Engineering the Climate (eBook)

The Ethics of Solar Radiation Management

Christopher J. Preston (Herausgeber)

eBook Download: EPUB

2012
274 Seiten
Lexington Books (Verlag)
978-0-7391-7541-5 (ISBN)

Infos

Engineering the Climate: The Ethics of Solar Radiation Management is a wide-ranging and expert analysis of the ethics of the intentional management of solar radiation. This book will be a useful tool for policy-makers, a provocation for ethicists, and an eye-opening analysis for both the scientist and the general reader with interest in climate change.

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Engineering the Climate: The Ethics of Solar Radiation Management discusses the ethical issues associated with deliberately engineering a cooler climate to combat global warming. Climate engineering (also known as geoengineering) has recently experienced a surge of interest given the growing likelihood that the global community will fail to limit the temperature increases associated with greenhouse gases to safe levels. Deliberate manipulation of solar radiation to combat climate change is an exciting and hopeful technical prospect, promising great benefits to those who are in line to suffer most through climate change. At the same time, the prospect of geoengineering creates huge controversy. Taking intentional control of earth's climate would be an unprecedented step in environmental management, raising a number of difficult ethical questions. One particular form of geoengineering, solar radiation management (SRM), is known to be relatively cheap and capable of bringing down global temperatures very rapidly. However, the complexity of the climate system creates considerable uncertainty about the precise nature of SRM's effects in different regions. The ethical issues raised by the prospect of SRM are both complex and thorny. They include: 1) the uncertainty of SRM's effects on precipitation patterns, 2) the challenge of proper global participation in decision-making, 3) the legitimacy of intentionally manipulating the global climate system in the first place, 4) the potential to sidestep the issue of dealing with greenhouse gas emissions, and, 5) the lasting effects on future generations. It has been widely acknowledged that a sustained and scholarly treatment of the ethics of SRM is necessary before it will be possible to make fair and just decisions about whether (or how) to proceed. This book, including essays by 13 experts in the field of ethics of geoengineering, is intended to go some distance towards providing that treatment.

Autor

Christopher J. Preston is an Associate Professor of Environmental Ethics at the University of Montana. He is the author of Saving Creation: Nature and Faith in the Life of Holmes Rolston, III (Trinity University Press, 2009) and Grounding Knowledge: Environmental Philosophy, Epistemology, and Place (University of Georgia Press, 2003), an edited collection of essays titled Nature Value, and Duty: Life on Earth with Holmes Rolston, III (Springer, 2007), and a special issue of the journal Ethics and the Environment on the “Epistemic Significance of Place."

Inhalt

Introduction: The Extraordinary Ethics of Solar Radiation ManagementChristopher J. PrestonPart I. Present and Future GenerationsChapter 1: Geoengineering, Solidarity, and Moral RiskMarion HourdequinChapter 2: Might Solar Radiation Management Constitute a Dilemma? Konrad OttChapter 3: Domination and the Ethics of Solar Radiation ManagementPatrick Taylor SmithPart II. Marginalized, Vulnerable, and Voiceless PopulationsChapter 4: Indigenous Peoples, Solar Radiation Management, and ConsentKyle Powys WhyteChapter 5: Solar Radiation Management and Vulnerable Populations: The Moral Deficit and its ProspectsChristopher J. PrestonChapter 6: Solar Radiation Management and Non-human SpeciesRonald SandlerPart III. Moral Hazards and Hidden BenefitsChapter 7: The World That Would Have Been: Moral Hazard Arguments Against GeoengineeringBen HaleChapter 8: Climate Remediation to Address Social Development Challenges: Going Beyond Cost Benefit and Risk Approaches to Assessing Solar Radiation ManagementHolly Jean BuckPart IV. Ethics of Framing and RhetoricChapter 9: Insurance Policy or Technological Fix: The Ethical Implications of Framing Solar Radiation ManagementDane ScottChapter 10: Public Concerns About the Ethics of Solar Radiation ManagementWylie Carr, Ashley Mercer, and Clare PalmerPart V. The Cultural MilieuChapter 11: The Setting of the Scene: Technological Fixes and the Design of the Good LifeAlbert BorgmannChapter 12: Between Babel and Pelagius: Religion, Theology, and GeoengineeringForrest ClingermanChapter 13: Making Climates: Solar Radiation Management and the Ethics of Fabrication” by Maia Galarraga and Bronislaw Szerszynski

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 28.6.2012
• Co-Autor: Albert Borgmann, Clare Palmer, Ronald Sandler, Dane Scott, Patrick Taylor Smith, Bronislaw Szerszynski, Kyle Powys Whyte, Holly Jean Buck, Wylie Carr, Forrest Clingerman, Maialen Galarraga, Benjamin Hale, Marion Hourdequin, Ashley Mercer, Konrad Ott
• Zusatzinfo: 2 Illustrations including: - 1 Black & White Illustrations; - 1 Tables.
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Allgemeines / Lexika
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Ethik
• Themenwelt: Naturwissenschaften ► Biologie ► Ökologie / Naturschutz
• Themenwelt: Naturwissenschaften ► Physik / Astronomie ► Atom- / Kern- / Molekularphysik
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
• Schlagworte: Applied Ethics • climate change • Environmental Ethics • ethics • Geoengineering • philosophy of science • Philosophy of science and the environment
• ISBN-10: 0-7391-7541-6 / 0739175416
• ISBN-13: 978-0-7391-7541-5 / 9780739175415