Jon, I think you are underestimating the human propensity to assume the best about alternatives to paths that worry them. We are not mitigating enough because there are too many people who think mitigation will have all sorts of negative impacts on them. Those same people are unlikely to assume geoengineering will make them worse off. David
Sent from my iPad On Jun 2, 2015, at 7:50 PM, Jon Lawhead <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: As a philosopher working on this issue, it seems to me that this provides a really strong argument in favor of focused attention on mitigation. There's at least some degree of popular perception that geoengineering provides a "fail safe" for fixing the climate if/when we fail to successfully implement sufficient mitigation policies. In some cases, this leads to more lukewarm (or downright cold) support for mitigation than it otherwise would have. Philosophers and social scientists call this a "moral hazard." But it seems to me that this position isn't just wrong--it's exactly backward. If a failure to adequately mitigate climate change means that our only recourse will be geoengineering, that's a very strong reason to mitigate early and mitigate often. The costs associated with geoengineering--both in terms of financial commitments and in terms of potentially dangerous side-effects--are just too numerous for it to be reasonable to think of a large-scale geoengineering program as a "fail safe." I think we would do well to work harder to promulgate that message more widely and more forcefully than we do now. Naturally, Jon Lawhead, PhD Postdoctoral Research Fellow University of Southern California Philosophy and Earth Sciences 3651 Trousdale Parkway Zumberge Hall of Science, 223D Los Angeles, CA 90089-0740 http://www.realityapologist.com<http://www.realityapologist.com/> On Sun, May 31, 2015 at 11:55 AM, Greg Rau <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Amen, Mike. Given this dangerous trajectory, I'd say it's time for another reading from our experts on the ethics of alternative climate management methods. And I don't mean adaptation. Greg -------------------------------------------- On Sun, 5/31/15, Mike MacCracken <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Subject: [geo] On why we'll very likely need climate engineering To: "Geoengineering" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Date: Sunday, May 31, 2015, 10:28 AM For those who argue that it is best to keep relying on mitigation as the only acceptable approach, it is because of disgraceful decisions such as described in: http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-10-billion-tons-of-coal-that-could-eras e-obamas-progress-on-climate-change that this will be the case. I've done declarations for a couple of lawsuits trying to fight the leasing of such coal lands. The Administration could have acceded to their calls for a high quality environmental review of the consequences of such leasing (so including GHG effect), but instead they have fought those lawsuits and rely on a really outdated EIS (their analysis starts on page 4-130--and is only a few pages long). Or they could have imposed the social cost of carbon as an additional fee if one wants to use the free market system to level the field across technologies--but no, leases would be at very low prices. So, first, the criticism that those of us favor geoengineering first are just wrong--we've been fighting hard for mitigation. But decisions like this keep coming, and I would suggest have nothing to do with whether geoengineering might or might not help. So, we keep having to go deeper and deeper in to the barrel to try to find some way to slow the devastating consequences of warming lying ahead. Second, given decisions like this by the US, no wonder the rest of the world is not yet really making commitments that are strong enough to make a difference for the future. Truly embarrassing decision--it makes all the clamor over stopping the Keystone pipeline to limit tar sands development ring very hollow. Mike MacCracken -- 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]<mailto:geoengineering%[email protected]>. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]<mailto:[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]<mailto:geoengineering%[email protected]>. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]<mailto:[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]<mailto:[email protected]>. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]<mailto:[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]. 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