in less abatement because it makes sense. It did worry me that david was arguing he said should i expect were geoengineering is tested and available a world were geoengineering was not to be impossible. This is kind of music to the heirs of those who want to see solid geoengineering as a substitute for cutting Greenhouse Gas emissions. What i am saying is even before his pursued, it changes the social and political pursue. It would radically change the way politics are carried out. By drawing on some historical lessons, you try to get a sense of what would be the profound transportations and the political infrastructure which would mean we cannot see the scientific arguments for pursuing solar radiation management in the same way the arrival of the atomic arms change the nature of politics in geostrategies. [inaudible] [inaudible] this discussion is on the assumption that the world is cutting Greenhouse Gas emissions, which every sensible person believes we should be doing at a far greater scale. Make in a statement. That is why people are now talking about hearing plan b. I guess my greatest anxiety is by plan b would seem to be by most people assert a stopgap measure until the world comes to its senses will in fact become a substitute for doing what we must do, which is cut Greenhouse Gas emissions. Okay. Now, your second. John, if we have time. My name is joe hotness. Im in the Political Science department at columbia. To follow up on the previous discussion of clives response to the question. It seems to me that your argument of geoengineering makes sense if we believe that without geoengineering, will get abatement. Recent geoengineering we dont. There needs to be some sort. Im wondering, in what scenario to refill the political will to appear just because we do a bit of geoengineering. Could you clarify a bit under which geoengineering is significant provided we have the political will to do some in the first place . Just say that again. Your concern is geoengineering [inaudible] in the first plays the role is changed a lot. Weve become a lot more serious. Do you believe this is advanced geoengineering and it will be enough [inaudible] well, if one is deeply skeptical as i am about geoengineering, the kind of solar geoengineering talking about today, there are more benign forms of geoengineering that we havent really talked about, although that was a great discussion of carbon capture. The reason why people like me who are deeply skeptical, in a way person obligation on a two pursued more vigorously plan a period and thats what i do. You know, among other things. To try to persuade the world rather than people, and that plan may cover reducing Greenhouse Gas emissions is absolutely essential to have a free radically transformed world that would cause enormous suffering for a very long time. But it seems to me, and of course thats the most environment groups are doing now. It is interesting that most environment groups are not willing to talk about geoengineering. They dont want to talk about it. They dont want to know. People like to debate adaptation of the late 1990s when environment groups didnt want to talk about adaptation because they saw that as capitulation, because it accepts that there will be enough climatic change to werent adaptation. Most people who are involved in this field at this stage talk about geoengineering because they feel it provides an out, an excuse by decisionmakers on capitol hill not to pursue carbon tax, emission trading vehicle standard and things the environments are pushing hard for. Vehicle standard and thinge environments are pushing hard for. But i am extremely worried about the moral hazard argument, in which geoengineering and research will undermine the reduce Carbon Dioxide emissions and other Greenhouse Gases and essentially that the message of the book, to track the way in which this is a developing problem, kind of political act are scum of those with commercial interests, ideological interest are being drawn to geoengineering asked to a pot of honey because it kind of solves the commercial or ideological problems. I want to comment on that. I think it is objectively true that there are some folks on the right wing think tanks who are assuring for sure. But if you casually read clives your question be a lot of work, the body of it was done by people with patented interest or commercial interest or Oil Companies. You read through it. That is most of what it says. Iceclad kind of quietly said, most research in europe and some of the more serious countries in the world like germany of the actual site involved and weve tried to objectively pull, it is pretty clear the vast majority of people actually doing it now are from a kind of far green kind of left perspective. That doesnt mean, to be clear, that it is all okay. That doesnt mean some of the very valid concerns clyde raises about the way it would be its use when it really gets out in the world talking about it, alters the conversation and i think i and everybody else involved in not r. Or bbravo should be acutely aware that our moral consequences are just doing what we are doing. Not even experiments. Hope you make it the world in a worse place farther away. But the flipside is also true. By pushing against it as clive and other people are doing, wellintentioned as both of us are, if the system and you really need to protect ecosystems, and theres consequences to slow down our ability to research it, which is what weve done for the last 30 years in an attempt not to look at it. We are dealing with fire on either side, whichever we do. We are getting near the end. If you could introduce yourself. Thank you so much. Michael thompson from American University in washington. Quickly on the last question ive been doing some research about engaged on a topic, which i think is important now to separate out money for public advocacy for research and money going into scientific research. At least in d. C. It is to run the right predominately we talk about the need for more research of certain types coming from think tanks that link towards the right. It is just an observation. My question is very worried. The alexander of this Ocean Acidification. If you would both address that. It doesnt do anything to alter Ocean Acidification. [inaudible] for emissions abatement. Its not only about Climate Change, but Ocean Acidification will go on unchecked. Exactly. By burning fossil fuels passes on a whole host of risk to our great grandkids, one of which is Ocean Acidification. In that sense she is sharing is a profoundly perfect six as all fixes for real things ive ever heard of. All of them how polls. The fact that the fix is perfect to argument on its own i. T. Is it because in fact all sorts of fixes for anything you can imagine are profoundly imperfect and allow something through and thats not a reason in itself to discount them. If the world were to pursue your slow ramp up in the slow ramp down proposal, which is going to take 100 years, 200 years is an enormous amount of Ocean Acidification. In fact, the oceans turned assayed if we continue to emit Carbon Dioxide levels according to availability of fossil fuels and more so i take you this observation. Particularly, if it is the case as you are doing your boat by pursuing aerosol spraying in the way you suggest should result in less abatement activity in the world. I mean, i find it mystifying that you would argue that engaging in solar geoengineering the way you propose are to permit the world to take the accelerator off the emission reductions. If we burn all available fossil fuels, i dont know a polite way to say this. We are so blind. Its as simple as that. There is no excuse to take ones eyes off the need to cut emissions. Lets be careful about what i actually said. I think im a new writer. Maybe i blew it. But heres what i think i was trying to say. If this is the amount we should run, i do think, i ive care a lot about environment. Theres no one site now wish to come. If their son and so you get in the standard utilitarian costbenefit, which i carefully say i dont believe, but its an important one, so i address it. The amount you cut of the risks are somewhat produced is a little bit less. Both of those numbers are much bigger in the amount we are cutting now. So i in no way said that what we should do is business as usual, and keep any carbon. I not only didnt say that, my whole career has been trained to do the opposite to try and cut peers so we absolutely should cut emissions. If you subscribe at standard costbenefit framing, then you should do a little less emissions cutting than you otherwise would have, which is much more than were doing now. That is only if you subscribe to the framing, which in fact in the book i say we dont. I read those pages extremely carefully. After the statement were you sad i expect a rubber geoengineering is tested and available will spend less on reducing emissions. You can spend a couple pages criticizing a pretty robust terms of the organizations, which produce report saying that we must not allow our first to work on geoengineering to divert a first in emissions. He described as arguments as confused and end up by saying in any case there is no basis for statement said she engineering should not fall to the amount admissions are to be cut. So what is your position briefly . Briefly . My position is renamed to find enclave arguments for that and id like help from folks like clive to do that. The standard machinery of the normal way we do Public Policy staff in the textbook says the answer that i say in the book for class correctly quotes. That is not an israelite. The question is how to get yonder glibness and think about actual, sensible reasons to argue for the strong emissions cuts that both of us want to see. Thats an excellent point to end. I want to first thank the person who has enabled this entire meeting, joanna kassel, disorganized everything. Not easy. [applause] and finally, of course, our speakers. David keith and clive. [applause] edwin black is next on booktv. He argues that tax exempt or otherwise publicly subsidized organizations like the ford foundation, George Soros Open Society foundation for the new israel fund are working to block eastern reconciliation between jewish and palestinians in israel. This is about an hour and 20 minutes. So i am edwin black and this is the second appearance in congress in the last two years on the subject of human rights. I will begin this briefing in the same way that i began my last briefing for congress, for representative trent franks on the subject of eugenics in the United States. That is that i come here not as a republican or democrat or liberal or conservative, but as an historian and Investigative Reporter who is concerned primarily with human rights. I make no political distinctions in fact, it is because i make no political distinctions in because i have combated within a political point of view, that the reason for my presence here is so apropos. It has been a long journey for me to get to this