Events

Friday, October 30, 2009

Engineering a Cooler Earth: Can We Do It? Should We Try?

8:15 am - 5:30 pm, MIT E51-115, Wong Auditorium

This symposium assembles a panel of expert scientists and thinkers for an invigorating day of rigorous discourse on a topic of pressing global importance. Co-sponsored by the MIT Earth System Initiative, the MIT Energy Initiative, and the MIT Center for Global Change Science, the agenda is arranged in three sessions with speakers and panel discussion to address: Can we do it?, Should we try?, and Where to from Here?

AGENDA
7:30 am   Registration
8:20 am Welcome and Introduction - Dara Entekhabi, ESI Director; Ernie Moniz, MITEI Director; Ronald Prinn, CGCS Director
Can We Do It?  
8:40 am Global Climate Change Impacts: Motivation for Geoengineering?
Thomas Karl (National Climatic Data Center, NOAA)
9:10 am Climate Cooling Potential of Different Geoengineering Options
Tim Lenton (University of East Anglia)
9:40 am Developing Scientific and Geopolitical Criteria to Rank Geoengineering Schemes
Philip Boyd (National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, NZ)
10:10 am   Break
10:30 am Using Aerosol Injections for Geoengineering
Joyce Penner (University of Michigan)
11:00 am Climate Engineering with Aerosols—Predictable Consequences?
David Battisti (University of Washington)
11:30 am The Case for Geoengineering Research
David Keith (University of Calgary)
12:00 pm Break
Should We Try?
1:00 pm Historical Perspectives on “Fixing the Sky”
James Fleming (Colby College)
1:30 pm What’s the "Rational" Choice?: Risk, Values and the Politics of Geoengineering
Judy Layzer (MIT)
2:00 pm Geoengineering Governance: Rendering the Possible Impossible?
Catherine Redgewell (University College London)
2:30 pm Do We Understand the System? The Problem of Observation
Carl Wunsch (MIT)
3:00 pm Break
Where to from Here?  
3:30 pm All-Speaker Roundtable - moderated by Kerry Emanuel (MIT)
4:45 pm A Journalist's Perspective - Cornelia Dean (New York Times)
5:15 pm Setting the New Research Agenda - Dara Entekhabi (MIT)
5:30 pm Adjourn

Besides general agreement on the need for both mitigation and adaptation in response to global warming, a more controversial approach has migrated from the science-fiction fringe into the main stream of public, political and scientific discussion. Climate engineering — intentionally manipulating Earth's climate — is gaining currency as concerns over the implications of anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions mount. Even some wary of the concept in principle have come to see engineered intervention as inevitable, if only to avert immediate climate catastrophe while giving mitigation (emission reduction) and adaptation (strategic planning) a chance to work. But many others are concerned that climate engineering has little chance of success and will simply divert attention and resources from the central goal of mitigation.

This desire to manipulate weather and climate is as old as humanity itself. New is the consensus realization that our very success as a technological species means that we do impact the climate, effectively engineering it by default. Why then shouldn't we pursue this role with explicit intent — whether by removing GHGs from the atmosphere, limiting the net effect of solar heating, or both? The symposium will target this question with a critical eye. Do we in fact possess the technological capability and scientific understanding to manipulate Earth's climate with desirable or even foreseeable results? And what are the legal and political implications should dangerous unintended consequences accompany attempts at climate engineering?

Although this daylong program is free and open to the public, seating is limited and pre-registration is recommended. The first 250 people to register will receive seating priority, provided they arrive before 8:15 am.

Web link: http://web.mit.edu/esi/symposium2009.html

Contact email: esinfo@mit.edu