Re: [geo] Visiting lecturer discusses moral quandaries in geoengineering | The Lawrentian
I'd be delighted if that could be the case, but I am not sure we have the time to wait until it clearly is the case. We have, over the years, been promised electricity too inexpensive to monitor (for nuclear) and even more, perhaps with fusion. There has been too much time spent waiting--we need to get going aggressively now. Mike On 2/23/14 2:58 PM, Keith Henson hkeithhen...@gmail.com wrote: Mike, I think the entire idea of sacrifice is the wrong approach. What we need is a huge new source of cheap, non carbon energy. So cheap that fossil fuels are driven out of the market by being more expensive in comparison to the new source. And rather than giving up annual pay raises, how about dropping the cost of your utility bills and synthetic gasoline for a dollar a gallon? A challenge yes, but I would suggest as possible. I am not looking for paradise on earth, but an energy rich future is much more attractive than the opposite. Keith On Sun, Feb 23, 2014 at 5:06 AM, Mike MacCracken mmacc...@comcast.net wrote: Agreed--it would have helped (at least conceptually) if I had said essentially phase down and out over several decades, which I would suggest is possible if we put our minds to it, even with population going up (phase in the internalization of the costs of climate change on fossil fuels and be willing to sacrifice some--so phasing up to what might be a few percent of GDP over a few decades--so equivalent to giving up an annual pay raise for one year per decade, say). A challenge yes, but I would suggest as possible. Mike On 2/23/14 12:01 AM, Keith Henson hkeithhen...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Feb 22, 2014 at 7:20 AM, Mike MacCracken mmacc...@comcast.net wrote: world must totally give up fossil fuels There is a little bit of a political problem there, which is why you don't see sufficient action. For the foreseeable future, giving up fossil fuel energy would result in the death of perhaps 6 billion people. Now you can argue, and I won't disagree, that we let the population grow beyond what can be supported on conventional renewable energy. But that's what we have. A politically acceptable solution would have to include a way that does not involve 6 out of 7 people dying. I think I know a way this can be done, but am a long way from certain about it. Not to mention that it has known problems. Keith 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 andrew.lock...@gmail.com 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
Re: [geo] Visiting lecturer discusses moral quandaries in geoengineering | The Lawrentian
Agreed--it would have helped (at least conceptually) if I had said essentially phase down and out over several decades, which I would suggest is possible if we put our minds to it, even with population going up (phase in the internalization of the costs of climate change on fossil fuels and be willing to sacrifice some--so phasing up to what might be a few percent of GDP over a few decades--so equivalent to giving up an annual pay raise for one year per decade, say). A challenge yes, but I would suggest as possible. Mike On 2/23/14 12:01 AM, Keith Henson hkeithhen...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Feb 22, 2014 at 7:20 AM, Mike MacCracken mmacc...@comcast.net wrote: world must totally give up fossil fuels There is a little bit of a political problem there, which is why you don't see sufficient action. For the foreseeable future, giving up fossil fuel energy would result in the death of perhaps 6 billion people. Now you can argue, and I won't disagree, that we let the population grow beyond what can be supported on conventional renewable energy. But that's what we have. A politically acceptable solution would have to include a way that does not involve 6 out of 7 people dying. I think I know a way this can be done, but am a long way from certain about it. Not to mention that it has known problems. Keith 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 andrew.lock...@gmail.com 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
Re: [geo] Visiting lecturer discusses moral quandaries in geoengineering | The Lawrentian
Ron, 1. I can't speak for IASS - but it was a very short video, and biochar has a much lower profile. The public discourse about CDR is mostly about carbon capture and OIF. I know there is a great deal of confusion about biochar as to it's capacity and efficiency. For me, it seems like it could be a useful 'wedge' (if we're playing the wedges game), but I have doubts about scaling it up to make a real dent in the carbon budget. 2. I did mostly speak about SRM - so mea culpa for putting geoengineering in the title. But I specified that early on and stuck mostly with the term SRM. But it was a community event, can't get too technical. The two are very often conflated though, not just by me. I can see why we would want totally different discussions for CDR and SRM, and then even for different types of SRM. One of the problems, I think, is those fancy graphics that have proliferated, showing a 'menu' of different options as if they're equivalent options that we can pick and choose as we wish. 2b. My dissertation topic is not on geoengineering (my MA topic was), it is about the G-77/developing countries in the climate negotiations, but I'm still engaged in geoengineering. Bjørnar Bjørnar Egede-Nissen PhD Candidate Department of Political Science Social Science Centre University of Western Ontario London, Ontario N6A 5C2 Canada Email: beged...@uwo.ca On 22 February 2014 15:54, Ronal W. Larson rongretlar...@comcast.netwrote: Bjornar etal 1. I also enjoyed the short IASS video. However, I was surprised that there was no mention there or at their web site of biochar. Any explanation for this omission? 2. Your talk had “geoengineering” in the title, but it seemed to be only on SRM. Will your doctoral thesis also cover CDR technologies? Any comments for this list now on CDR? Ron On Feb 22, 2014, at 10:57 AM, Bjørnar Egede-Nissen bjor...@egede-nissen.com 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:
Re: [geo] Visiting lecturer discusses moral quandaries in geoengineering | The Lawrentian
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 andrew.lock...@gmail.com 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 ³Geoengineering: Ethically Challenged, Politically Impossible?² 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-Nissen¹s 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 ³irrelevant² take home message. He said,³The environment is a bathtub.² 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, ³His examples are very relevant to us and it is helpful to understand a lot more.² 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: ³Are we doing anything wrong by not doing anything about [global warming]?² -- 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/groups/opt_out.
Re: [geo] Visiting lecturer discusses moral quandaries in geoengineering | The Lawrentian
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: beged...@uwo.ca On 22 February 2014 10:20, Mike MacCracken mmacc...@comcast.net 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 andrew.lock...@gmail.com 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
Re: [geo] Visiting lecturer discusses moral quandaries in geoengineering | The Lawrentian
Bjornar etal 1. I also enjoyed the short IASS video. However, I was surprised that there was no mention there or at their web site of biochar. Any explanation for this omission? 2. Your talk had geoengineering in the title, but it seemed to be only on SRM. Will your doctoral thesis also cover CDR technologies? Any comments for this list now on CDR? Ron On Feb 22, 2014, at 10:57 AM, Bjørnar Egede-Nissen bjor...@egede-nissen.com 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: beged...@uwo.ca On 22 February 2014 10:20, Mike MacCracken mmacc...@comcast.net 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 andrew.lock...@gmail.com 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
Re: [geo] Visiting lecturer discusses moral quandaries in geoengineering | The Lawrentian
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: beged...@uwo.ca mailto:beged...@uwo.ca On 22 February 2014 10:20, Mike MacCracken mmacc...@comcast.net mailto:mmacc...@comcast.net 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 andrew.lock...@gmail.com http://andrew.lock...@gmail.com 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
Re: [geo] Visiting lecturer discusses moral quandaries in geoengineering | The Lawrentian
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 wig...@ucar.edu 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: beged...@uwo.ca mailto:beged...@uwo.ca On 22 February 2014 10:20, Mike MacCracken mmacc...@comcast.net mailto:mmacc...@comcast.net 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 andrew.lock...@gmail.com http://andrew.lock...@gmail.com wrote:
[geo] Visiting lecturer discusses moral quandaries in geoengineering | The Lawrentian
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]? -- 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/groups/opt_out.
