Unfortunately, failure to deal with ethics also makes it viable to continue greenhouse gas emissions.
On Thu, Jul 31, 2014 at 5:04 PM, Andrew Lockley <[email protected]> wrote: > Failure to deal with ethics will make climate engineering 'unviable' > > http://gu.com/p/4vd69 > > Failure to deal with ethics will make climate engineering 'unviable' > Environmental philosopher warns major ethical, political, legal and social > issues around geoengineering must be addressed > > Graham Readfearn in Sydney > 22:00 CEST Thu 31 July 2014 > > Geoengineering, also known as climate modification, falls into two > categories - carbon dioxide removal or solar radiation management. > Photograph: ISS/NASA > Research into ways to engineer the Earth's climate as a last-ditch > response to global warming will be rendered "unviable" if the associated > ethical issues are not tackled first, a leading environmental philosopher > has warned. > > Prof Stephen Gardiner, of the University of Washington, Seattle, told the > Guardian that so-called geoengineering risked making problems worse for > future generations. > > Gardiner was in Sydney for a two-day symposium that aimed to grapple with > the moral and ethical consequences of geoengineering, also known as climate > modification. > > Later this year, the United States' National Academy of Sciences is due to > publish a key report into the "technical feasibility" of a number of > proposed geoengineering methods, which fall into two categories. > > Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) tries to cut the levels of the greenhouse gas > in the atmosphere and store it, for example, in trees, algae or underground. > > A second category, known as solar radiation management tries to lower the > amount of energy entering the Earth's atmosphere from the sun by, for > example, spraying sulphate particles into the stratosphere or whitening > clouds. > > Gardiner said political inertia was one reason why the world had failed to > respond meaningfully to climate change and rising greenhouse gases. > > "There's a temptation for the current generation particularly in the rich > countries to take benefits now and pass the severe costs on to the future," > he said. > > "Arguably that's one of the big reasons we have failed so far on climate > policy because we have succumbed to that temptation. > > "But when it comes to geoengineering, one of my biggest worries is that we > might pick geoengineering as an intervention that replicates that pattern. > > "We might try and adopt a quick technological fix but one that holds the > worst impacts for a few decades without much attention to what happens > after that. What does happen after that could be even worse than what would > unfold if we just allowed the negative climate impacts in the near term to > materialise." > > He said that it was time to engage with the ethical and moral questions > now that major scientific institutions and a growing group of researchers > were starting to consider geoengineering. > > "We are still in the early stages and very few people have written and > talked about this. The good news is that the major scientific reports > generally do signal that they think there are major ethical, political, > legal and social issues that need investigating. The crucial thing is > whether we get beyond saying that as a throwaway line to actually dealing > with those implications. > > "Unless you can deal with these social and political issues then any kind > of geoengineering would be unviable anyway - or at least any remotely > ethically defensible version would be unviable." > > In 2009, a Royal Society report called for more research into > geoengineering and concluded that CDR techniques "should be regarded as > preferable". > > A proposed experiment to test a way to deliver particles into the upper > atmosphere using a balloon and a one kilometre-long pipe was cancelled in > 2012 after it was reported that two of the scientists involved had > submitted patent applications that were similar to the techniques being > proposed. > > A study earlier this year in the journal Nature Communications comparing > five different proposed methods of climate engineering found all were > "relatively ineffective" while carrying "potentially severe side effects" > that would be difficult to stop. > > Prof Jim Falk, of the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute at the > University of Melbourne, told the symposium there were more than 40 > distinct methods that could be described as geoengineering, including > planting large numbers of trees and painting roofs white. > > He said: "There's a huge array of ideas and they go from local scale to > intermediate scale to a global scale. The scale, the impacts and the risks > all go up together." > > * Graham Readfearn's travel and accommodation was paid for by the > symposium organisers. > > -- > 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 [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > 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 [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
