Very sorry. I had no idea that geoengineering is now equated with "large-scale
nuclear war; turning off all fossil-fueled power plants, vehicles, factories,
etc., draining all the rice paddies, slaughtering all the cattle, etc.
tomorrow—literally tomorrow, with all the attendant catastrophic effects on
people's lives and on the world economy; a militarily enforced embargo on
international trade in fossil fuels; and so on." All the more reason to drop
the GE term say specifically what you are talking about.Greg
From: David Morrow <dmorr...@gmail.com>
To: geoengineering <geoengineering@googlegroups.com>
Cc: gh...@sbcglobal.net
Sent: Tuesday, March 1, 2016 5:48 PM
Subject: Re: [geo] Geoengineering and Non-Ideal Theory
On Tuesday, March 1, 2016 at 5:29:34 PM UTC-5, Greg Rau wrote:
"Some acts are beyond the pale: they ought never to be done, except perhaps in
the most dire emergencies. Other acts are wrong in a less stringent sense: they
would never be done in an ideal world, but might be permissible in nonideal
circumstances. Deliberate, large-scale modifications of earth systems to
counteract or reduce the effects of climate change, known as geoengineering or
climate engineering, arguably belong to one of these two types—but which one?"
GR - Is this a serious question?
Yes, this is a serious question—and one that a great many people would not
answer in the way that you do.
Due to anthro GHG emissions, the mean global temperature has risen 1 deg C, ice
caps are melting, sea level is rising, 2015 was the warmest on record, the
acidity of the entire surface ocean has risen 30%, the welfare of billions of
people and hundreds of $T of infrastructure, goods and services are at stake,
and massive GHG emissions today impact the preceding for thousands of years.
Neither we nor anyone else here is disputing that.
Furthermore, the "ideal" solution to this problem, immediate reduction of GHG
emissions to zero, is nowhere on the horizon.
We agree that the "ideal" solution is nowhere on the horizon. In fact, that's
the motivation for and the basic starting point of the paper. (Though when you
say the ideal solution involves immediate reduction to zero, you presumably
don't mean that literally. If you do, you shouldn't. See below.)
This would seem the perfect definition of a dire and non-ideal circumstance of
global proportions, and one that is now very unlikely to be solved by
emissions reduction alone. Is there therefore any question that we must
carefully evaluate all alternative options in the event that there is one or
more that might help provide an acceptable solution, under these clearly dire,
non-ideal circumstances?
Not only is there a question about whether we "must carefully evaluate all
alternative options," but it's obvious that we shouldn't. There are plenty of
ways of reducing or eliminating GHG emissions that are completely beyond the
pale: large-scale nuclear war; turning off all fossil-fueled power plants,
vehicles, factories, etc., draining all the rice paddies, slaughtering all the
cattle, etc. tomorrow—literally tomorrow, with all the attendant catastrophic
effects on people's lives and on the world economy; a militarily enforced
embargo on international trade in fossil fuels; and so on. These are such
terrible options that they're not worth evaluating.
I'm sure you didn't mean that we should be researching those options, but
that's precisely the point of the paper—to try to figure out (a) where the line
is between those obviously unacceptable options and those that become
acceptable when the situation is as bad as it is now, and (b) which kind(s) of
geoengineering, if any, are on the "right" side of the line.
Given the evidence, what are the ethics of advocating otherwise?
Do you really think rhetorical questions are a legitimate form of argumentation?
Labeling all potential alternatives as "geoengineering" is not helpful as they
will each have different risks, benefits, scales, costs, effectiveness, and
ethics and should be evaluated separately and comparatively on each of these
points.
We agree, which is why we do this in the paper—as implied by the rest of the
abstract.
Cheers,
David
From: Andrew Lockley <andrew....@gmail.com>
To: geoengineering <geoengi...@googlegroups. com>
Sent: Monday, February 29, 2016 8:23 AM
Subject: [geo] Geoengineering and Non-Ideal Theory
http://paq.press.illinois.edu/ 30/1/morrow.htmlGeoengineering and Non-Ideal
Theoryby David Morrow and Toby Svoboda Some acts are beyond the pale: they
ought never to be done, except perhaps in the most dire emergencies. Other acts
are wrong in a less stringent sense: they would never be done in an ideal
world, but might be permissible in nonideal circumstances. Deliberate,
large-scale modifications of earth systems to counteract or reduce the effects
of climate change, known as geoengineering or climate engineering, arguably
belong to one of these two types—but which one? Philosophers have argued that
geoengineering faces diverse ethical challenges. Yet, advocates of
geoengineering research insist that geoengineering might someday be
"necessary." One way to construe the research advocates' argument is as a
warning that we might need geoengineering to cope with a climate emergency so
momentous that ordinary moral constraints do not apply; even if geoengineering
truly is "beyond the pale," this argument goes, we may need it to prevent the
heavens from falling, as it were. A second way to construe the argument is as
an implicit appeal to what political philosophers call "non-ideal theory,"
which is that part of the theory of justice that tells us what we ought to do
in non-ideal circumstances. On this version of the argument, less-than-dire
circumstances might permit or even require society to deploy geoengineering,
even if no one would deploy it in an ideal world. These two arguments have very
different implications for the ethics of geoengineering and geoengineering
research.--
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