How to Police Geoengineering?

Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, NASA 

When people consider using engineering techniques to counter the effects of climate change, they usually think first about the technical difficulties involved. But a new report points out challenges that may be even more important: regulating the research on such technologies, and their potential deployment.

The report is the result of a collaboration organized by the Royal Society, Britain’s premier scientific organization, and a variety of other nongovernmental organizations.

In general, geoengineering techniques fall into two categories: steps to capture [...]

Full article at green.blogs.nytimes.com

:) I am amused. I mean, of course we're gonna do all this stuff, consequences-shmonsequences, it's what we do. And the sooner we embrace that, admit that we're gonna fuck with everything - the environment, people, government, society, civilization, nature, the Earth, the Moon, as soon as we can reach 'em every other planet, star, and gaseous body in the universe, bacteria, viruses, animals, plants, all of it - we're gonna fuck with it if we can, the sooner we can get on with doing it with a *modicum* of responsibility. Those who believe we're best off leaving things entirely alone should have their say, and their appropriate influence in how these things are done. They're the voice of reason when we get all gung-ho about moving forward into a brave new world. But they're not going to stop progress - it won't happen, and shouldn't in my opinion - and in order to progress in the most possible directions we need to investigate every possibility, and we need to accept that there will be compromise on all sides along the way (unless we'd rather have one-sided compromise, with some powers-that-be directing and dictating everything and those not in power bending to their will, or no compromise and therefore no whole system, just a bunch of fragmented parts lying useless). I want a brave (peaceful, free) new world. I believe, ideologically, in the underlying good of man, but I understand that there will always be those who either don't have it or refuse to make it manifest in their lives. Without them to remind us of the effects of true ill will and truly inappropriate behavior we'll become complacent and self-righteous, more and more nit-picky as to what's acceptable, and we'll be livin' in Demolition Man World before too long. So while it's a compromise for me to accept that humans (including myself) will never be perfect (I believe we can be, and that in every moment we are perfectly who we're meant to be in that moment, but a person in a fully perfected human state would be a god, no longer of the same specie, impervious to human ailments), it's a compromise with a positive effect. That concession allows for a concession to the fact that there will always be a need for law and law enforcement, for government, but again, those things can be positive if the majority of humans choose to instate them carefully and use them wisely. I hear you scoff and say I'm askin' too much. I'm not. I'm human, and I know that in every moment I have the option of making choices that feel good at important levels and result in at least positive consequences and at best rewards or of making choices that feel off at those same levels and result in at best negative consequences and at worst disaster. If I can be aware of that, and especially if I, who have often made unwise or unfriendly choices, can feel as I do now that at least the majority of my choices are sensible and as sensitive as possible, then anyone can do it. It's not a matter of making sweeping grand seemingly impossible life-changing decisions, but of, in this moment, doing each doing our individual best. Just in this moment, right now now now. And that doesn't mean constantly doing, it also means knowing when the best thing for us and those around us is to just stop, relax, recoup, and move forward again feeling calm and balanced and centered and steady. It also doesn't require that all of society move with any one or any group of us, but that within society we're all able to flow around and among one another with minimal friction, maximum support, and mutual acceptance.

Posted via email from Moments of Awareness