An Answer to the Paper of A. G. Ryaboshapko "On the Taboo on Researching in the Field of Global Climate Geoengineering"

In the paper of A.G. Ryaboshapko [5], unfortunately, the author evaded the main question contained in the name of the paper criticized by him [4], namely, “Is Aerosol Scattering in the Stratosphere a Safety Technology Preventing Global Warming?” Instead of this, having named his paper “On the Taboo on Researching in the Field of Global Climate Geoengineering,” he discussed a completely different question which was not formulated by the authors. A thesis on “the taboo on researching” disputed by the author of the critical paper and the doubtfulness (from the point of view of the Russian science priorities) of some researches 1 discussed by us is far from being the same. In other words, not the actual position is under critique but that ascribed to the authors. Reverting to the discussion opened in [4], let us first of all specify its topic. A term “geoengineering” which came to us from the English-language literature embraces a wide range of various techniques of climate warming prevention. In order to preclude a potential confusion, in the report [7], for example, it is proposed to divide all kinds of climate regulation into two classes: techniques directed at the direct removal of CO2 from the atmosphere and techniques of the solar radiation control for the purpose of decreasing its absorption by the Earth’s surface. Recent investigations demonstrated that the use of technique of the second class is able to bring a large-scale damage to the environment and economic development of certain regions of the globe. These are the deliberate aerosol scattering in the stratosphere to control the solar radiation coming to the Earth’s surface and problems associated with this technique were discussed in our paper. Thus, the author of [5] substitutes the discussion of stratospheric aerosol scattering by the discussion of the great variety of techniques embraced usually by the general term “geoengineering” which we did not deal with. By the way, the authors avoided this term in [4] concentrating on the concrete technique.