8 ms·

Cloud brightening experiment tests tool to slow climate change

22 points by redwood 11y ago

danieltillett 11y ago
"Personally, I doubt that the world is ready for this," said Stephen Gardiner, a University of Washington philosophy professor who studies the ethics of environmental policies. "Geoengineering raises huge ethical and political questions, nationally and internationally.” Am I the only one sick of self-appointed ethicists opposing everything. I have yet to read a quote where one said something is good and should be done - I can see them saying “Clean drinking water: Personally, I doubt that the world is ready for this”. Edit. These guys are trying to develop an insurance policy for us if it turns out climate change is worse than expected. The scientists say there will be deep satisfaction if their project succeeds, but far better would be a future without global warming. "We would be perfectly happy," Cooper said, "if our method works beautifully -- and it never needs to be used.” Rather than support this the ethicists have to oppose even having an alternative option. Much better to just do nothing and let the planet burn down - at least the world will be ready for that.
- InclinedPlane 11y ago
  There's an underlying element here. Some people have developed a sort of belief system around the idea of carbon emissions being intrinsically amoral. For them, man-made CO2 emissions are dirty, gross, and fundamentally sinful. Ameliorating the impact of CO2 on the climate is thus something like purchasing a religious indulgence in that worldview. Anything that enables continued carbon emissions without humanity suffering the consequences is thus seen as extremely morally suspect.
  - danieltillett 11y ago
    Yes there is a bit of this (the beaver's dam is good and part of nature while the human dam is bad), but the previous thinking was more if we as scientists provide alternatives then the politicians will decide they don't need to do anything about emissions. There has been a bit of an epiphany within the scientific community of late that we might have left it too late to solve just by reducing emissions and that we also need to work on alternatives just in case.
    - adaml_623 11y ago
      Can you give some links for the epiphany you mention. I'm interested in geoengineering
      - danieltillett 11y ago
        I will try and dig out some of the good papers I have tomorrow (it is getting later here), but a good place to start is wiki [1]. Have a read through all the references they have. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_engineering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_engineering
    - mangeletti 11y ago
      I think there is something intuitively different between the engineering of non-human animals in nature[1] that has gone on for millions of years and which the rest of nature has evolved along side of, and the human engineering[2] that has drastically changed the face of the planet in less than 200 years, rendering much of nature extinct in the meantime. 1. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/AmericanBeaver.JPG https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/American... 2. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2010-07/20/13406959_11n.jpg http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2010-07/20/13406...
      - danieltillett 11y ago
        The difference is we (humans) are better at engineering than beavers (not a put down of beavers as they are amazing).
  - 7952 11y ago
    And by focussing on the big bad we ignore the more immediate threats that fossil fuel burning causes. The health issues caused by vehicle emissions are well documented yet there is little social pressure against buying dirty cars (which are much more obviously sinful).
- Osmium 11y ago
  > "Geoengineering raises huge ethical and political questions, nationally and internationally." This is true though. We have some treaties[1][2], but not enough, and it still needs to be thought through. What happens if, say, country A is being badly affected by climate change, and they have the means to pump tonnes of SO2 into the atmosphere? They think it'd help with global warming, but country B doesn't and think it could make the climate worse? Who gets to decide? Do A and B then go to war over this? No disagreement at all that the research should be done, but it raises huge ethical and political questions, and there's nothing wrong with acknowledging that. When it comes to technologies that could change an entire planet's climate, opposition as the default position seems entirely reasonable. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_Modification_Convention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_Modification_Con... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_Biological_Diversity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_Biological_Diver...
  - danieltillett 11y ago
    Geoengineering is really no different than any other international issue. Ultimately countries need to agree or go to war as a last resort. None of the scientists in the article are talking about implementing geoengineering - they just want us to do the research so we have options if the worst of the worst happens. In my opinion it is always better to have options when faced with a bad situation rather than none especially if the reason you have no options is because you refused to plan.
- hmlty-rqd 11y ago
  I'm more sick of arrogant engineering types who continuously belittle anyone outside their own limited bubble. Firstly, he's not a 'self-appointed ethicist', he's a professor appointed by the University of Washington. And your ridiculous straw man about drinking water is not appropriate and serves merely to reflect badly on you. Secondly, he's not 'opposing everything'. He states, quite correctly, that there are large ethical and political implications to any significant form of geoengineering. We regularly see examples of this. For instance, when a major river passes through multiple countries and an upstream country decides to build a dam, reducing or eliminating the flow of the river downstream, potentially affecting hundreds of millions of people. That this has huge ethical and political implications is unquestionable. Similarly, if an entity such as a government or corporation decides to unilaterally modify the climate, this too has ethical and political implications. Even if the actual outcome closely matches what was predicted, such changes may be unwanted by other parties. Furthermore, there could be knock-on effects from changes in one location to elsewhere. For example, suppose the United States engages in climate modification by purposefully increasing rainfall in the south-west US. This may be welcome there, but could have the side-effect of increasing drought elsewhere. I don't see any ethicists opposing geoengineering in principle, they're just pushing for a full debate - which would include many more aspects than just the engineering one.
  - danieltillett 11y ago
    >Firstly, he's not a 'self-appointed ethicist', he's a professor appointed by the University of Washington. Yes he is - all “ethicists” are self-appointed. The particular self-appointed ethicist in this article is actually a philosophy professor. I can call myself an ethicist too if I want to - ironically I can’t call myself an engineer. >I don't see any ethicists opposing geoengineering in principle, they're just pushing for a full debate - which would include many more aspects than just the engineering one. Can you actually find one? I have read dozens of posts and papers from these self-appointed ethicists and I have never come across one that supports anything new. They never raise any real reasons to oppose anything new, they just oppose the new because it is new. There is no point having a “debate” about geoengineering unless we actual do some research first to know if it is possible.
stared 11y ago
Climate is a big system and we know only some parts of it. Trying to cure symptoms may have grave consequences. (Think about medicine - there are many tests before it can be used; many early drugs had horrible side-effect. But in the case of Earth we have only one run.)
- danieltillett 11y ago
  Actually with many medicines you only have one run - it does not matter if a lethal side effect is rare if it happens to affect you. We are already running a massive experiment on the earth; we are pumping huge amounts of green house gases into the atmosphere and we are not really sure what will happen. If things go bad really quickly I would like to have some options (even if high risk) rather than be left with nothing.
  - stared 11y ago
    Sure, a medicine may be lethal (but after many trials, errors, cases etc - people developed efficient drugs and medical procedures). But there are many people; it's a big difference if one dies or everyone dies. "Even more experimenting" is a bad idea. The current situation is bad and we should change its causes. (Otherwise it's like healing tooth with painkillers.) Here I would guess that the average value of risk is highly negative (as in any case with dealing with complex systems). And there are many imaginable consequences, which are far worse than the current pace of global worming. E.g. poisoning biosphere, accelerating global warming, etc. And, no, global warming is not an asteroid impact (i.e. killing everyone and everything), so "all or nothing" is a poor mentality (and deadly dangerous!).
    - danieltillett 11y ago
      The people involved in this research are not suggesting we try this - they are suggesting we work on alternatives in case we really need them. I agree 100% that we need to do far more to reduce our emissions, but right now not enough is being done. If we don't get our act together in time, or things on the warming front move faster than everyone hopes, then we need alternatives. We only have one world.
michaelmcdonald 11y ago
Apparently these guys have never watched the movie Snowpiercer...
gdubs 11y ago
The Whole Earth Discipline by Stewart Brand is worth reading if this subject interests you. [1]. Brand created the Whole Earth Catalogue, which inspired the first wave of Silicon Valley PC pioneers (Steve Jobs most famously). It's the catalogue that ends with the phrase "Stay hungry, stay foolish." Brand was a founding member of the "Green" movement, which was formed to combat the predicted "Population Bomb" (something Brand addresses in the book). In later years, Brand has sought more pragmatic viewpoints on the environment. The book specifically address geo-engineering, nuclear power, genetically engineered crops, and other 'hot topics'. I've mentioned it here before, but worth mentioning again because it's a long, enjoyable read -- thought provoking, conversation starter. 1: http://www.amazon.com/Whole-Earth-Discipline-RestoredWildlands-Geoengineering/dp/0143118285 http://www.amazon.com/Whole-Earth-Discipline-RestoredWildlan...

22 points by redwood 11y ago

"Personally, I doubt that the world is ready for this," said Stephen Gardiner, a University of Washington philosophy professor who studies the ethics of environmental policies. "Geoengineering raises huge ethical and political questions, nationally and internationally.” Am I the only one sick of self-appointed ethicists opposing everything. I have yet to read a quote where one said something is good and should be done - I can see them saying “Clean drinking water: Personally, I doubt that the world is ready for this”. Edit. These guys are trying to develop an insurance policy for us if it turns out climate change is worse than expected. The scientists say there will be deep satisfaction if their project succeeds, but far better would be a future without global warming. "We would be perfectly happy," Cooper said, "if our method works beautifully -- and it never needs to be used.” Rather than support this the ethicists have to oppose even having an alternative option. Much better to just do nothing and let the planet burn down - at least the world will be ready for that.

InclinedPlane 11y ago
There's an underlying element here. Some people have developed a sort of belief system around the idea of carbon emissions being intrinsically amoral. For them, man-made CO2 emissions are dirty, gross, and fundamentally sinful. Ameliorating the impact of CO2 on the climate is thus something like purchasing a religious indulgence in that worldview. Anything that enables continued carbon emissions without humanity suffering the consequences is thus seen as extremely morally suspect.
- danieltillett 11y ago
  Yes there is a bit of this (the beaver's dam is good and part of nature while the human dam is bad), but the previous thinking was more if we as scientists provide alternatives then the politicians will decide they don't need to do anything about emissions. There has been a bit of an epiphany within the scientific community of late that we might have left it too late to solve just by reducing emissions and that we also need to work on alternatives just in case.
  - adaml_623 11y ago
    Can you give some links for the epiphany you mention. I'm interested in geoengineering
    - danieltillett 11y ago
      I will try and dig out some of the good papers I have tomorrow (it is getting later here), but a good place to start is wiki [1]. Have a read through all the references they have. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_engineering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_engineering
  - mangeletti 11y ago
    I think there is something intuitively different between the engineering of non-human animals in nature[1] that has gone on for millions of years and which the rest of nature has evolved along side of, and the human engineering[2] that has drastically changed the face of the planet in less than 200 years, rendering much of nature extinct in the meantime. 1. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/AmericanBeaver.JPG https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/American... 2. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2010-07/20/13406959_11n.jpg http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2010-07/20/13406...
    - danieltillett 11y ago
      The difference is we (humans) are better at engineering than beavers (not a put down of beavers as they are amazing).
- 7952 11y ago
  And by focussing on the big bad we ignore the more immediate threats that fossil fuel burning causes. The health issues caused by vehicle emissions are well documented yet there is little social pressure against buying dirty cars (which are much more obviously sinful).
Osmium 11y ago
> "Geoengineering raises huge ethical and political questions, nationally and internationally." This is true though. We have some treaties[1][2], but not enough, and it still needs to be thought through. What happens if, say, country A is being badly affected by climate change, and they have the means to pump tonnes of SO2 into the atmosphere? They think it'd help with global warming, but country B doesn't and think it could make the climate worse? Who gets to decide? Do A and B then go to war over this? No disagreement at all that the research should be done, but it raises huge ethical and political questions, and there's nothing wrong with acknowledging that. When it comes to technologies that could change an entire planet's climate, opposition as the default position seems entirely reasonable. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_Modification_Convention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_Modification_Con... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_Biological_Diversity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_Biological_Diver...
- danieltillett 11y ago
  Geoengineering is really no different than any other international issue. Ultimately countries need to agree or go to war as a last resort. None of the scientists in the article are talking about implementing geoengineering - they just want us to do the research so we have options if the worst of the worst happens. In my opinion it is always better to have options when faced with a bad situation rather than none especially if the reason you have no options is because you refused to plan.
hmlty-rqd 11y ago
I'm more sick of arrogant engineering types who continuously belittle anyone outside their own limited bubble. Firstly, he's not a 'self-appointed ethicist', he's a professor appointed by the University of Washington. And your ridiculous straw man about drinking water is not appropriate and serves merely to reflect badly on you. Secondly, he's not 'opposing everything'. He states, quite correctly, that there are large ethical and political implications to any significant form of geoengineering. We regularly see examples of this. For instance, when a major river passes through multiple countries and an upstream country decides to build a dam, reducing or eliminating the flow of the river downstream, potentially affecting hundreds of millions of people. That this has huge ethical and political implications is unquestionable. Similarly, if an entity such as a government or corporation decides to unilaterally modify the climate, this too has ethical and political implications. Even if the actual outcome closely matches what was predicted, such changes may be unwanted by other parties. Furthermore, there could be knock-on effects from changes in one location to elsewhere. For example, suppose the United States engages in climate modification by purposefully increasing rainfall in the south-west US. This may be welcome there, but could have the side-effect of increasing drought elsewhere. I don't see any ethicists opposing geoengineering in principle, they're just pushing for a full debate - which would include many more aspects than just the engineering one.
- danieltillett 11y ago
  >Firstly, he's not a 'self-appointed ethicist', he's a professor appointed by the University of Washington. Yes he is - all “ethicists” are self-appointed. The particular self-appointed ethicist in this article is actually a philosophy professor. I can call myself an ethicist too if I want to - ironically I can’t call myself an engineer. >I don't see any ethicists opposing geoengineering in principle, they're just pushing for a full debate - which would include many more aspects than just the engineering one. Can you actually find one? I have read dozens of posts and papers from these self-appointed ethicists and I have never come across one that supports anything new. They never raise any real reasons to oppose anything new, they just oppose the new because it is new. There is no point having a “debate” about geoengineering unless we actual do some research first to know if it is possible.

stared 11y ago

Climate is a big system and we know only some parts of it. Trying to cure symptoms may have grave consequences. (Think about medicine - there are many tests before it can be used; many early drugs had horrible side-effect. But in the case of Earth we have only one run.)

danieltillett 11y ago
Actually with many medicines you only have one run - it does not matter if a lethal side effect is rare if it happens to affect you. We are already running a massive experiment on the earth; we are pumping huge amounts of green house gases into the atmosphere and we are not really sure what will happen. If things go bad really quickly I would like to have some options (even if high risk) rather than be left with nothing.
- stared 11y ago
  Sure, a medicine may be lethal (but after many trials, errors, cases etc - people developed efficient drugs and medical procedures). But there are many people; it's a big difference if one dies or everyone dies. "Even more experimenting" is a bad idea. The current situation is bad and we should change its causes. (Otherwise it's like healing tooth with painkillers.) Here I would guess that the average value of risk is highly negative (as in any case with dealing with complex systems). And there are many imaginable consequences, which are far worse than the current pace of global worming. E.g. poisoning biosphere, accelerating global warming, etc. And, no, global warming is not an asteroid impact (i.e. killing everyone and everything), so "all or nothing" is a poor mentality (and deadly dangerous!).
  - danieltillett 11y ago
    The people involved in this research are not suggesting we try this - they are suggesting we work on alternatives in case we really need them. I agree 100% that we need to do far more to reduce our emissions, but right now not enough is being done. If we don't get our act together in time, or things on the warming front move faster than everyone hopes, then we need alternatives. We only have one world.

michaelmcdonald 11y ago

Apparently these guys have never watched the movie Snowpiercer...

gdubs 11y ago

The Whole Earth Discipline by Stewart Brand is worth reading if this subject interests you. [1]. Brand created the Whole Earth Catalogue, which inspired the first wave of Silicon Valley PC pioneers (Steve Jobs most famously). It's the catalogue that ends with the phrase "Stay hungry, stay foolish." Brand was a founding member of the "Green" movement, which was formed to combat the predicted "Population Bomb" (something Brand addresses in the book). In later years, Brand has sought more pragmatic viewpoints on the environment. The book specifically address geo-engineering, nuclear power, genetically engineered crops, and other 'hot topics'. I've mentioned it here before, but worth mentioning again because it's a long, enjoyable read -- thought provoking, conversation starter. 1: http://www.amazon.com/Whole-Earth-Discipline-RestoredWildlands-Geoengineering/dp/0143118285 http://www.amazon.com/Whole-Earth-Discipline-RestoredWildlan...