Comments on: GEO-ENGINEERING: DENIAL ON A GLOBAL SCALE

By: Ian

Ian — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 23:18:23 +0000

As you know, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are already way too high. We need to throw everything we have at climate change at this stage. Radical emissions cuts, energy supply and demand cuts, renewables, and perhaps also geo-engineering. While I wouldn’t endorse any barely-scientific leaps of folly, it would be wrong to oppose these technological aides on ideological grounds, just as it would be wrong to support geo-engineering on the belief that it would make the continuation of the status quo possible.

By: Royal Society: Stop emitting CO2 or geoengineering could be our only hope | Climate Change HEALTH

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 09:57:43 +0000

[...] In contrast, this article from the Climate Change Denial website suggests that such projects represent denial of climate change on a global scale. [...]

By: paul

paul — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 11:28:42 +0000

Related article published in New Scientist:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17716-top-science-body-calls-for-geoengineering-plan-b.html

(Sep 2009)

By: Adam Corner

Adam Corner — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 11:00:41 +0000

Jon – thanks for your comments…

1. Im not sure that I understand your first question – you’re asking for some reasons why exacerbating inequality is a bad thing?

It seems to me that while not everyone in the world would subscribe to utilitarianism, most coherent ideologies that can stand up to moral scrutiny do not aim to increase human inequality…yet, in a laissez-faire capitalist economy, intoxicated with grand visions of techno-dominance, supposedly ‘revolutionary’ technological advances turn out to be exactly the opposite: very unrevolutionary tools of maintaining or widening the gap between the haves and the have-nots. Simply plugging new technology into a world order that is riddled with inequality is unlikely to be a panacea for anything. So, I suppose my point is that perhaps a world dominated by profit-seeking multinationals is NOT a coherent ideology that can stand up to moral scrutiny…and throwing geoengineering into the mix is only going to make things worse

2. Yes, the arguments I make could be formulated against almost any new major technological advance – but geoengineering is special in the sense that it is being framed as the ’solution’ to the biggest ‘problem’ we have: climate change. Nanotechnology, synthetic biology, biofuels etc etc all have their social and ethical risks attached, and many of them overlap with geoengineering. But while there is always a ‘pull’ with developing new technology, there is an added ‘push’ with geoengineering.

By: Jon Turney

Jon Turney — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 11:09:18 +0000

A couple of questions…
“The more important issue is whether we can engineer our way out of trouble in a way that does not exacerbate existing inequalities.”
I’m sympathetic to that, but is there an argument for why it is more important? Or do we just have to acceot it as assertion?
And:
“To believe that the unprecedented power of geo-engineering will not be wielded by the rich and the powerful at the expense of the weak and the vulnerable is more than simply wide-eyed techno-optimism: It amounts to a comprehensive denial of political reality.”
This is, I suppose, a generic argument against any powerful new technology? One could substitute “biofuels” or “synthetic biology” here, yes?

By: Derek Wall

Derek Wall — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 08:40:04 +0000

Ben, shouting at Naomi Klein is not really an argument is it,

By: Ben Kalafut

Ben Kalafut — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:37:00 +0000

Leading off with invocation of a discredited and slanderous book by conspiracy theorist Naomi Klein is a great way to lose an audience. That’s as bad as invoking Milloy, Balling or Singer, and for the same reasons.

By: Paul

Paul — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 05:33:40 +0000

This is what happens when you induce people to panic – when your ‘green’ agenda takes precedence over your socio-political agenda. By connecting all the ills of the world (which are and have always been the result of a our global ’socio-economic system’) you are actually distracting us from the ‘inequitable system’ towards the simpler ‘unsustainable system’ (your words).

Every person that claims malaria to be the result of climate change, ignores the fact that malaria is open to being wiped out, given the correct measures. The panic in the current approach ensures that no action will be taken.

Those that will bugger our planet will be the best intentioned idiots with their geo-engineering projects. We are rapidly going back to a world where we see ourselves at the centre. Geo-engineering is part of this dangerous ideology.

By: Diana Korchien

Diana Korchien — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 12:08:21 +0000

The Manhattan Project did not foresee the awful radiation consequences of the atomic bomb.

By: Anthony

Anthony — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 23:59:07 +0000

Sooner or later we are going to panic and do geo engineering, probably with disastrous results. Geo engineering proposals must be studied so that we can avoid the worst results.

Even knowing that there will be adverse consequences it will happen.