Dr. Wigley, cc list:
I am afraid I don't see the parallel you see between SRM and
mitigation. I see and read about quite small opposition to most mitigation
schemes (solar wind, energy efficiency). Yes from some on aesthetic grounds,
Yes from some objecting to higher costs. Yes there is a divide in the US
Congress. But I think public opinion surveys by Yale and others is above 80%
now for the category of "mitigation". Probably > 95% on this list. I am
interested in the "ethical" side primarily.
Could you expand on why you believe there is truth in your proposed
parallel sentence: "The main ethical problem with mitigation, I think, is
political legitimacy."
Ron
On Feb 22, 2014, at 8:39 PM, Tom Wigley <[email protected]> wrote:
> Interestingly, one could equally well replace "SRM" with "mitigation"
> in the paragraph below starting "The main ethical ...".
>
> Tom.
>
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>
> On 2/22/2014 10:57 AM, Bjørnar Egede-Nissen wrote:
>> Well, the brief description in the Lawrentian leaves out much. I
>> certainly mentioned the adverse impacts SRM is proposed to
>> counteract. I spent 15 minutes in the beginning discussing the
>> "nightmare rationale" for SRM and I played the newly released IASS video
>> (http://youtu.be/3GKjl7afwaY) to introduce the topic (on a sidenote, the
>> video was very well received). Perhaps there's a discussion to be had
>> about whether the video gives a fair overview of the rationales for
>> doing SRM. The previous lecture in this series was dedicated to the
>> science and pros/cons of SRM/geoengineering. My lecture was on ethical
>> and moral issues that arise in the discourse on SRM, research and
>> governance, picking up where the other left off. Thus, it was not my job
>> to do a hard sell of the tipping point argument for SRM.
>>
>> The main ethical problem with SRM, I think, is political legitimacy.
>> Almost 200 sovereign states with maybe 9 billion souls would be affected
>> and have different perspectives on what ought to be done and how. If you
>> add "in a situation of multiple regional drought/flood catastrophes,
>> with a small window of opportunity, where many people nevertheless will
>> have pragmatic or ethical doubts about the wisdom of using technology to
>> fix a problem caused by technology in combination with the human
>> condition; a situation where there would almost certainly be significant
>> power differentials between relative global winners and losers", you
>> have social complexity approaching off the scales compared to the rather
>> ordinary (and still (nearly) unresolvable) political problems we face
>> today. The kind of global institution that could arbitrate such a
>> situation and make a timely, authoritative, legitimate and lawful
>> decision about SRM that would be universally respected and obeyed does
>> not exist, and it is hard to see that it ever will. Now, perhaps that is
>> too high a bar to set - perhaps it would be enough that a majority of
>> the global population were represented by states that wanted SRM and a
>> multilateral consortium implemented it regardless of the wishes of
>> everyone else. Various other conditions that could bestow sufficient
>> legitimacy on anyone wanting to geoengineer without global consensus is
>> worth a discussion on its own (could the end ever justify the means? Is
>> the only kind of justification possible a ex-post justification in a
>> scenario where risks and consequences of SRM turned out to be
>> overblown?). Regardless, all scenarios that would see SRM implemented
>> would have to overcome really serious ethical and moral obstacles; these
>> would either have to be resolved in some fashion. Discussion of ethical
>> issues therefore has to start now.
>>
>> The prospect of tipping points terrify me - I'm quite convinced they are
>> plausible. Whether SRM terrifies me more depends on what side of the bed
>> I got out on in the morning.
>>
>>
>> Best wishes,
>> Bjørnar
>>
>> Bjørnar Egede-Nissen
>> PhD Candidate
>> Department of Political Science
>> Social Science Centre
>> University of Western Ontario
>> London, Ontario
>> N6A 5C2 Canada
>> Email: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
>>
>>
>> On 22 February 2014 10:20, Mike MacCracken <[email protected]
>> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>>
>> And apparently no mention at all of the adverse impacts that SRM
>> would offset--offsets so serious that there is global agreement (if
>> not yet sufficient action) that the world must totally give up
>> fossil fuels to avoid, that are viewed as potentially having
>> nonlinearities and irreversibilities such as loss of tens of percent
>> of global biodiversity, sea level rise of many meters, and more.
>> Much less any discussion of the various potential forms of
>> geoengineering and adaptive application of it, perhaps using SRM to
>> slow in near-term and CDR drawdown of CO2 as an exit strategy, etc.
>>
>> Mike MacCracken
>>
>>
>>
>> On 2/21/14 9:26 PM, "Andrew Lockley" <[email protected]
>> <http://[email protected]>> wrote:
>>
>> http://www.lawrentian.com/archives/1002706
>>
>> Visiting lecturer discusses moral quandaries in geoengineering
>>
>> POSTED ON FEBRUARY 21, 2014 BY XUE YAN
>>
>> On Tuesday, Feb. 18, Bjornar Egede-Nissen, from the department
>> of political science at the University of Western Ontario, gave
>> a lecture titled "Geoengineering: Ethically Challenged,
>> Politically Impossible?" in Steitz Hall of Science.The lecture
>> covered a brief introduction to geoengineering, its ethical
>> challenges and the political difficulties faced by
>> geoengineering.According to the lecture, geoengineering is
>> defined as the deliberate large-scale manipulation of the
>> planetary environment to counteract anthropogenic climate
>> change. Solar radiation management (SRM), a theoretical type of
>> geoengineering which aims to reflect sunlight back into space to
>> reduce global warming, was the main topic of Egede-Nissen's
>> lecture.Egede-Nissen believed that there are some limitations on
>> SRM. He said that though SRM is able to block the sunlight, the
>> CO2 is still left on the earth, so SRM only treats the symptoms,
>> not the causes of global warming. In order to gradually get rid
>> of the CO2, people have to continue to use SRM, and due to the
>> slow negative emission, it will take a very long time to
>> achieve. This is another limitation, he said.Egede-Nissen also
>> said that once the use of SRM begins, people would face the exit
>> problem of SRM. Also, it is extremely hard to predict the
>> effects of the SRM on the climate, so there is also
>> unpredictable risk to using SRM.When considering SRM,
>> Egede-Nissen said we must also think about the ethical
>> challenges.He admitted that there are some justifications of
>> doing SRM research, including the cost-benefit analysis, the
>> value of scientific research and the emergency options for SRM
>> research. According to Egede-Nissen, the SRM can be
>> comparatively cheap, but the long time-frame required and the
>> side effects of doing SRM research can be cause for
>> reconsideration.At the end of the talk, Egede-Nissen said he
>> wanted to leave an "irrelevant" take home message. He said,"The
>> environment is a bathtub." He explained that if we put the
>> carbon in the earth, it would drain out of the atmosphere in a
>> much slower rate. He believed that it is a very common
>> misunderstanding to think that stopping emissions today will
>> improve the situation, because the past emissions will remain
>> there for hundreds of years.Freshman Sara Zaccarine said that it
>> was interesting that his talk aimed at raising questions rather
>> than answering them. She said, "His examples are very relevant
>> to us and it is helpful to understand a lot more." She also
>> likes that he brought the large-scale issue down to more
>> specific points.Sophomore Lena Bixby thinks the ethical issues
>> are important. People have the technology, but we are not doing
>> anything about the problem. She said it is like a moral test:
>> "Are we doing anything wrong by not doing anything about [global
>> warming]?"
>>
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