TY - JOUR
T1 - Towards Integrated Ethical and Scientific Analysis of Geoengineering
T2 - A Research Agenda
AU - Tuana, Nancy
AU - Sriver, Ryan L.
AU - Svoboda, Toby
AU - Olson, Roman
AU - Irvine, Peter J.
AU - Haqq-Misra, Jacob
AU - Keller, Klaus
N1 - Funding Information:
This study was partially supported by the National Science Foundation, the Penn State Rock Ethics Institute, and the Penn State Center for Climate Risk Management. Discussions with participants in the University of Montana’s workshop on The Ethics of Geoengineering: Investigating the Moral Challenges of Solar Radiation Management (http://www.umt.edu/ethics/EthicsGeoengineering/ default.aspx), as well as with Granger Morgan, Nathan Urban, and Rob Lempert are gratefully acknowledged (without implying agreement). The essay was also improved thanks to inputs from anonymous reviewers. All errors and opinions are, of course, ours.
PY - 2012
Y1 - 2012
N2 - Concerns about the risks of unmitigated greenhouse gas emissions are growing. At the same time, confidence that international policy agreements will succeed in considerably lowering anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions is declining. Perhaps as a result, various geoengineering solutions are gaining attention and credibility as a way to manage climate change. Serious consideration is currently being given to proposals to cool the planet through solar-radiation management. Here we analyze how the unique and nontrivial risks of geoengineering strategies pose fundamental questions at the interface between science and ethics. To illustrate the importance of integrated ethical and scientific analysis, we define key open questions and outline a coupled scientific-ethical research agenda to analyze solar-radiation management geoengineering proposals. We identify nine key fields of coupled research including whether solar-radiation management can be tested, how quickly learning could occur, normative decisions embedded in how different climate trajectories are valued, and justice issues regarding distribution of the harms and benefits of geoengineering. To ensure that ethical analyses are coupled with scientific analyses of this form of geoengineering, we advocate that funding agencies recognize the essential nature of this coupled research by establishing an Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications program for solar-radiation management.
AB - Concerns about the risks of unmitigated greenhouse gas emissions are growing. At the same time, confidence that international policy agreements will succeed in considerably lowering anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions is declining. Perhaps as a result, various geoengineering solutions are gaining attention and credibility as a way to manage climate change. Serious consideration is currently being given to proposals to cool the planet through solar-radiation management. Here we analyze how the unique and nontrivial risks of geoengineering strategies pose fundamental questions at the interface between science and ethics. To illustrate the importance of integrated ethical and scientific analysis, we define key open questions and outline a coupled scientific-ethical research agenda to analyze solar-radiation management geoengineering proposals. We identify nine key fields of coupled research including whether solar-radiation management can be tested, how quickly learning could occur, normative decisions embedded in how different climate trajectories are valued, and justice issues regarding distribution of the harms and benefits of geoengineering. To ensure that ethical analyses are coupled with scientific analyses of this form of geoengineering, we advocate that funding agencies recognize the essential nature of this coupled research by establishing an Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications program for solar-radiation management.
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U2 - 10.1080/21550085.2012.685557
DO - 10.1080/21550085.2012.685557
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84864698197
SN - 2155-0085
VL - 15
SP - 136
EP - 157
JO - Ethics, Policy and Environment
JF - Ethics, Policy and Environment
IS - 2
ER -