Callies Climate Engineering Ch_1

[Andrew Lockley]

The science has been rather clear for decades—the world is warming, rapid-

ly, and we’re the cause. Our everyday activities, seemingly innocuous in

isolation, are combining to have profound effects on the planet. Despite

having known about these profound effects for decades, we as a global com-

munity have been rather lethargic in responding to the problem of climate

change through the two most appropriate measures available: mitigation and

adaptation. With this lethargy around mitigation and adaptation in mind, the

previously-considered taboo subject of geoengineering has emerged as a

prospective policy response to climate change.

Defined as the “deliberate, large-scale manipulation of the planetary envi-

ronment in order to counteract anthropogenic climate change,”

1 geoengineer-

ing—or climate engineering—is an umbrella term encapsulating a wide array

of technological proposals. One of these proposals in particular—one that

goes by the name of stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI)—has received quite

a bit of attention from natural scientists and engineers who tend to recognize

its potential to allay some of the harms associated with climate change. 2

However, many normative theorists have tended to view the technology sus-

piciously, highlighting unethical aspects of research and deployment 3 and the

technology’s inherently troubling political implications. 4 The purpose of this

book is to evaluate certain ethical and political aspects of intentionally ma-

nipulating the climate by means of SAI.

While SAI is not currently being used to offset climate change, there are

active research programs around the world investigating the technology.

Does engaging in such research perhaps lead us down a slippery slope to-

ward inexorable deployment? Could it be that even researching such a tech... 

[Stephen Salter]

Hi All

The site

https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/arctic-forest-fires-record/?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=UK_26_July_2019_content_digest_alive

has scary stuff about Arctic fires.

Stephen

Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design. School of Engineering, University of Edinburgh, Mayfield Road, Edinburgh EH9 3DW, Scotland S.Sa...@ed.ac.uk, Tel +44 (0)131 650 5704, Cell 07795 203 195, WWW.homepages.ed.ac.uk/shs, YouTube Jamie Taylor Power for Change