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Anita Talberg

Jun 25, 2014
02:27

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Hi gsmoke. I really like the term geotherapy! Your entry makes a strong point on the topic of geoengineering; it is a valid one and a common one. It might be good for some of the proposals in this contest to address directly the fact that their ideas are likely to be considered controversial and polarising. This is one of the political risks that will need to be managed if any of the contestants wants their idea to be progress. Perhaps you might like to comment on some of them?

Quinton Zondervan

Jul 15, 2014
10:05

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Why is it controversial or polarising to plant trees and other vegetation and restore the natural environment in order to absorb carbon? Humans have altered the Earth by converting large amounts of biomass into human biomass or human-servicing biomass, thereby negatively impacting the Earth's ecosystem's ability to support human and other life long term. If we want to survive on this planet for the long term, we have to restore the Earth's ecological functions to the point where they are once again self-sustaining and therefore life-sustaining.

Climate Colab

Aug 6, 2014
12:27

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Judges: Nothing to object to here - but also no attempt to explain how this adds up to a solution (even a partial solution) to climate change. And the proposal does not address governance aspects. Not really on point -- mainly based on identifying some set of (not fully specified) interventions as desirable and calling the "geotherapy", vs. some other set of interventions, undesirable, called "geoengineering". Nothing about how to govern or control -- and most seriously, almost nothing -- certainly nothing approaching a workable level of specificity -- about how to tell good "geotherapy" interventions from bad "geoengineering" ones. Anita and Ben: We still appreciate that you submitted your critique and then took the the time to expand upon it, even if it didn't become a viable plan.

George Mokray

Aug 6, 2014
01:30

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To the Judges: Well, that was judgmental. It was not my intention to set up a good/bad dichotomy between what I am calling geotherapy and geoengineering. If you reread my proposal, you might find that this categorical dichotomy is in your minds more than mine. My intention was to point out that geoengineering, as currently proposed, is not a systems approach but a one-shot solution, an approach that suffers from "silver bullet syndrome." It may work. It may not. It may be good, it may be bad, or it may be, in all probability, mixed. Geotherapy is a systems-based approach from the very beginning, looking at root causes, especially when talking about soil carbon, one that starts from ecological systems and amplifies them thus probably having a better chance to succeed than "heroic" geoengineering interventions. Having attended many sessions on geoengineering, I think this critique is essential, that the alternative of geotherapy has been woefully ignored and that systems thinking is mostly absent from the geoengineering discussion. As a single individual, an independent scholar with no portfolio and no power and no relation to power, I didn't expect anything to come from my suggestion, merely to pose the necessary question and expand the conversation. However, I appreciate your critique and the time you took to write it, even if, from my perspective, you completely missed my point.