This blog has focused much on the scientific and governmental feasibility of geoengineering, so I wanted to make this final post a short ethical discussion. If a method was invented which allowed humans to control the global temperature and CO2 concentration without any side effects (i.e. David Keith’s ‘box’), would this be a good thing?
Professor Clive Hamilton (2012) argues that it isn't a good idea to attain the power to regulate the Earth as a whole when it was institutional failings and greed which brought us into the Anthropocene, potentially suppressing future ice ages. He continues to argue that by examining our past behaviour, how could any credibility be lent to the idea that SRM techniques would be undertaken in a benevolent way which keeps the rights of the vulnerable in mind?
Heidegger (1935) wrote extensively about the difficulty of humanity controlling nature, and SRM effectively sets about to achieve a controlling of the entire Earth. From a more practical modern standpoint, climate scientist Raymond Pierrehumbert (2012) has spoken about the impossibility of maintaining an SRM scheme like aerosol injection, which would need to be re-injected every two years, while CO2 will continue to influence the climate for 10,000 years. From a political standpoint, climate change has winners and losers - what is to be done if China wants the Earth a degree hotter, but America wants it a degree colder?
A word cloud of my blog. (Source: https://www.wordclouds.com/).
Inspired by the last post of Tilak's geoengineering blog, I have included a word cloud highlighting the most used words on my blog. For me, the gargantuan size of the words 'potential' and 'impacts' on the cloud help to summarise my research into geoengineering. If utilised correctly alongside a strict reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and governed under an international framework, it has the potential to do tremendous good in mitigating the impacts of climate change (e.g. saving Arctic sea ice). If used as an excuse not to cut emissions, the so-called moral hazard, or if left to countries to pursue without regulation, it has the potential to exacerbate the impacts into something much worse.
I have enjoyed learning and blogging about such a controversial topic over the last few months and hope that you have enjoyed reading it! Farewell!
