User talk:Mhenryclimate

Hi! I appreciate your interest in improving the solar geoengineering article. However, major changes such as deleting an entire section or completely re-writing the lead, should go as follows: 1. Propose the edit in the talk page. 2. Discuss with other editors. 3. Get a consensus on the big change. Smaller individual edits can be done without this process. I see you're new to Wikipedia, and it's great to have new members. See the climate change article for how consensus is built and changes are made. MurrayScience (talk) 20:33, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Solar geo / wikipedia newbie[edit]

Hi! Huge apologies for my wikipedia newbie-ness and missteps! It looked like the page was old and unmaintained, so I just thought I would go for it! I will propose the changes I want to make in the talk section, and very happy to discuss. Cheers, -Matthew PS: Is this where I respond?

Just read this actually. No worries, I very much appreciate that someone is willing to do work to improve the article. I'm curious, what is your general opinion of how SRM might be used in the context of climate change? I'm a big fan of the recent Gates book, which emphasizes reducing to zero the extra cost of making and doing things without emissions (which is a very tall order, even for 30 years). He suggested that SRM might be used in an emergency scenario, but should be studied in depth and research should seriously be funded into SRM so that it is available as an emergency-option. That's why I was happy about the National Academy report, which came to exactly that conclusion, and I generally agree. I'm curious what your thoughts/views are?

By the way, are you the guy at Exeter? I'm a Masters (and about to be PhD) student at Oxford, which is not so far away. MurrayScience (talk) 22:55, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I have not read Gates' book yet, but he seems to have thought deeply about the problem, which will be helpful. I basically think the same thing on SRM! Our top priority should be reaching net zero, and, climate models suggest SRM could be used to moderate climate change impacts. But models might make it look too good. So it seems we have a responsibility to do the research. I still have much to learn on governance issues and how it interacts with global politics though (e.g. https://twitter.com/KevinSurprise/status/1376577971042070528). And, yes, I am a climate science postdoc at Exeter working on idealized climate models and past warm climates! Congrats on becoming a PhD student (in stats/ML?), and good luck!!! :) Mhenryclimate (talk) 07:24, 30 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I highly recommend the book. There's many youtube videos he's made explaining his thinking. One of the most accessible and well-made is the 60 minutes interview (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNKdlnoAqIs), I highly recommend checking it out.

I read that guys post on twitter, seems very QAnon/conspiriacy-like which is super unhelpful for avoiding a climate disaster. The clearest thinkers on climate I know are: Vaclav Smil, Jesse Jenkins, Bill Gates, and Our World in Data. See (https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector). MurrayScience (talk) 16:14, 30 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! My masters is on stats/ml and my phd will be ML applied to drug discovery and small molecule interactions at https://www.sabsr3.ox.ac.uk/. Climate has been an intellectual hobby of mine. MurrayScience (talk) 16:17, 30 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Update, I checked out some of those related twitter threads. At the very least, I'm glad people are finally discussing SG! I discovered it in 2017 and have never looked back haha. MurrayScience (talk) 16:20, 30 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the links and other authors. I had heard of Smil, but maybe I should read him now. Sounds like you will be doing important work during your phd, exciting! And, hmmm, they are definitely not conspiratorial, they are social scientists who have a critical view on SRM and how it could impact global power relations. I might not agree on what they say, but certainly appreciate their contributions to the debate, as they genuinely challenged my way of thinking about SRM.Mhenryclimate (talk) 16:39, 30 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]