Who exactly is the 'we' of the first sentence of this abstract? *Too often we first assess climate solutions on the basis of technical capacity to reduce or avoid warming and the costs to do it and choose our preferred solution - leaving ethical implications, governance, and public support as afterthoughts to be 'dealt with' and worked around in attempts to implement the solution*
If the authors are speaking about themselves, then fine... If they are not speaking about themselves, then they should name names and cite citations. Who exactly is it that treats ethics as an afterthought? _______________ Ken Caldeira Carnegie Institution for Science Dept of Global Ecology 260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA 94305 USA +1 650 704 7212 kcalde...@carnegiescience.edu http://dge.stanford.edu/labs/caldeiralab https://twitter.com/KenCaldeira Assistant: Dawn Ross <dr...@carnegiescience.edu> On Sun, Jun 8, 2014 at 10:50 AM, Greg Rau <gh...@sbcglobal.net> wrote: > "Too often we first assess climate solutions on the basis of technical > capacity to reduce or avoid warming and the costs to do it and choose our > preferred solution - leaving ethical implications, governance, and public > support as afterthoughts to be 'dealt with' and worked around in attempts > to implement the solution." > > Perhaps the social scientists would like to be the ones to first propose > technical/environmental solutions? It would seem that evaluating ethics and > governance of solutions that first do not meet technical/environmental > criteria is a waste of time. Once the technical/environmental merits of a > solution pass muster, then by all means lets have that ethics and > governance discussion and decide whether or not to proceed, not the other > way around(?) I would say that the technical/environmental evaluations of > many possible solutions are in their infancy. I would also say a larger > challenge for the social scientists is to fix the disconnect between > CO2/climate realities and social/political structures that have thus far > failed to adequately value and support a broad and deep search for > effective solutions (social, technical, or otherwise) and rapid > implementation of those found effective and desirable. > Greg > > > > ------------------------------ > *From:* Andrew Lockley <andrew.lock...@gmail.com> > *To:* geoengineering <geoengineering@googlegroups.com> > *Sent:* Saturday, June 7, 2014 3:41 PM > *Subject:* [geo] Advancing Interdisciplinary Discussions of Climate > Engineering - Guest Post - Rachael Shwom, Rutgers University | WGC > > > http://dcgeoconsortium.org/2014/06/04/advancing-interdisciplinary-discussions-of-climate-engineering-guest-post-rachael-shwom-rutgers-university/ > Advancing Interdisciplinary Discussions of Climate Engineering - Guest > Post - Rachael Shwom, Rutgers University > Too often we first assess climate solutions on the basis of technical > capacity to reduce or avoid warming and the costs to do it and choose our > preferred solution - leaving ethical implications, governance, and public > support as afterthoughts to be 'dealt with' and worked around in attempts > to implement the solution. While interdisciplinarity is a common rallying > cry to develop solutions for major pressing problems like climate change - > it is often difficult to achieve. Though social scientists have > productively engaged and published on this issue (as evident by the > Washington Geoengineering Consortium's existence), their contribution to > the policy discourse and public discussions can often be marginalized. In > reviewing major comprehensive government reports on climate engineering it > was all too often that I would search "ethics" or "public attitudes" and > find only a single page or paragraph of hundreds of pages dedicated to > these issues.In the fall of 2011, the Dissertations Initiative for the > Advancement of Climate Change Research (http://disccrs.org/home - known > as DISCCRS, funded by NSF and NASA) brought together 32 symposium scholars > from a wide range of disciplines, who had recently completed a dissertation > dealing with some issue relevant to climate science. After a discussion of > geoengineering one day, a number of us took a walk and continued the > discussion. Five of these scholars (Daniela Cusack, Jonn Axsen, Lauren > Hartzell-Nichols, Sam White, and Katherine Mackey) would go on to become my > co-authors on a recently published paper that provides a framework for an > interdisciplinary assessment of climate engineering strategies (Cusack et > al., 2014).The paper develops six criteria to help us assess a range of > climate engineering options (forest management, soil management, geological > burial of CO2, solar radiation management, and ocean fertilization) against > the baseline option of mitigation. The six criteria are: 1) technical > potential 2) cost-effectiveness 3) ecological risk 4) ethical concerns 5) > institutional capacity and 6) public acceptance. We then identify measures > for each of these criteria and apply them to highlight the strengths and > weaknesses of the options.It's not often that ethical concerns and > governance challenges are quantified by measures in this manner.One unique > aspect of this paper is that it's not often that ethical concerns and > governance challenges are quantified by measures in this manner. It > certainly took some stretching of disciplinary practices and conversation > on the part of the social scientists on our team. However, we found that > it was the best way to enable inclusion of these dimensions in our analysis > rather than them being separate qualitative decisions on equal footing with > the technical and economic analysis. Too often we first assess climate > solutions on the basis of technical capacity to reduce or avoid warming > and the costs to do it and choose our preferred solution - leaving ethical > implications, governance, and public support as afterthoughts to be 'dealt > with' and worked around in attempts to implement the solution. In part, > this is because we often assume that a rational actor approach with fairly > narrowly defined costs and benefits is the model being used for societal > decision-making. But this is also in part, because the technical capacity > and economic costs are more easily quantified (though sometimes no more > certain) than the more social and political dimensions. This framework > begins to address this issue by moving ethics, governance and public > acceptance up front in the first cut assessment of climate engineering > options. This is not to say that potential solutions that present ethical > or governance challenges should be abandoned, but that accounting for this > early on provides an opportunity to consider all options and provide a more > complete initial accounting of their potential for society.A second unique > part of this paper is that in assessing each option's difficulty to govern, > it works backwards from the characteristics of the technology itself. So > for example, the climate engineering option's visibility or ability to be > measured will make the option either more or less difficult to monitor and > verify. Or that the more certain we are about the harms and benefits of > the technology, the easier it will be to govern.Utilizing this framework, > we find that mitigation scores better than all climate engineering > options. Amongst climate engineering options, the most positive ratings go > to forest and soil management for carbon storage - more than other > strategies such as biochar and geological carbon capture and sequestration > (CCS). Not surprisingly, low-cost, high-impact options including ocean > fertilization and SRM present more serious drawbacks in terms of ecological > risk, institutional capacity, and ethical concerns.While the press releases > around the paper have emphasized the conclusion that climate engineering > offers no easy solution and the analysis favors mitigation (i.e. "Cutting > Carbon Emissions Our Best Option for Slowing Global Warming Study Finds"), > I do not see this paper as the end of the conversation or providing an > answer. In fact, our analysis is ill-equipped to answer the question of > what should be done for a couple of reasons:First, our criteria and their > measures were developed on a mix of what the most apparent dimensions of > climate engineering options were through a general survey of the literature > and what measures were available. Engagement with the decision-makers and > stakeholders about the options and what is important to them could identify > additional criteria or measures that would be useful to them.Second, in our > analysis, the six criteria were all valued equally with each ranking being > calculated on a five point scale and represented as such. We chose to give > each criteria equal footing as we felt each criteria was important. > However, these criteria represent various dimensions of things in our > society that will be impacted by pursuing each option and different > stakeholders will care or value most about different dimensions. Some > stakeholders may be very concerned about the ecological risks an option > poses, while other stakeholders may be very concerned about the costs to > the general economy, while others may be very concerned about the equity > issues. In societal decision-making, these criteria would be weighted > differentially to reflect importance of the various criteria to > stakeholders. As Dietz (2013:42) writes "Social scientific expertise can > be useful in describing the value positions that exist around an issue and > how prevalent they are... But scientific expertise does not have any special > privilege in determining what values should be favored and what values > should be harmed when a decision is made."Matthew Nisbet recently proposed > "New Model for Climate Advocacy" that urges climate advocates to put all > technologies and options on the table for consideration in an effort to > gain broad public and political support ("A New Model for Climate > Advocacy"). Our framework can provide a useful tool for concisely laying > out a range of options and starting a dialogue between scientists and > stakeholders about the general dimensions of a range of climate and the > identification of further questions of interests. > References > Daniela F Cusack, Jonn Axsen, Rachael Shwom, Lauren Hartzell-Nichols, Sam > White, and Katherine RM Mackey 2014. An interdisciplinary assessment of > climate engineering strategies. Frontiers in Ecology and the > Environment 12: 280-287.http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/130030 > Dietz, T. (2013). "Epistomology, Ontology, and the Practice of Structural > Human Ecology" pp. 31-52 inStructural Human Ecology: New Essays in Risk, > Energy, and Sustainability. Editors Thomas Dietz and Andrew Jorgensen. > Washington State University Press: Pullman, WA. > Rachael Shwom is an assistant professor in the Human Ecology department > who specializes in climate and society. She earned her Ph.D. in Sociology > with a specialization in Environmental Science and Policy at Michigan State > University in 2008. Her dissertation research focused on how different > governmental, business, and environmental organizations sought to influence > U.S. policies on appliance energy efficiency over the past three decades. > She is interested in energy efficiency policy because efficiency > improvements are often identified as an important and politically feasible > step for reducing the U.S. greenhouse gas emissions that drive climate > change. She has also researched formation of public opinions on climate > change, social science's role in enabling decision-makers to act on climate > change under uncertainty, and media's coverage of climate change. > related reading:Resumen: Una evaluación interdisciplinaria de estrategias > deingeniería climática - Spanish language translation of Daniela F Cusack, > Jonn Axsen, Rachael Shwom, Lauren Hartzell-Nichols, Sam White, and > Katherine RM Mackey 2014. An interdisciplinary assessment of climate > engineering strategies. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 12: > 280-287.http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/130030 > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "geoengineering" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "geoengineering" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. 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