GCR News Summary September 2013

Post Date September 27, 2013
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The Earth and the Moon as seen from Voyager 1 image courtesy of NASA.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report concluded after reviewing 9,200 peer-reviewed studies that there’s at least a 95% chance that global warming is primarily caused by human activities. The IPCC said in its 2007 report that there was a 90% chance global warming was caused by humans, but alternate explanations for climate change have been ruled out since then. The IPCC found that the global …

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Presentation About GCRI At Climate-Friendly Climate Research Conference

Post Date September 27, 2013
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Category environmental change

A quick fyi, I’ll be presenting about GCRI at the upcoming Climate-Friendly Climate Research conference (11-15 November), hosted by Klimaforschungsnetzwerk Österreich/Climate Change Centre Austria. The conference is of note because it’s being held 100% online. It’s thus “climate friendly” because it avoids the considerable greenhouse gas emissions associated with the travel required for in-person conferences. I think it’s a great idea. For all of GCRI’s online lectures, discussion groups, etc, we’ve never attempted something as ambitious as a whole online conference. I’m excited to attend …

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Grant Wilson Gives Lecture on International Law for Geoengineering

Post Date September 25, 2013
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Category emerging technologies, environmental change, law & policy, online lectures

On Wednesday 18 September, GCRI hosted an online lecture by Grant Wilson entitled ‘Murky Waters: Ambiguous International Law for Ocean Fertilization and Other Geoengineering’. Wilson is GCRI’s Deputy Director and a recent graduate of Lewis & Clark Law School, where he specialized in international law regarding emerging technologies and the environment. The lecture is based on a draft paper of the same title.

Emphasis on geoengineering comes from increasingly dire projections of climate change, amounting to a significant global catastrophic risk. The international community’s failure to …

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New Article On Syria And Nuclear War

Post Date September 21, 2013
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Category nuclear war, publications

Quick FYI – I have a new article out at Huffington Post: Taming the Gigaton Gorilla: Using Syria Diplomacy to Help Avoid U.S.-Russia Nuclear War. The article discusses the current diplomatic situation in Syria in terms of global catastrophic risk, in particular US-Russia nuclear war. The basic ideas are (1) the Syria situation should be approached mainly in terms of global catastrophic risk, instead of in terms of Syria itself, and (2) opportunities may exist for diplomacy regarding Syria to improve US-Russia relations so as …

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September 2013 Newsletter

Post Date September 05, 2013
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Category newsletter

Dear friends,

Seth Baum is out of the office now, so I am sending the newsletter in his absence. This month, I would like to talk a bit about geoengineering. Geoengineering is the large-scale manipulation of the climate, particularly to alleviate the effects of climate change (also called “climate engineering”). Geoengineering epitomizes how many distinct global catastrophic risks have a dynamic relationship. For example, in one possible scenario, society decides to lower the planet’s temperature by engaging in stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI)—a technology that essentially blankets …

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GCR News Summary August 2013

Post Date August 31, 2013
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California Rim Fire image courtesy of the USDA.

California governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency for San Francisco County when a large wildfire on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountains threatened to disrupt public utilities. Two of the three hydroelectric power stations in the region were forced to shut down. San Francisco also gets 85% of its water from the nearby Hetch Hetchy reservoir. Most of the western US is in drought and the recent increase in the number …

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Nick Beckstead Gives Lecture on Shaping the Far Future

Post Date August 27, 2013
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Category ethics, online lectures, resources

On Thursday 15 August, GCRI hosted an online lecture by Nick Beckstead entitled, ‘On the Overwhelming Importance of Shaping the Far Future’ (see the pre-lecture announcement). Beckstead recently finished a PhD at the Philosophy Department at Rutgers University, where he focused on normative philosophy and normative ethics, applied ethics, and decision theory. He is currently a Research Fellow at the Oxford University Future of Humanity Institute. The lecture is based on Beckstead’s dissertation of the same title, which focuses on the topics of existential risk, …

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GCRI Welcomes Research Associate Dave Denkenberger

Post Date August 27, 2013
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Category new affiliate

We’re pleased to announce our newest affiliate, Research Associate Dave Denkenberger. Here’s his bio from the GCRI People page.

Dave is an energy efficiency engineer at Ecova and GCR researcher. Dave holds a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from University of Colorado at Boulder (2010), an M.S.E. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University (2005), and a B.S. in Engineering Science from Pennsylvania State University (2002). As a Research Associate, Dave contributes to GCRI research on integrated assessment and response options.

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Tony Milligan To Deliver Online Lecture On Virtue Ethics 25 September

Post Date August 22, 2013
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Category astrobiology, ethics, online lectures

This is the pre-event announcement for an online lecture by Tony Milligan, Lecturer with the Department of Philosophy at the University of Hertfordshire.

Here is the full talk info:

Virtue, Risk and Space Colonization
Wednesday 25 September 2013, 17:00 GMT (10:00 Los Angeles, 13:00 New York, 18:00 London)
To be held online via Skype. RSVP required by email to Seth Baum (seth [at] gcrinstitute.org). Space is limited.

Virtue ethics is one of the key components of contemporary ethical theory. It shifts our focus in the direction of living well and …

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Grant Wilson To Deliver Online Lecture On Geoengineering International Law 18 September

Post Date August 21, 2013
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Category emerging technologies, environmental change, law & policy, online lectures

This is the pre-event announcement for an online lecture by Grant Wilson, GCRI’s Deputy Director. The lecture is based on a draft paper of the same title.

Here is the full talk info:

Murky Waters: Ambiguous International Law for Ocean Fertilization and Other Geoengineering
Wednesday, 18 September 2013, 17:00 GMT (10:00 Los Angeles, 13:00 New York, 18:00 London)
To be held online via Skype. RSVP required by email to Seth Baum (seth [at] gcrinstitute.org). Space is limited.

Abstract:

In July 2012, the Haida Salmon Restoration Corporation (HSRC) dumped about 100 tons …

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