Compliance with Geoengineering Standards
Climate Yoga Projects need to draft strategies and establish or otherwise be in compliance with geoengineering standards, protocols, laws, best practices, and governance. In general, CI governance is about monitoring, assessment of impacts, and feedback processes. Climate Yoga Projects need to find an appropriate approach that’s transparent, responsive, accountable, and adaptive. Climate Yoga needs to prove that it can be an environmentally sound technology (EST) for high emission reductions. Climate Yoga needs to be safe, inexpensive, and effective. And, of course, there needs to be an environmental assessment, monitoring, and verification to distinguish changes from natural weather.
Any geoengineering research project should respect the development of international protocols. Climate interventions require better understanding of effectiveness and side effects, coordination and approval by an international body, and widespread support. There needs to be a common repository for geoengineering data, mandatory disclosure, and the establishment of an international body with the power to govern geoengineering research, especially for outdoor experiments.
In 2010, the Convention on Biological Diversity adopted provisions calling nations to abstain from geoengineering unless there’s a full consideration of risks and impacts on biodiversity. The London Protocol bans ocean fertilization.
The Oxford Principles on Geoengineering Governance says: (1) undertaking geoengineering is for the public interest, (2) those conducting research should notify those affected, (3) disclose research with open publication of results, (4) have independent assessment of impacts, and (5) implement governance before deployment.
The Forum for Climate Engineering Assessment recommends that the UN General Assemby and UN secretary-general establish a 'World Commission' to engage with the various questions of governing SRM R&D, as well as facilitate a 'global forum for stakeholder dialogue,' including indigenous peoples and Indian farmers. (Governing Solar Radiation Management, 2018).
Draft legislation about atmospheric modifications includes provisions for giving prior notice of intent to modify the weather or climate; determinations of whether the actions could result in economic, environmental or physical losses; prohibitions against any hostility; and using sensors to determine the difference between natural weather and intentional interventions. An international registry of atmospheric experimentation would make the registration public on a website, including intention (eg, snowpack augmentation, rainfall enhancement, etc.), funding sources, operator, area of effect, hours of operation, and duration of experimentation. There should be independent and government-sponsored sensor networks with data publicly available and displayed in real time.
Implicit geoengineering laws include the UNFCCC, Prohibition of Military or any other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques (ENMod); Law of the Sea; Convention on Long Range Transboundary Air Pollution; Montreal Protocol, Outer Space Treaty, and the precautionary principle. ENMod is a leading model for geoengineering. In the US, relevant laws include the National Weather Modification Policy Act, Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Endangered Species; Maritime Protection, Research and Sanctuaries Act; NEPA and possibly others.
Solar Radiation Governance Institute (SRMGI) is a project that offers social licenses to operate. Who decides if research proceeds? Who pays and who benefits? What ensures transparency and that results are shared openly? How can different research priorities be heard? What can be done to make sure SRM research does not distract from the task of cutting emissions?
Geoengineering participants need to evaluate the impact of their research and experiments and disseminate information about their research activities. Innovation and experimentation need to happen in public and with the public. People will disagree about the shape, size, and desirability of experiments, who gave consent, and how to interpret the results.
SEE WEBPAGE: HISTORY OF GEOENGINEERING
Industrial geoengineering is based on the mechanistic, reductionist, Western worldview. It is very problematic and dangerous for many reasons. The climate crisis created the need for research into geoengineering but the hubris and dangers of industrial geoengineering has created an urgent necessity for alternatives. Climate Yoga is a climate intervention (CI) that is safe, inexpensive, and likely more effective than any proposal by the industrial-corporatist-military-based paradigm. Climate Yoga is about developing the 'human instrument' as an environmentally-sound technology (EST) based on traditional knowledge (TK). The goal of Climate Yoga is to develop our 'technology' of quantum consciousness using the methodology of Yoga.
Carbon dioxide removal (CDR), solar radiation management (SRM), and other intentional interventions in the climate system are known as “climate interventions” (CI), "climate engineering" or "geoengineering." Geoengineering, is defined by the Royal Society as “the large-scale manipulation of the planetary environment to counteract anthropogenic climate change.” Climate Yoga is geoengineering in the sense that it can create significant changes in the planetary environment.
With the initial participation of a few hundred meditators, Climate Yoga can very likely demonstrate the efficacy of Climate Yoga as a climate intervention. At the moment, only a handful of yogis and weather shamans are able to demonstrate smaller-scale effects of weather modifications. Climate Yoga needs to scale this up with formal, systematic, and scientific research with replicable experiments. Once demonstrated as effective, safe, inexpensive, with insight into any possible negative side effects—and with appropriate notice and compliance with geoengineering standards—Climate Yoga should recruit and train more people for scaling up. For success in meeting and exceeding the Paris Agreement, Climate Yoga needs to train about 10,000 to 144,000 meditators to participate in a synchronized mass collaboration to focus on intervening in the climate priorities in a way that has measurable and verifiable effects. It is also possible that only a few advanced Yogini Masters could facilitate the changes desired.
The goal of Climate Yoga is to exceed the Paris goals: to restore atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide to around 300 ppm within the 2020s, and to prevent global temperature rises above 1.5˚C, especially in the Arctic. Climate Yoga can also address numerous critical issues such as ocean acidity, solar radiation management (SRM), and Arctic methane. The goal is to prevent (or reverse) tipping points such as Arctic and permafrost thawing, to stabilize the Arctic Methane Emergency, to facilitate ice and glacier stability and regrowth in the Arctic, Greenland, and Antarctic, and to facilitate restoring tropical and temperate forests, especially in the Amazonian and boreal forests. The possibilities for revitalization are only limited by our imaginations.