Psychological reasons to reject geoengineering
John Nissen
1. Pollution (re geoengineering with stratospheric aerosols)
Anything to do with sulphur is considered pollution. Environmentalists have been working hard over past decades to reduce sulphur levels in the atmosphere. Even though there is evidence that sulphur pollution shades the sunlight [1], we continue to press for pollution reduction. What is right for the environment must be right for global warming and our future, since we depend on the environment.
2. Last resort
Many have said geoengineering is a last resort, yet fail to define what the conditions would have to be in order to justify it. The temptation is to wait for significant global warming, but of course by then geoengineering may be too late.
3. Interference
There is seen to be a history of failure in mankind’s efforts to interfere with the climate – of which biofuels is a recent example. Some even consider it immoral to interfere with nature. The climate system is extremely complex, and we are almost bound to get it wrong if we try and interfere with it. Although there are many known unknowns, there will be many unknown unknowns, so it’s safest not to even start.
4. The medicine is more dangerous than the disease
If we think of Gaia as the patient (as James Lovelock does), then Gaia will survive while human society collapses. The disease cannot be fatal to Gaia. There will be mass extinctions, but life in some form will continue, as it did after the past five mass extinction events. However the danger of the medicine is to mankind. It is only by thinking of ourselves as the patient, and realising that the disease could be fatal, that we realise that medicine is required urgently. If a doctor waits to be dead certain about the chosen medicine, then the patient will most likely become a dead patient.
5. Difficulty in grasping the enormity of the threat
Can we really believe that civilisation could collapse? It is difficult to grasp such a big thing. It is much easier to think about threats to polar bears and other creatures, or threats to ecosystems. Why didn’t IPCC consider whether civilisation could survive their worst scenario? Instead they concentrated on the 2 degrees warming, which seemed manageable, and comprehensible. Yet if we read Jared Diamond’s book “Collapse – how societies choose to fail or survive”, one can see that our own civilisation is heading towards failure rather than survival.
6. The youthful feeling of immortality and what you say to your kids
How can we talk to younger people about the seriousness of the situation that we’ve got ourselves into? Could they take us seriously? They don’t want to be thinking about their own mortality, and how much worse things are going to get, because it’s so uncomfortable. We don’t want to make them uncomfortable. Nor do we want to admit blame. So we reassure them that things will be all right in the long run, and we try to believe it ourselves.
7. The dam effect – denial to preserve our sanity
Jared Diamond's Collapse book charts how different societies through human history collapsed because of their failure to manage their environmental resources. The Mayan Indians, Easter Island - it's not as if the precedents weren't there. He had one paragraph that has haunted me as he tried to explain our apathy: he quoted research into the levels of fear among residents living in a narrow valley just below a dam. Not surprisingly, fear of a dam burst increased the closer the residents were to the dam, but then stopped, and those living within just a few miles of the dam indicated no fear. It was a classic illustration of how denial works. The only way to maintain sanity when living in the shadow of this dam was to ignore it. That just about sums us up in 2008 - the scale of what lay ahead was simply too vast. [2]
8. There is no silver bullet
Geoengineering appears to be put forward as a silver bullet. We are suspicious of silver bullets, therefore we dismiss geoengineering because of the things it can’t do, such as prevent ocean acidification, rather recognising geoengineering as just part of the solution.
9. If emissions were the cause, emission reduction must be the solution
If global warming is caused by our CO2 emissions, surely it must be the case that curbing CO2 emissions is the answer. Suggesting anything else is at best a distraction, at worst a ploy to allow polluters to continue polluting.
So let’s set emissions targets for 2050, and then worry about how we are going to achieve these targets next year and the year after. We don’t know what is going to happen – many of us will be dead by 2050. We must revise are targets to follow the science, as our knowledge increase. For example the Arctic sea ice is worrying. But don’t panic. The government is looking after your future and future generations in a responsible manner. We have a fair and sustainable policy. [3]
10. Mistrust the message because you mistrust the messenger
Some of the best arguments for geoengineering have come from climate sceptics, and it hurts to go along with an idea supported by such people.
11. Moral outrage
We see global warming is a moral issue. If everybody abstained from their extravagant lifestyle, we’d be OK. However, Gregory Benford pointed out, years ago, that if we treated global warming as a technical problem instead of a moral outrage, we could cool the world. [4]
Have you come across other reasons?
Cheers from Chiswick,
John
[1] Pollution from Chinese Coal Casts a Global Shadow:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/11/business/worldbusiness/11chinacoal.html
[2] With thanks to Madeliene Bunting:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2006/nov/06/comment.green
[3] Statement, by Ed Miliband, Secretary of State for the Department of Energy and Climate Change, to the House of Commons on the new department:
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2008-10-16a.935.0&m=1743
[4] Gregory Benford, November 1997:
http://www.reason.com/news/show/30433.html