Arctic - red alert!

Discussion: Should patent law apply to geo-engineering?

UPDATE:  The Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate Engineering (SPICE) project has cancelled its outdoor ‘1km testbed’ experiment.  Nature News - 15 May 2012 - by Daniel Cressey Geoengineering experiment cancelled amid patent row. Balloon-based ‘testbed’ for climate-change mitigation abandoned http://www.nature.com/news/geoengineering-experiment-cancelled-amid-patent-row-1.10645

David Keith, a Harvard University professor and an adviser on energy to Microsoft founder Bill Gates, said he and his colleagues are researching whether the federal government could ban patents in the field of solar radiation, according to a report in Scientific American.

Some of his colleagues last week traveled to Washington, D.C., where they discussed whether the U.S. Patent Office could ban patents on the technology, Keith said.

"We think it's very dangerous for these solar radiation technologies, it's dangerous to have it be privatized," Keith said. "The core technologies need to be public domain."

As suggested by Sam Carana, a declaration of emergency, as called for by the Arctic Methane Emergency Group (AMEG), could be another way to deal with this issue.

A declaration of Emergency could give governments the power to overrule patents, where they stand in the way of fast-tracking geo-engineering projects proposed under emergency rules.Thus, patents don't need to be banned, prohibited or taken away; instead, patents will continue to apply in all situations other than the emergency situation, while new patents could also continue to be lodged during the emergency period.

Even where patents are directly applicable to proposed projects, patent law would still continue to apply; the emergency rules would merely allow governments to proceed in specific situations, avoiding that projects are being held up by legal action, exorbitant prices or withholding of crucial information.

A declaration of emergency could also speed up projects by removing the need to comply with all kinds of time-consuming bureaucratic procedures, such as the need to get formal approvals and permits from various departments, etc. This brings us to the need to comply with international protocols and agreements. If declared internationally, a declaration of emergency could overrule parts of such agreements where they pose unacceptable delays and cannot be resolved through diplomacy.


The issue is also discussed here and here at the Geoengineering group at Google.

The Case for Emergency Geo-Engineering to save the Arctic from Collapse

An APPCCG Event:

The Case for Emergency Geo-Engineering to save the Arctic from Collapse

WHEN: Tuesday, 13th March, 1:00 - 2:30 pm
WHERE: Committee Room 8, House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA

Please enter by St. Stephen’s Gate, and allow about 15 minutes to pass through security.

If you would like to attend this meeting, please contact Neha Sethi at the APPCCG Secretariat on climatechangegroup@carbonneutral.com or tel: +44 (0) 20 7833 6035.

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You are invited to attend this APPCCG event with the Arctic Methane Emergency Group (AMEG), an NGO founded in October 2011 and supported by world renowned scientists. 

AMEG will set before the APPCCG new evidence that shows that because of rising sea and air temperatures the Arctic is in a state of rapid collapse, with a high probability that the Arctic will be completely ice-free at its summer minimum as early as 2013 and having no sea-ice in the Arctic for six months of the year by 2018-20.

At the same time, thawing and release of previously frozen methane previously trapped under the Arctic sea bed and in the surrounding tundra, is also increasing alarmingly, a process that will accelerate as the Arctic sea responds to the loss of sea-ice protection. 

Evidence will be presented of what is actually happening in the Arctic, in regard to the reduction of the ice sheet, the rate of methane release and details of the basic driving mechanisms in the form of warming ocean currents and increasing solar absorption in the region.

The meeting will also focus on the possible ways of halting this process and managing the level of the solar radiation currently reaching the Arctic, and will explore the challenges inherent in applying the technology in one of the most inhospitable regions on Earth.

Panellists will include:
    •    Peter Wadhams, Professor of Ocean Physics, Cambridge
    •    John Nissen, Chairman of AMEG
    •    Stephen Salter, Professor of Engineering Design, Edinburgh

The panel discussion will be followed by a question and answer session. 

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All Party Parliamentary Climate Change Group (APPCCG)
http://www.imeche.org/Libraries/Knowledge-Power/Update_from_the_All_Party_Parliamentary_Climate_Change_Group.sflb.ashx
http://www.carbonneutral.com/page/appccg/

For more about the
Arctic Methane Emergency Group,
visit AMEG.me:
http://ameg.me