An extensive discussion in the academic and policy communities is developing around the possibility of climate engineering through stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI). In this contribution, we develop a perspective on this issue in the context of the wider setting of societal development in the Anthropocene. We draw on Karl Popper's concepts of piecemeal and utopian social engineering to examine how different visions of societal development relate to SAI. Based on this reflection, we argue that the debate on SAI is fueled not only by the inequitable distribution of its effects and potential atmospheric and climatic side effects, as disconcerting as some of these effects and side effects may be, but also, and perhaps primarily, by its apparent privileging of the status quo and incremental change over a more immediate and radical change in societal organization. Although differing ideological orientations might thus help explain the intensity of parts of the debate, the understanding from which they follow, in which societal development is deduced from postulated technological characteristics and assumptions about a technology's use, hides from view a more subtle understanding of the relationship between technology and politics.
Global Change in the AnthropoceneAs a consequence of the concerns about extensive documented and predicted impacts of climate change [Stocker et al., 2013], a new topic has recently prominently entered the debate on climate policy: the possibility of reflecting some of the incoming sunlight back into space in order to gain control over global mean temperatures [Keith, 2000;Crutzen, 2006]. Whether societies and their leaders will choose to implement a technology capable of this is uncertain as of now, also because the science on such solar radiation management (SRM) and its side effects is not yet settled. But the debate alone can shed some light on how societies attempt to grapple with their increasingly large leverage over fundamental processes that govern life on Earth in the Anthropocene, the age in which humanity has become a global forcing agent. In this contribution, we present a critical examination of stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), an SRM technology that would block out sunlight by introducing reflective particles into the stratosphere, by applying Karl Popper's concepts of piecemeal and utopian social engineering. To this end, we first briefly discuss the concept of the Anthropocene and the role of technology in this new epoch. We then introduce Popper's concepts of piecemeal and utopian social engineering and examine how SAI relates to these categories. We apply the resulting insights to the debate on SAI more generally, and reflect on our findings. The Earth's climate is a permanently changing system. Although there are phases of relative stability that may last millions of years, it also occasionally undergoes rapid transitions into new states. A very recent addition to the list of factors that contribute to change in the Earth's climate system is humanity, w...
When it comes to assessing the deontic status of acts and policies in the context of risk and uncertainty, moral theories are often at a loss. In this paper we hope to show that employing a multi-dimensional consequentialist framework provides ethical guidance for decision-making in
complex situations. The paper starts by briefly rehearsing consequentialist responses to the issue of risk, as well as their shortcomings. We then go on to present our own proposal based on three dimensions: wellbeing, fairness and probability. In the last section we apply our approach to
a comparison of different climate policy options, including stratospheric solar-radiation management.
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