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Technologies shape who we are, how we organize our societies and how we relate to nature. For example, social media challenges democracy; artificial intelligence raises the question of what is unique to humans; and the possibility to create artificial wombs may affect notions of motherhood and birth. Some have suggested that we address global warming by engineering the climate, but how does this impact our responsibility to future generations and our relation to nature? This book shows how technologies can be socially and conceptually disruptive and investigates how to come to terms with this disruptive potential. Four technologies are studied: social media, social robots, climate engineering and artificial wombs. The authors highlight the disruptive potential of these technologies, and the new questions this raises. The book also discusses responses to conceptual disruption, like conceptual engineering, the deliberate revision of concepts., Ethics & Philosophy of Technology

Ocean iron fertilization (OIF) aims to remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere by stimulating phytoplankton carbon‐fixation and subsequent deep ocean carbon sequestration in iron‐limited oceanic regions. Transdisciplinary assessments of OIF have revealed overwhelming challenges around the detection and verification of carbon sequestration and wide‐ranging environmental side‐effects, thereby dampening enthusiasm for OIF. Here, we utilize five requirements that strongly influence whether OIF can lead to atmospheric CO2 removal (CDR): The requirement (a) to use preformed nutrients from the lower overturning circulation cell; (b) for prevailing iron‐limitation; (c) for sufficient underwater light for photosynthesis; (d) for efficient carbon sequestration; (e) for sufficient air‐sea CO2 transfer. We systematically evaluate these requirements using observational, experimental, and numerical data in an “informed back‐of‐the‐envelope approach” to generate circumpolar maps of OIF (cost‐)efficiency south of 60°S. Results suggest that (cost‐)efficient CDR is restricted to locations on the Antarctic Shelf. Here, CDR costs can be <100 US$/tonne CO2 while they are mainly >>1,000 US$/tonne CO2 in offshore regions of the Southern Ocean, where mesoscale OIF experiments have previously been conducted. However, sensitivity analyses underscore that (cost‐)efficiency is in all cases associated with large variability and are thus difficult to predict, which reflects our insufficient understanding of the relevant biogeochemical and physical processes. While OIF implementation on Antarctic shelves appears most (cost‐)efficient, it raises legal questions because regions close to Antarctica fall under three overlapping layers of international law. Furthermore, the constraints set by (cost‐)efficiency reduce the area suitable for OIF, thereby likely reducing its maximum CDR potential.

Technologies shape who we are, how we organize our societies and how we relate to nature. For example, social media challenges democracy; artificial intelligence raises the question of what is unique to humans; and the possibility to create artificial wombs may affect notions of motherhood and birth. Some have suggested that we address global warming by engineering the climate, but how does this impact our responsibility to future generations and our relation to nature? This book shows how technologies can be socially and conceptually disruptive and investigates how to come to terms with this disruptive potential. Four technologies are studied: social media, social robots, climate engineering and artificial wombs. The authors highlight the disruptive potential of these technologies, and the new questions this raises. The book also discusses responses to conceptual disruption, like conceptual engineering, the deliberate revision of concepts.

Solar geoengineering is gaining prominence in climate change debates as an issue worth studying; for some it is even a potential future policy option. We argue here against this increasing normalization of solar geoengineering as a speculative part of the climate policy portfolio. We contend, in particular, that solar geoengineering at planetary scale is not governable in a globally inclusive and just manner within the current international political system. We therefore call upon governments and the United Nations to take immediate and effective political control over the development of solar geoengineering technologies. Specifically, we advocate for an International Non-Use Agreement on Solar Geoengineering and outline the core elements of this proposal.

Solar geoengineering is gaining prominence in climate change debates as an issue worth studying; for some it is even a potential future policy option. We argue here against this increasing normalization of solar geoengineering as a speculative part of the climate policy portfolio. We contend, in particular, that solar geoengineering at planetary scale is not governable in a globally inclusive and just manner within the current international political system. We therefore call upon governments and the United Nations to take immediate and effective political control over the development of solar geoengineering technologies. Specifically, we advocate for an International Non-Use Agreement on Solar Geoengineering and outline the core elements of this proposal. This article is categorized under: Policy and Governance > International Policy Framework

In ethical reflections on new technologies, a specific type of argument often pops up, which criticizes scientists for "playing God" with these new technological possibilities. The first part of this article is an examination of how these arguments have been interpreted in the literature. Subsequently, this article aims to reinterpret these arguments as symbolic arguments: they are grounded not so much in a set of ontological or empirical claims, but concern symbolic classificatory schemes that ground our value judgments in the first place. Invoking symbolic arguments thus refers to how certain new technologies risk undermining our fundamental symbolic distinctions by which we organize and evaluate our interactions with the world and in society. Such symbolic distinctions, moreover, tend to be resilient against logical argumentation, mainly because they themselves form the basis on which we argue in the cultural and ethical sphere in the first place. Therefore, effective strategies to evaluate and counter these arguments require another approach, showing that these technologies either do not challenge these classifications or, if they do, how they can be accompanied by the proper actions to integrate these technologies into our society.

Due to the renewed increase in CO2 emissions seen in recent years, the deployment of climate engineering technologies might become necessary if the global temperature increase is to be kept within 1.5 °C. If climate engineering is to be deployed, however, public support is required. The present study hence compared public support for a broad range of climate engineering technologies. Further, the factors that drive public support were investigated and compared across the technologies. In an online survey conducted in Switzerland, respondents (n = 1,575) were randomly allocated to the description of 1 of 10 climate engineering technologies, of which 7 were specific carbon dioxide removal measures and 3 were solar radiation management measures. The results show that the level of public support for afforestation was the highest. The levels of public support for the other climate engineering technologies were relatively similar, although a tendency for solar radiation management to have a lower level of support was identified. Across all the investigated climate engineering technologies, the perceived benefits were an important driver of public support. Additionally, for all the technologies but afforestation, a higher level of trust in industry/science/government increased the level of public support, whereas the factor perceived risks and tampering with nature was found to be a negative predictor of support. The present findings suggest that there are opportunities available for the deployment of several climate engineering technologies in combination with other mitigation measures. Communicating the benefits of such technologies might be an effective strategy in terms of fostering increased support.

Temporary stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) using sulphate compounds could help to mitigate some of the adverse and irreversible impacts of global warming. Among the risks and uncertainties of SAI, the development of a delivery system presents an appreciable technical challenge. Early studies indicate that specialised aircraft appear the most feasible (McClelan et al., Aurora Flight Sciences,2010; Smith and Wagner,Environ Res Lett13(12),2018). Yet, their technical design characteristics, financial cost of deployment, and emissions have yet to be studied in detail. Therefore, these topics are examined in this two- part study. This first part outlines a set of injection scenarios and proposes a detailed, feasible aircraft design. Part 2 considers the resulting financial cost and equivalent CO(2)emissions spanned by the scenarios and aircraft. Our injection scenarios comprise the direct injection of H(2)SO(4)vapour over a range of possible dispersion rates and an SO(2)injection scenario for comparison. To accommodate the extreme demands of delivering large payloads to high altitudes, a coupled optimisation procedure is used to design the system. This results in an unmanned aircraft configuration featuring a large, slender, strut-braced wing and four custom turbofan engines. The aircraft is designed to carry high-temperature H2SO4, which is evaporated prior to injection into a single outboard engine plume. Optimised flight profiles are produced for each injection scenario, all involving an initial climb to an outgoing dispersion leg at 20 km altitude, followed by a return dispersion leg at a higher altitude of 20.5 km. All the scenarios considered are found to be technologically and logistically attainable. However, the results demonstrate that achieving high engine plume dispersion rates is of principal importance for containing the scale of SAI delivery systems based on direct H(2)SO(4)injection, and to keep these competitive with systems based on SO(2)injection.

Much in Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) is part of a participatory turn within the Technology Assessment (TA) and Science and Technology Studies (STS) community. This has an influence also on the evaluation of Climate Engineering (CE) options, as it will be shown by reference to the SPICE project. The SPICE example and the call for democratisation of science and innovation raise some interesting concerns for the normative evaluation of CE options that will be addressed in the paper. It is by far not clear, or so it will be argued, how much of the innovation process of CE technologies should be put in the hands of social actors and the wider public. This is due not only to special features about CE technologies but also to some more principle concerns against some features of participatory RRI approaches. Still, this does by no way mean that ethical and societal issues in the context of CE technologies should be ignored. Rather, the paper will argue that one can take a step back to expert TA linked to the evolution of approaches of ethical impact analysis in this area. This does not only lead to reconsider the emphasis on participation and democratisation of research and innovation, but also opens up for an alternative evaluative framework for CE technologies developed in the last part of the paper. “Somewhere along the line I slipped off track. I’m caught movin’ one step up and two steps back”. Two lines from the song “One Step Up” by Bruce Springsteen, Fonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung P31527, Version of record

The interdisciplinary exchange in climate engineering research offers a unique opportunity to make assumptions more explicit for such research projects. While making assumptions explicit is the standard in all disciplinary sciences, some assumptions in the context of societal challenges can only be usefully unveiled, discussed, and verified from the perspective of other research disciplines. Results from successful interdisciplinary collaborations are then more accessible and more generalizable to actors beyond the confines of the academic community. We aim to illustrate how interdisciplinary exchange helps to unveil assumptions in research endeavors and why this is important for successful interdisciplinary collaborations. We therefore follow different stages of the German Priority Program on Climate Engineering (SPP 1689), which we use as an example case of a successful interdisciplinary project. SPP 1689 focused on risks, challenges, and opportunities of Climate Engineering from the perspectives of numerous disciplines. Major results were that the initial assessments of technologies had to be sobered, the consideration of trade-offs is crucial for the potential assessment, and governance issues appeared larger than previously considered. From the reflections of SPP 1689, we conclude with three lessons learned: (1) The project profited from egalitarian organizational structures and communicative practices, preventing the predominance from single disciplines. (2) Within the project continuous efforts were undertaken to foster interdisciplinary understanding. In addition, the flexible project structure allowed for the accommodation of research needs arising as a result of these exchanges. (3) SPP 1689 offered early career researchers a platform for professional exchange on common challenges and best practices of being a part of an interdisciplinary research project.

This thesis aimed to identify what arguments are made and who is dominating the discourse about climate engineering in German newspapers. Climate engineering refers to methods that deliberately change the environment as a means to combat climate change. To answer these questions, the author conducted a Critical Discourse Analysis of articles about climate engineering published in German newspapers between January 2015 and March 2019. This analysis shows that the main argument in the articles is that climate engineering is necessary to limit global warming to a maximum of 1.5°C, compared to pre-industrial levels, and thereby advert catastrophic consequences of climate change. At the same time, climate engineering is described as being ignored by politicians and questions related to justice and costs of the implementations are barely mentioned. The discourse is dominated by a small group of predominantly male researchers from Germany and the US, some of which have financial interests in large-scale climate engineering deployment. These findings point to a need for more actors, especially with a clear focus on justice, in the German public discourse about climate engineering to make sure the technologies contribute to achieving climate justice and are not used as an excuse to maintain business as usual.

Während die sozialwissenschaftliche Forschung der Klimabewegung eine wichtige Rolle in der Klimapolitik zuschreibt, wird das Verhältnis zivilgesellschaftlicher Akteure zu klimarelevanten technologischen Entwicklungen wenig reflektiert. In unserem Beitrag bearbeiten wir daher die Frage, wie kollektive Akteure der Klimabewegung die Themen Kohleausstieg und Climate Engineering politisieren. Zu diesem Zweck untersuchen wir vier zivilgesellschaftliche Akteure hinsichtlich ihrer Technologieorientierung und Partizipationsformen. Der Kohleausstieg steht dabei für die Überwindung einer Technologie, Climate Engineering hingegen für frühe zivilgesellschaftliche Reaktionen auf neue Technologiedebatten. Der Fallvergleich auf Basis qualitativer Inhaltsanalyse gibt Hinweise auf spezifische Herausforderungen der zivilgesellschaftlichen Politisierung technologiebezogener Themen in der Klimapolitik.

Analyses of climate engineering (CE) governance have accelerated in the last decade. A key claim is that CE remains a largely ungoverned space, with shared norms, institutional arrangements, and formal rules to regulate CE not yet present. In contrast, here it is argued that de facto governance of CE is underway, discernible in an ordering of this nascent field of inquiry by unacknowledged sources of steering. One key source of de facto governance is analyzed: high-level ‘authoritative assessments’ of CE. The focus is on how these assessments are constructing CE as an object of governance through demarcating and categorizing this emerging field of inquiry, and how this contributes to normalizing and institutionalizing CE research (and CE research communities). Scrutinizing the distinct nature and political implications of de facto governance, particularly of novel and speculative technological trajectories not yet subject to formal steering, remains a key task for governance scholars.

This dissertation investigates the ways in which societies are coming to know and govern solar geoengineering. The question at the heart of this dissertation is not whether solar geoengineering will succeed, or even whether it should, but rather what makes it --- and its governance --- imaginable. To this end, the bulk of this dissertation aimed to analyze the co-production of the evidence --- and governance assumptions --- for a sociotechnical system that does not yet exist. To do so, I draw on work in science and technology studies (STS) and political science to elucidate and analyze the political and scientific claims underpinning expert attempts to capture the public imagination and put solar geoengineering on mainstream public policy agendas. I argue that the ability to put an emerging technology on the public agenda constitutes an exercise of power, determined neither by social structures nor entrepreneurial social actors alone, and entails its own, oft-neglected, evidentiary politics.Decades of scholarship in the interpretive social sciences demonstrates that framing and producing technoscience requires imaginative as much as technical work. Sheila Jasanoff's concept of `sociotechnical imaginaries' offers a useful point of entry into these dynamics. Sociotechnical imaginaries describe ``collectively held, institutionally stabilized, and publicly performed visions of desirable futures'' co-produced with advances in science and technology. As a theoretical concept, imaginaries help to explain why some visions of scientific and social order are co-produced, while others are not. Coupling this work with responsible research and innovation (RRI), which is concerned with the responsible steering of technoscientific developments, draws attention to the ways these imaginaries may play a vital role in the development, assessment, and governance of emerging technologies in the present, making scrutiny of their content and prospects for institutionalization urgent and t

Geoengineering, the technofix to climate change, is a complex, contentious and high-stakes proposal. Yet in the absence of credible long-term global emissions reduction, the idea cannot be overlooked. To ensure that geoengineering contributes to sustainable environmental and social outcomes, a forward-looking, inclusive and reflexive decision-making framework is needed. Instead, Australia’s history on climate policy reflects a short- sighted, impulsive and polarised approach. The motivation of this project is therefore to inform sustainable geoengineering governance in Australia. Within a sustainable governance context, scenarios are often used in the management of long-term, complex, and uncertain issues. This thesis investigates how a scenario exercise can inform sustainable geoengineering governance in Australia. The sustainability focus justifies an interdisciplinary mixed-methods approach. The thesis begins by surveying the present before interrogating the future and is presented as a compilation of five papers. First, the thesis explores from an Earth System Governance perspective what global geoengineering governance exists and how this might evolve. The analysis characterises geoengineering governance as governance-by-default where there is no purposive regulation—decisions are guided by existing norms and driven by the motivations of engaged academics. Given the influence of these actors, the research examines, through a systematic quantitative review, the types of geoengineering governance frameworks proposed in academic and non-academic literature. The study finds that the challenges of geoengineering governance can be likened to issues in other policy domains but suggests that normalising the debate thusly could obscure major threats and novel opportunities. Next, a meta-analysis of geoengineering scenarios is undertaken. It finds that the treatment of geoengineering within these scenarios does not align with sustainability concepts. An emphasis on techn

This paper examines how notions of equity are being evoked by expert advocates of more research into solar geoengineering. We trace how specific understandings of equity figure centrally—although not always explicitly—in these expert visions. We find that understandings of equity in such “vanguard visions” are narrowly conceived as epistemic challenges, answerable by (more) scientific analysis. Major concerns about equity are treated as empirical matters, requiring scientific assessment of feasibility, risks, or “win–win” distributive outcomes and optimizations, with concurrent calls to delimit risk or reduce scientific uncertainties. We argue that such epistemic framings sidestep, inter alia, the inequality in resources available to diverse non-experts—including the “vulnerable” evoked in expert visions—to project their own equity perspectives onto imagined technological pathways of the future. These may include concerns relating to moral or historical responsibility and/or lack of agency in shaping the directions of innovation. We conclude that the performative power and political implications of specific expert visions of equity, evoked as a rationale to undertake solar geoengineering research, require continued scrutiny.

Artificial ocean alkalinization (AOA) is investigated as a method to mitigate local ocean acidification and protect tropical coral ecosystems during a 21st century high CO2 emission scenario. Employing an Earth system model of intermediate complexity, our implementation of AOA in the Great Barrier Reef, Caribbean Sea and South China Sea regions, shows that alkalinization has the potential to counteract expected 21st century local acidification in regard to both oceanic surface aragonite saturation Omega and surface pCO(2). Beyond preventing local acidification, regional AOA, however, results in locally elevated aragonite oversaturation and pCO(2) decline. A notable consequence of stopping regional AOA is a rapid shift back to the acidified conditions of the target regions. We conclude that AOA may be a method that could help to keep regional coral ecosystems within saturation states and pCO(2) values close to present-day values even in a high-emission scenario and thereby might 'buy some time' against the ocean acidification threat, even though regional AOA does not significantly mitigate the warming threat.

Paul Crutzen’s 2006 call for geoengineering research triggered public debate in the mass media of several countries. Since then, a common belief among numerous involved scientists has been that more geoengineering experimentation or research is needed and that geoengineering should be carefully considered in a precautionary way as an emergency option or ‘Plan B’. Despite the controversial potential of geoengineering in terms of mega-risks, ethical dilemmas and governance challenges, public geoengineering debate in the daily press from 2006 to 2013 was heavily dominated by accounts of scientists’ arguments for more geoengineering research or even deployment, only about 8% of mass media articles expressing criticism of geoengineering. However, based on a reading of 700 articles published worldwide in 2014 and 2015, we demonstrate a gradual shift in the coverage, and the daily press now primarily reports critical views of geoengineering technologies. The patterns outlined here point in the same direction: It seems as though the grand idea of geoengineering as Plan B is fading., LUCE

Calls for moratoria are a frequent response to controversial issues in international diplomacy and control of technology, and are now prominent in debates over governance challenges posed by climate engineering (CE) – intentional modification of the global climate to reduce changes caused by human emissions of greenhouse gases. Based on twelve historical cases of moratoria in other areas of diplomatic conflict or controversial science and technology, we present a novel analytic framework to examine purposes, design characteristics, and conditions for effectiveness of moratoria, based on a taxonomy of three ideal moratorium types: risk-management moratoria, principled-conflict moratoria, and bargaining moratoria. We use this framework to examine potential contributions and design conditions for a moratorium on CE. A moratorium for CE could seek primarily to advance risk-management aims or bargaining aims, with distinct implications for its timing, scope, associated actors, and conditions for termination. Beyond the current, high-stakes case of CE, the proposed analytic framework has broader implications for critical examination of moratorium proposals, current and future, in other areas of controversial research, technology, and governance challenges.

Large-scale biomass plantations (BPs) are often considered a feasible and safe climate engineering proposal for extracting carbon from the atmosphere and, thereby, reducing global mean temperatures. However, the capacity of such terrestrial carbon dioxide removal (tCDR) strategies and their larger Earth system impacts remain to be comprehensively studied—even more so under higher carbon emissions and progressing climate change. Here, we use a spatially explicit process-based biosphere model to systematically quantify the potentials and trade-offs of a range of BP scenarios dedicated to tCDR, representing different assumptions about which areas are convertible. Based on a moderateCO2 concentration pathway resulting in a global mean warming of 2.5° Cabove preindustrial level by the end of this century—similar to the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 4.5—we assume tCDR to be implemented when a warming of 1.5 °Cis reached in year 2038. Our results show that BPs can slow down the progression of increasing cumulative carbon in the atmosphere only sufficiently if emissions are reduced simultaneously like in the underlying RCP4.5 trajectory. The potential of tCDR to balance additional, unabated emissions leading towards a business-as-usual pathway alike RCP8.5 is therefore very limited. Furthermore, in the required largescale applications, these plantations would induce significant trade-offs with food production and biodiversity and exert impacts on forest extent, biogeochemical cycles and biogeophysical properties., Peer Reviewed

Solar geoengineering (SGE) is a controversial proposed technology which aims to address global warming by the ongoing injection of sulphate aerosols into the stratosphere, thereby reducing incoming sunlight and cooling the Earth. Once ‘taboo’, SGE has re-emerged since the mid-2000s as a proposal from a section of the climate science community. It has not yet been ‘normalised’ as an acceptable or accepted addition to the existing cornerstone climate policies of mitigation and adaptation. I analyse SGE in an attempt to understand what travels with this emerging technology. I adopt an analysis rooted in traditions of critical thought, and focus on analysing the major institutional assessments of SGE and the ideas of SGE’s key experts and ‘knowledge-brokers’. In the process I analyse how SGE is imagined by both its opponents and proponents. I address three main questions. Firstly, what is at stake in SGE’s re-emergence? Here I focus on understanding three things. These are SGE’s power effects and SGE’s insertion into existing relations and structures of power (geo-politically, economically and socially); the knowledge systems, epistemologies, assumptions and hierarchies which are brought to bear in developing and assessing the technology; and the competing values and worldviews which infuse the arguments of both its proponents and opponents. Secondly, I ask what are the differences and continuities between SGE now and geoengineering previously? Thirdly, I ask what is constraining SGE from being embraced and ‘normalised’ as a third leg of climate policy. I argue that SGE is best understood as a sociotechnical project rather than as simply a technology to combat climate change. The widely-acknowledged ethical and governance issues which attach to SGE are not simply complications. They are intrinsic to the technology and wrapped up in the idea itself. I show how different sociotechnical imaginaries of SGE coexist, none of them hegemonic. These are the oppositional ‘Un-natu

Climate change has significant implications for biodiversity and ecosystems. With slow progress towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions, climate engineering (or ‘geoengineering’) is receiving increasing attention for its potential to limit anthropogenic climate change and its damaging effects. Proposed techniques, such as ocean fertilization for carbon dioxide removal or stratospheric sulfate injections to reduce incoming solar radiation, would significantly alter atmospheric, terrestrial and marine environments, yet potential side-effects of their implementation for ecosystems and biodiversity have received little attention. A literature review was carried out to identify details of the potential ecological effects of climate engineering techniques. A group of biodiversity and environmental change researchers then employed a modified Delphi expert consultation technique to evaluate this evidence and prioritize the effects based on the relative importance of, and scientific understanding about, their biodiversity and ecosystem consequences. The key issues and knowledge gaps are used to shape a discussion of the biodiversity and ecosystem implications of climate engineering, including novel climatic conditions, alterations to marine systems and substantial terrestrial habitat change. This review highlights several current research priorities in which the climate engineering context is crucial to consider, as well as identifying some novel topics for ecological investigation.

Ambitious climate targets, such as the 2 °C target, are likely to require the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Afforestation is one such mitigation option but could, through the competition for land, also lead to food prices hikes. In addition, afforestation often decreases land-surface albedo and the amount of short-wave radiation reflected back to space, which results in a warming effect. In particular in the boreal zone, such biophysical warming effects following from afforestation are estimated to offset the cooling effect from carbon sequestration. We assessed the food price response of afforestation, and considered the albedo effect with scenarios in which afforestation was restricted to certain latitudinal zones. In our study, afforestation was incentivized by a globally uniform reward for carbon uptake in the terrestrial biosphere. This resulted in large-scale afforestation (2580 Mha globally) and substantial carbon sequestration (860 GtCO2) up to the end of the century. However, it was also associated with an increase in food prices of about 80% by 2050 and a more than fourfold increase by 2100. When afforestation was restricted to the tropics the food price response was substantially reduced, while still almost 60% cumulative carbon sequestration was achieved. In the medium term, the increase in prices was then lower than the increase in income underlying our scenario projections. Moreover, our results indicate that more liberalised trade in agricultural commodities could buffer the food price increases following from afforestation in tropical regions., Seventh Framework Programme http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100004963, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100001659, Open Access Fund of the Leibniz Association, Peer Reviewed

The literature on climate engineering, or geoengineering, covers a wide range of potential methods for solar radiation management or carbon dioxide removal that vary in technical aspects, temporal and spatial scales, potential environmental impacts, and legal, ethical, and governance challenges. This paper presents a comprehensive review of social and natural science papers on this topic since 2006 and listed in SCOPUS andWeb of Science. It adds to previous literature reviews by combining analyses of bibliometric patterns and of trends in how the technologies are framed in terms of content, motivations, stakes, and recommendations. Most peer-reviewed climate engineering literature does not weigh the risks and new, additional, benefits of the various technologies, but emphasizes either the potential dangers of climate engineering or the climate change consequences of refraining from considering the research, development, demonstration, and/or deployment of climate engineering technologies. To analyse this polarity, not prevalent in the literature on earlier emerging technologies, we explore the concept of dual high-stake technologies. As appeals to fear have proven ineffective in spurring public engagement in climate change, we may not expect significant public support for climate engineering technologies whose rationale is not to achieve benefits in addition to avoiding the high stakes of climate change. Furthermore, in designing public engagement exercises, researchers must be careful not to steer discussions by emphasizing one type of stake framing over another. A dual high-stake, rather than risk–benefit, framing should also be considered in analysing some emerging technologies with similar characteristics, for example, nanotechnology for pollution control., Social representations of novel dual high-stake technologies: the case of geoengineering (VR 2012-1101), Making sense of geoengineering (Formas 2012-725)

Recently, climate engineering and particularly sulphur aerosol injection (SAI) have entered the arena of international climate change politics. The idea behind SAI is very simple: to reflect sunlight and heat back into space by injecting particles into the stratosphere. SAI has the theoretical potential to moderate anthropogenic climate change in a timely fashion and at very low costs but may also cause major environmental harm. Determining the future of SAI will entail dealing with many major uncertainties such as assessing risks, costs and benefits. This paper critically investigates scientific knowledge production under conditions of major uncertainty. It discusses how uncertainty, ethics and social considerations are treated in the SAI literature, which applies techno-economic models. In the simplest studies, important uncertainties are excluded from the models, but the more complex studies include many uncertainties, which may have considerable influence on the results and recommendations. In some cases the modelled results are overshadowed or strengthened by ethical discussions or methodological reflexivity that emphasize uncertainties and model limitations. There seems to be ambivalence between constructing certainty, on one hand, and an awareness of methodological limitations, on the other. Finally, the value of these papers for decision-makers and other concerned groups is discussed., LUCE

Climate engineering, the intentional alteration of Earth's climate, is a multifaceted and controversial topic. Numerous climate engineering mechanisms (CEMs) have been proposed, and the efficacies and potential undesired consequences of some of them have been studied in the safe environments of numerical models. Here, we present a global modelling study of a so far understudied CEM, namely the seeding of cirrus clouds to reduce their lifetimes in the upper troposphere, and hence their greenhouse effect. Different from most CEMs, the intention of cirrus seeding is not to reduce the amount of solar radiation reaching Earth's surface. This particular CEM rather targets the greenhouse effect, by reducing the trapping of infrared radiation by high clouds. This avoids some of the caveats that have been identified for solar radiation management, for example, the delayed recovery of stratospheric ozone or drastic changes to Earth's hydrological cycle. We find that seeding of mid- and high-latitude cirrus clouds has the potential to cool the planet by about 1.4 K, and that this cooling is accompanied by only a modest reduction in rainfall. Intriguingly, seeding of the 15% of the globe with the highest solar noon zenith angles at any given time yields the same global mean cooling as a seeding strategy that involves 45% of the globe. In either case, the cooling is strongest at high latitudes, and could therefore serve to prevent Arctic sea ice loss. With the caveat that there are still significant uncertainties associated with ice nucleation in cirrus clouds and its representation in climate models, cirrus seeding appears to represent a powerful CEM with reduced side effects.

Geoengineering, i.e., the deliberate manipulation of the global climate using grand-scale technologies, poses new challenges in terms of environmental risks and human–nature relationships. Until recently, these technologies were considered science fiction, but they are now being reconsidered by researchers, leading to an emerging public debate. Our aim is to improve our understanding of the public discourse on geoengineering in mass media. We analyze 1500 articles published from 2005 to 2013, constructing four coherent storylines that represent most of the geoengineering advocacy in the public discourse in mass media. We scrutinize inconsistencies in this discourse and argue that geoengineering may be the first example of a grand-scale technology that in some important respects has clear postmodern tendencies: geoengineering advocacy, for example, is not based on objective truth claims of the natural sciences and does not promise a better world, LUCE

As forecasts for climate change and its impacts have become more dire, climate engineering proposals have come under increasing consideration and are presently moving toward field trials. This article examines the relevant international environmental law, distinguishing between climate engineering research and deployment. It also emphasizes the climate change context of these proposals and the enabling function of law. Extant international environmental law generally favors such field tests, in large part because, even though field trials may present uncertain risks to humans and the environment, climate engineering may reduce the greater risks of climate change. Notably, this favorable legal setting is present in those multilateral environmental agreements whose subject matter is closest to climate engineering. This favorable legal setting is also, in part, due to several relevant multilateral environmental agreements that encourage scientific research and technological development, along with the fact that climate engineering research is consistent with principles of international environmental law. Existing international law, however, imposes some procedural duties on States who are responsible for climate engineering field research as well as a handful of particular prohibitions and constraints.

Aufbauend auf den Ergebnissen einer Literatur- und Medienanalyse wurde erstmals zum Thema Climate Engineering ein sogenanntes Gruppen-Delphi durchgeführt, um aktuelle und argumentativ fundierte Einschätzungen von Experten zu den möglichen sozialen und kulturellen Folgen von Climate Engineering, insbesondere auch in Deutschland, zu erhalten. Die Ergebnisse dieser diskursiven Form der Expertenbefragung zeigen deutlich, dass die Verfahren des Climate Engineering differenziert betrachtet und bewertet werden müssen. Auf Akzeptanzprobleme stoßen vor allem Maßnahmen, bei denen hohe Unsicherheit über die potenziellen Nebenwirkungen besteht. In der Literatur und unter den Experten besteht Einigkeit darüber, dass es bereits jetzt, in der Frühphase der Entwicklung von Climate Engineering-Strategien, notwendig sei, die Bürger über diese Technologien und Strategien aufzuklären., Based on a review of the social science literature and media analysis about impacts of climate engineering, the authors conducted a Group Delphi study in order to obtain calibrated expert assessments and judgements about the potential social and cultural consequences of climate engineering. Twelve experts from the social sciences, communication studies, and the natural sciences participated in the assessment exercise. The aim of the Delphi was to ascertain how the potential deployment of particular climate engineering technologies is likely to be perceived and evaluated by stakeholders, the media, and the general public in the future. In addition, the experts were asked to delineate lessons for political communication and participation strategies based on their assessments. Consensus exists in the literature and among the Delphi participants that, even at this early stage in the development of climate engineering, it is necessary to provide the public with background information about the topic. The extent of public outrage and social conflicts will depend on the technology chosen for climate engineering: the emission of sulphur dioxide aerosols in the stratosphere would produce most protest and conflict, followed by ocean fertilization, cloud seeding, and massive afforestation in descending order.

Climate engineering, or geoengineering, is large-scale technological intervention in the global climate system. How is this understood within our culture, what power relations are implied in the idea, and what are geoengineering's implications for sustainability? This thesis begins to examine this topic through the lens of culture by presenting a media analysis. It combines the quantitative method of content analysis with qualitative methods of discourse analysis to examine how geoengineering is represented in the popular media, and discusses the implications of these representations for governance. In particular, the thesis examines how representations of geoengineering function in the landscape of new media, and how these representations might enable or disable public participation in geoengineering decision-making. After the dominant narratives by which we understand geoengineering are identified, the thesis discusses the historical and social construction of these narratives and how they might be changed to incorporate visions of a climate that is both democratically decided upon and sustainable.

Lovelock (2009) hopes that few million Homo sapiens will survive the climate changes and will find some "ecological lifeboats" to preserve civilization: "As part of Gaia, our presence begins to make the planet sentient. We should be proud that we could be part of this huge step, one that may help Gaia survive as as the sun continues its slow but ineluctable increase of heat output, making the solar system an increasingly hostile future environment." Lovelock (2009) is clearly aware of the difficulties of developing a mutualistic relationship between humans and Gaia: "There is no set of rules or prescription for living with Gaia, there are only consequences." Gaia is a unifying concept in a sea of highly specialized information. Specialized information is essential, but is most effectively integrated withn a particular context.