In addition to Phil's specific findings, there may be general reasons to be
precautionary about GE communication and to use heuristics like "emphasize
mitigation and adaptation" and "don't simplify" rather than relying on a model
conclusion like:
> The more we talk about geoengineering the more seriously people take global
> warming, and the less serious the moral hazard
I worry that this conclusion is extremely preliminary, unjustified by the (few)
existing studies, and potentially impossible to reach through any small-scale
studies (small in both sample size and in time).
Belief-forming (as it actually plays out) can be very complicated, and
potentially subject to all sorts of threshold effects, feedbacks, and
instabilities "at scale" that might not be elicited even by very good social
science studies. I'm not sure that the belief system is any less complicated
than the climate system. This doesn't mean that good survey studies can't be
useful, but I'd argue they're like small laboratory experiments: you can't make
predictive conclusions about a complex system based on what happens in your
flask.
Just a few considerations:
* Impacts may also be highly local among constituencies. To pick just one:
would elected or appointed climate decision-makers have the same profile of
responses to GE in their professional capacities that randomly selected
citizens would have in their personal capacities? I don't think we can assume
that. Nor can we assume that what professional decision-makers think or say
they would do is what they would do, even if they had a free decision space.
* Also, constituencies in the belief landscape can actively reframe positions
(their own or others), sometimes with very high leverage (a few pop examples:
the norm cascade around smoking, the sudden creation of holidays as commercial
interests, or the history of diamond engagement rings.) Belief engineering
technologies (unlike climate engineering technologies) have already been
developed and deployed. This adversarial aspect is a complexity not present in
the climate system. Even assuming that the initial "GE is scary, so climate
change is serious and we should mitigate" response is typical, would it hold up
over time? Would it hold up in the face of a climate-change-attributable
disaster? Would it hold up in the face of aggressive pro-GE marketing from
commercial constituencies that want to avoid a near-term price spike on carbon
and therefore love SRM? How about a disaster and aggressive marketing? Etc.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]; [email protected]
Date: Wed, 28 Aug 2013 18:46:53 +0100
Subject: Re: [geo] Re: Dan Kahan of Yale on Alan's question about geo-eng
studies
Charlie, Alan (et al.)
I am not sure sure. From the public engagement research we conducted in the UK
(pre-publication
copy available at
http://dro.dur.ac.uk/10782/1/10782.pdf?DDD14+dgg5sa+dgg4lp+dul4eg) the
'negative moral hazard' argument was not too apparent. The more conventional
'moral hazard' argument was more visible although both of these were
subordinate to a wider concern as to whether it was realistic to imagine that
SRM geoengineering could be policed to ensure that it would be used solely for
its original stated purpose (i.e. as a technique to counteract anthropogenic
climate change). More plausible, people thought, SRM techniques would be used
for other purposes – for example as a
means to achieve nationalistic, military or
commercial goals. This instability of intent was a key driver of scepticism
about SRM amongst
lay publics who were convinced that SRM techniques would
inevitably become used in ways that would be radically at odds with their
original stated purpose. This issue, I suggest, has not (yet) been adequately
considered by social science research.
Phil
Visiting ProfessorDepartment of Science and Technology PolicyInstitute of
GeosciencesP.O. Box 6152State University of Campinas – UNICAMP13083-970,
Campinas, SP, Brazil Professor of GeographyDepartment of GeographyScience
LaboratoriesDurham UniversitySouth RoadDurham, DH1 3LE, UK
From: Charlie Zender <[email protected]>
Reply-To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>
Date: Wednesday, 28 August 2013 14:13
To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>
Cc: Geoengineering <[email protected]>
Subject: [geo] Re: Dan Kahan of Yale on Alan's question about geo-eng studies
Thanks, Andrew. For those in this group the findings in this study are great
news. The more we talk about geoengineering the more seriously people take
global warming, and the less serious the moral hazard. Many of us have
experienced first-hand
the prejudice people have for "engineering" over (more abstract) "science".
Now I know how to more constructively discuss global warming with
all-knowing-yet-ignorant relatives during family gatherings :)
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