Social Theory and Practice Vol. 45, No. 3 (July 2019): 471–499 DOI: 10.5840/soctheorpract201992768 What’s the Problem with Geo-engineering? Ross Mittiga Abstract: Many feel a sense of aversion and tragedy about proposals for engineering the climate. Precautionary concerns only partly explain these feelings. For a fuller understanding, we need a thicker conception of the values and ends of political society than “neutralitarian” political theories offer. To this end, I examine how Buddhist and Greek notions of temperance, justice, and freedom bear on the question of geo-engineering. My intention is not to pronounce on whether geo-engineering is morally “right” or “wrong,” but to highlight reasons for thinking it unattractive in a broader sense, thereby strengthening the case for exhausting conventional emissionsreductions options. Keywords: geo-engineering, climate change, virtue ethics, temperance, justice, freedom, liberalism [I]s it not cavalier to assume that the only issue that arises with climate change is whether to employ a ‘quick’ and ‘cheap’ technological fix? —Stephen Gardiner (2011: 348) Environmentalism for the last forty years has maintained as one of its key tenets the idea that humans must change their ways and learn to live within the ecological parameters presented to them. In contrast, climate engineering is a way to modify earth’s parameters so that humans do not need to change. —Christopher Preston (2011: 465) 1. Introduction On June 14, 2016, the FDA approved use of a new device for combating obesity called the “AspireAssist.” In a televised segment on the device, an ABC News anchor claimed that it “could hold the key to consequence-free indulgence.”1 This is because the AspireAssist does not require diet or exercise to work. Rather, it helps patients lose weight by mechanically dumping the pre-digested contents of their stomachs into the toilet twenty to thirty minutes after eating—a process that some critics call “assisted bulimia,” and that the news anchor described as “cringe-inducing.”2 1. 2. Neporent 2013. Neporent 2013. © Copyright by Social Theory and Practice Ross Mittiga 472 Why would someone consider a device promising consequence-free indulgence cringe-worthy? If it has the potential to save lives, improve welfare, and is generally safe (or at least safer than morbid obesity), what objection could there be to it? A standard concern is that the mere existence of the AspireAssist could discourage conventional responses to weight gain, particularly diet and exercise. This is bad because diet and exercise are safer, less costly, and more conducive to health than the AspireAssist, if less convenient. Yet, even granting the comparative advantage of diet and exercise under normal conditions, few would deny that drastic measures like the AspireAssist are justified at the point that over-eating or obesity seriously threatens health. In other words, considerations of precaution and cost only count against the AspireAssist for so long, and, in the context of a health emergency, may even count for it. There are, however, reasons beyond cost and risk why one might think the AspireAssist problematic. For instance, regardless of its life-saving or welfare-improving potential, one might worry that the device follows from, and threatens to sustain, the same excessive appetites that gave rise to the need for the device in the first place. The AspireAssist does not require changing unhealthy appetites or outlooks; instead, it allows for their preservation by removing a particularly visible and deleterious downstream effect (weight gain). (Perhaps for this reason, a year into the American pilot study, approximately 70 percent of patients asked to keep the AspireAssist installed indefinitely.3) If obesity is an individual health crisis, we might say that anthropogenic climate change is a planetary one. Of the seventeen hottest years ever recorded, sixteen have occurred since 2000.4 And with this, sea-levels are rising, weather is becoming more extreme, drought and flooding are destabilizing agriculture (especially in poor and developing countries), and disease-bearing mosquitoes are expanding their range (as the recent proliferation of the Zika virus evinces).5 This is culminating in a global climate crisis, which threatens millions of human lives, mass extinctions, and political instability. We have long known ways to prevent this crisis. The planetary equivalents of diet and exercise include, e.g., transitioning our energy system away from fossil fuels and toward solar and wind, replacing gas-powered vehicles with electric cars, significantly reducing our consumption of animal products (especially meat and dairy), and reducing the use of plastic goods. We can refer to these activities as “abatement measures,” as all of them involve reducing the greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions that drive climate change. Like diet and exercise, abatement measures can be hard work, and implementing them fully 3. 4. 5. Neporent 2013. As of 2018 (NASA 2017). Inside Climate News n.d. What’s the Problem with Geo-engineering? 473 would cost many powerful people a lot of money. Largely for these reasons, in the twenty-five years since the Rio Earth Summit made climate action an international priority, emissions have not decreased but rather have significantly increased. Because we have done so little to abate climate change for so long, and because abatement measures take time to affect the climate system,6 we are rapidly approaching a point at which reducing emissions will be insufficient for preventing climate catastrophe. Thus, scientists have begun investigating “emergency back-stop” solutions for cooling the earth: viz., climatic equivalents of the AspireAssist. These schemes are often grouped under the broad umbrella of geo-engineering (or “climate engineering”).7 According to one influential conception, geo-engineering pertains to all “deliberate large-scale interventions in the Earth’s climate system, in order to moderate global warming.”8 Although scientists have discussed many possible geo-engineering schemes, the most prominent proposal involves mimicking a volcanic eruption by injecting sulfate aerosols directly into the stratosphere. Stratospheric sulfate injection (SSI) promises to quickly and inexpensively cool the planet. (In this essay, all references to “geo-engineering” should be taken to refer to SSI, in particular.) Yet, SSI comes with some serious risks and costs (as I discuss below). For this reason, most scholars agree that it should be deployed “out of despair only.”9 Yet, should we reach that moment of despair—when traditional abatement measures are no longer adequate for preventing temperature increases that imperil many human lives (or perhaps familiar environmental values10)— virtually everyone agrees that geo-engineering would be morally justified and perhaps even required. This article offers no exception: should the risks of geo-engineering be outweighed by the risks of climate catastrophe, and should no other options remain, it seems clear that SSI would be morally justified. But, as with the AspireAssist, this conclusion should not mark the end of our evaluative reflections. For even if we are confident that it is right to deploy geo-engineering under certain (exigent) circumstances, we might still question whether deployment is ethically justified (i.e., whether it is good to do).11 This kind of ethical reflection, I argue, is necessary for understanding the deep unease many feel about geo-engineering quite apart from its relative costs, benefits, and risks. It also helps clarify why reasonable people might 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. See, e.g., Hausfather 2010. For a helpful critique of this term, see Heyward 2013. Royal Society 2009. Schellnhuber 2011: 20277–78; See also Hamilton 2013: 49 and note. Preston 2011: 473. We might also wonder whether it is aesthetically justified, though I set that point aside here. 474 Ross Mittiga accept the moral necessity of geo-engineering under particular circumstances, yet nonetheless think such a necessity tragic. Before developing this ethical critique below, I examine (in section 2) the geo-engineering debate so far,12 which is almost entirely tendered in the currency of costs, benefits, and risks. I claim that this narrow focus is (i) endemic to neutralitarian political thought; and (ii) incapable of fully explaining what is problematic about geo-engineering. Then, in section 3, I argue that, like the AspireAssist, a key part of the problem with geo-engineering is that it follows from (collective) intemperance. For geo-engineering only becomes necessary in a world in which our addictions to fossil fuels, animal agriculture, and cheap goods are so extreme, and go unchecked for so long, that they cannot but precipitate catastrophe. Moreover, I claim that, like the AspireAssist, geo-engineering does not “cure” these underlying addictions—rather, as a palliative, it threatens to sustain them by relieving one of their worst downstream effects (global warming). Two clarificatory remarks are necessary. First, it is worth stressing that my intention in this essay is not to deny that, at some point, geo-engineering may become necessary for saving lives and thus would represent a morally right course of action. Rather, I am simply arguing that other considerations or values—beyond those central to public judgments of right or wrong—must be taken into account if we are to understand why many people feel averse to geo-engineering and would continue to do so even if it became the most cost-effective and least risky option available. Second, throughout the essay I (implicitly) rely on a distinction between morality (which I take to cover questions of right and wrong, ought and ought not) and ethics (which I take to cover questions of good and bad, virtue and vice, should and should not). This distinction is of course artificial, but it should help distinguish my critique of geo-engineering from the prevailing moralist critique, as I show below. 2. The (Moral) Debate over Geo-engineering According to Alan Robock, “the oldest and most persistent argument against geoengineering”13 concerns its potential to undermine abatement efforts. Specifically, critics worry that merely acknowledging the possibility of geo-engineering could (and perhaps already has begun to) stymie support for combat- 12. Note that there are several axes of debate—concerning the science, public policy, and morality of geo-engineering. Thus, any reference to the geo-engineering debate is a simplification. I believe, however, that this simplification is warranted for our purposes, given that most discussions of geo-engineering focus heavily on potential costs, risks, and benefits. 13. Robock 2008: 17. See also Schneider 2001 and Cicerone 2006. What’s the Problem with Geo-engineering? 475 ting global warming in conventional ways—i.e., by reducing the sources of GHG emissions and enhancing carbon sinks.14 Examples of this objection—which we can call the “moral hazard objection”—are manifold.15 Robock himself argues that “[i]f humans perceive an easy technological fix to global warming that allows for ‘business as usual,’ gathering the national . . . and international will to change consumption patterns and energy infrastructure will be even more difficult.”16 Similarly, Stephen Gardiner claims that “[m]any people worry that substantial research on geoengineering will itself encourage political inertia on mitigation, and so help to . . . [make the need for] deployment . . . a self-fulfilling prophecy.”17 Dale Jamieson argues “that talk about geoengineering has already to some extent dampened our willingness to reduce emissions.”18 In short, just as one might argue that the very possibility of liposuction or a device like the AspireAssist stymies support for dieting and exercising, so too do many climate scholars believe that the mere possibility of geo-engineering threatens a strong commitment to abatement.19 One initial response to this objection is: so what? What does it matter if abatement is displaced by geo-engineering? Why does preferring the latter to the former constitute a “moral hazard”? The most common response is that, under present circumstances, abatement measures are less costly and less risky than geo-engineering. I examine each of these points in turn. 2.1 Costs and Benefits The first argument against geo-engineering is that, currently, abatement appears to be a less costly option. Of course, the estimated economic costs of deploying geo-engineering are surprisingly low.20 According to Crutzen, “a continuous deployment” of stratospheric sulfate aerosols could be achieved “for a total price of US $25–$50 billion, or about $25–$50 per capita in the affluent world.”21 Examining a range of SSI delivery schemes, Robock et al. 14. Robock 2008; Robock et al. 2009: 1; Jamieson 2013: 533–34; Gardiner 2011: 356 et passim; Crutzen 2006: 211–12. 15. What I am calling the “moral-hazard objection” is alternatively described as the “trade-off argument” (see Baatz 2016). I thank an anonymous reviewer for pointing this out. 16. Robock 2008: 17. In a later piece, Robock et al. 2009 argue similarly that “[i]f geo-engineering is seen as a potential low-cost and easy ‘solution’ to the problem, the public backing toward a mitigation agreement . . . may be eroded” (1). 17. Gardiner 2011: 356. 18. Emphasis added; Jamieson 2013: 534. 19. Keith 2010: 498. 20. Jamieson 2013: 534; Nordhaus 1992: 1317. 21. Crutzen 2006: 213. 476 Ross Mittiga find that some would cost as little as $225 million per year.22 In comparison, many believe that effective abatement measures would cost about 1 percent of global GDP—or roughly $780 billion per year.23 This appears to undercut the cost objection to geo-engineering—but, for several reasons, this conclusion would be too hasty. First, when we account for the significant co-benefits of emissions reductions (e.g., the prevention of millions of premature deaths and pollution-related illnesses like asthma) and the efficiency gains that would come with greater public investment in reduced-emissions technologies (e.g., clean energy), abatement costs are likely to be far lower than the $780 billion figure quoted above.24 In fact, on some estimates, the monetary value of co-benefits and efficiency gains would be great enough to cover all (or nearly all) of the present costs of abatement. According to a recent OECD report, reducing GHG emissions by 50 percent by 2050 would generate health-related co-benefits equal to “between 0.7% of GDP in the European Union to 4.5% in China in 2050.”25 Another study finds that, by 2030, relatively modest global abatement efforts could save “US$100–600 billion per year in air pollution control and energy security expenditures.”26 Abatement also offers less-easily-quantifiable benefits. Perhaps most notably, investing in energy efficiency upgrades and renewable energy infrastructure could “achieve something that geoengineering approaches do not even care to consider: . . . a sustainable global energy supply system that (i) can virtually exist forever, and (ii) offers more equitable opportunities for the developing world than the fossil-nuclear complex.”27 In other words, abatement policies, particularly those that aim at developing green infrastructure, promise abundant energy from sources open to all: i.e., the sun and the wind. Thus, in abatement, unlike geo-engineering, there is the potential of a more ecologically responsible and egalitarian mode of development.28 Moreover, geo-engineering cost estimates are often speculative and incomplete. Deployment schemes for geo-engineering have not yet been fully worked out, let alone rigorously tested. This helps to explain the large discrepancies in 22. Though this excludes an initial start-up cost of about $1 billion (Robock et al. 2009: 3). 23. In 2015 dollars. See Stern 2007: 258–62. For similar estimates, see Stern 2010; Weitzman 2007: 720; Nordhaus 2008: 90. 24. Stern 2007: 247, 273; Stern 2010: 48; Schellnhuber 2011: 20278. 25. Pearce et al. 2006: 7. 26. McCollum et al. 2013; cited in West et al. 2013. Pearce et al. (2006: 6) also emphasize the potential cost-saving “synergies between climate change and local air pollution” policies. 27. Schellnhuber 2011: 20278. 28. Of course, this will only be the case if green-energy technology is available and accessible to all, which—despite long-term efforts aimed at expanding international green-energy financing and assistance—is not the case today. I thank an anonymous reviewer for making this point. What’s the Problem with Geo-engineering? 477 cost estimates (e.g., Crutzen’s $25–50 billion/year vs. Robock et al.’s $225 million/year). Moreover, geo-engineering will result in many negative externalities that are difficult to estimate precisely, at least in advance. For instance, releasing sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere will further deplete atmospheric ozone, “prolonging the end of the Antarctic ozone hole by several decades and producing [new] ozone holes in the Arctic.”29 This will result in higher rates of skin cancer and other health problems. Geo-engineering will also decrease the effectiveness of solar panels, and could induce unseasonal drought (particularly in Asia and Africa), causing potentially significant agricultural disruptions.30 Moreover, geo-engineering fails to prevent ocean acidification, which (along with over-fishing) may soon cause serious problems for the approximately three billion people who depend on seafood for their diets or livelihoods.31 Other costs associated with geo-engineering completely defy quantification, and so are routinely omitted from economistic comparisons with abatement. For example, many climate scientists predict that geo-engineering will visibly whiten the sky, resulting in “no more blue skies.”32 How should we quantify the loss of blue skies? By loss in worker productivity? Geo-engineering will also obviate expensive terrestrial telescopes by creating a permanent cloud of pollution above the earth, seriously disrupting astronomical research.33 How can we assess the loss of these portholes to the universe? By the decrease in the number of astronomy publications? None of these considerations definitively establish that abatement will remain less costly than geo-engineering in the long run. Even if we were confident that abatement was the least expensive option right now, technological and climatic developments could quickly upend this calculus. Some already claim that geo-engineering represents the most cost-effective option. According to William Nordhaus’s imaginative estimates, for instance, developing “nonintrusive climatic engineering” would have “a net value of around $17 trillion in present value because it would allow the globe to avoid most of the damages from climate change.”34 Nordhaus of course concedes that no such geo-engineering technologies exist today; yet, he asserts that geoengineering remains “the only economically competitive technology to offset global warming.”35 Whether or not Nordhaus is correct, his view suggests that cost-effectiveness may one day—if it does not already—provide just as strong a justification for deploying geo-engineering as it ostensibly provides now against it. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. Robock et al. 2009: 2. Robock et al. 2009: 1. World Wildlife Fund n.d. Robock et al. 2009: 2. See also, Robock 2008. Robock et al. 2009: 2. Nordhaus 2008: 77, 19; see also Nordhaus and Boyer 2000: 126–27, 132, 176. Nordhaus 2008: 78. 478 Ross Mittiga 2.2 Risk Another common argument against geo-engineering is that it is far riskier than abatement. We generally understand abatement and know what to expect from it. But with geo-engineering, the universe of potential risks is vast. In particular, many worry about the unexpected or unintentional consequences of deployment. This concern typically takes one of three forms. Some fear that geo-engineering’s likely negative effects will be of a far greater magnitude than predicted: e.g., that it will have greater-than-anticipated effects on the Asian monsoon season, devastating agricultural yields for billions of people.36 Preparing for these kinds of worst-case scenarios is, of course, very difficult if not impossible.37 Others worry about geo-engineering’s unintended but possible consequences. What if the technology becomes weaponized,38 or is wielded by the powerful in some other fashion to subjugate the weak?39 Alternatively, what if international conflict, economic depression, or political instability causes an abrupt cessation of geo-engineering, precipitating a rapid (perhaps catastrophic) bounce-back in global temperatures?40 (Given that most geo-engineering schemes require continuous deployment, this is a plausible concern.) Sudden temperature changes would likely have more severe effects on global agriculture and political stability than the kind of warming that would occur without geo-engineering. Finally, noting our climate system’s tremendous complexity, some stress that geo-engineering is extremely liable to human error and wholly unforeseen consequences.41 Such “unknown unknowns”42 must, by definition, be omitted from cost-benefit analyses conducted prior to deployment. Consequently, the costs of geo-engineering may far exceed initial expectations. These risks lead Hans Joachim Schellnhuber to conclude that “the (moderately) affordable” geo-engineering schemes, including SSI, “are no good.”43 36. Jamieson 2013: 531; Robock 2008: 15. 37. For material, psychological, and political reasons. For discussion of these, see Posner 2004; Bostrom and Cirkovic 2008; Sunstein 2009. 38. This is a real concern—during the Vietnam War, for instance, the US would release atmospheric chemicals aimed at inducing rain to swamp enemy supply lines and disrupt antiwar protests led by Buddhist monks. (Hence the U.N. Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques.) Robock 2008: 17, citing Fleming 2007: 46–60. 39. Gardiner 2013. 40. Robock 2008: 17. 41. See, e.g., Robock 2008: 17; Victor et al. 2009: 72; Crutzen 2006: 213. 42. National Environment Research Council 2010: 25. 43. Schellnhuber 2011: 20278. What’s the Problem with Geo-engineering? 479 In other words, despite being relatively “inexpensive,” economically, the risks of geo-engineering are grave enough to justify setting it aside. As with cost, however, risk may prove an insufficient objection to geo-engineering in the long run. For, as others have argued, at a certain point (perhaps before the end of this century), the relevant comparison will not be between abatement and geo-engineering (as two distinct strategies for dealing with climate change), but between that geo-engineering and climate catastrophe. This, again, is because the effects of abatement are realized at a significant timedelay. Once GHGs are released into the atmosphere, many remain there for decades, some even for millennia.44 Thus, even if we were to reduce emissions to the point of carbon neutrality tomorrow, we would still experience climate changes for many years to come. And, of course, we are nowhere near carbon neutrality currently. Quite the opposite: every day we commit ourselves (and future generations) to more and more warming,45 making it increasingly likely that we will cross a critical threshold or “tipping point,” after which point climate catastrophe will become unavoidable through abatement alone. In contrast to abatement, the effects of geo-engineering are realized very quickly—i.e., within about six months.46 According to Paul Crutzen, this makes geo-engineering an attractive “escape route against strongly increasing temperatures,” as when the “climate heats up by more than 2°C globally or when the rates of temperatures increase by more than 0.2°C/decade.”47 Others have similarly hailed geo-engineering as an important “emergency,” “backstop,” or “fail-safe” mechanism—a way of protecting ourselves from the most dangerous effects of climate change after the point abatement alone becomes inadequate.48 As Launder and Thompson note, while geo-engineering interventions may themselves “be risky, the time may well come when they are accepted as less risky than doing nothing.”49 Of course, regarding geo-engineering as the “lesser of two evils” (visà-vis climate catastrophe) has attracted its own criticisms. Jamieson, for instance, asks: “How do we know when we are experiencing a climate emergency?” and “who has the authority” to declare it?50 Stephen Gardiner argues, more broadly, that focusing on emergency-deployment scenarios tends to ob- 44. Hausfather 2010. 45. Barring “negative emissions,” feasible mechanisms for which are so far still hypothetical (Hansen et al. 2016). 46. Crutzen 2006: 216. 47. Crutzen 2006: 216. 48. Nordhaus 2008; Goodell 2010; Victor et al. 2009. For criticism, see Gardiner 2011; Jamieson 2013: 531–32. 49. Launder and Thompson 2009: xv; cited in Preston 2011: 466. 50. Jamieson 2013: 531. 480 Ross Mittiga scure the extreme moral corruption that would give rise to geo-engineering.51 These criticisms require more attention than they have been afforded so far. Yet, few among even the staunchest critics deny that geo-engineering would be morally justified if other options are unavailable and climate catastrophe is imminent.52 Hence Christopher Preston argues that, even granting Gardiner’s claim that merely pursuing geo-engineering research constitutes a “tarnishing evil,”53 “one might still insist . . . that this tarnishing evil may not be as bad as the evil of subjecting millions of people to increased drought, disease and food shortages caused by unabated anthropogenic climate change.”54 According to Preston, geo-engineering becomes the lesser evil precisely when “severe warming poses a devastating threat to the human population and to familiar environmental values.”55 Whether or not we endorse Preston’s or Crutzen’s thresholds for what counts as a climate emergency, the basic point remains the same: although geo-engineering undeniably presents grave risks, should we reach the point that abatement measures can no longer prevent dangerous climate change, these risks may pale next to those of inaction. To be clear, I am not claiming that this justifies undertaking geo-engineering research now (though it may). Rather, I am simply arguing that, should feasible geo-engineering technology exist at a future time when climate catastrophe (however defined) is imminent and otherwise unavoidable, the riskbased objection to deployment would no longer hold much weight. 2.3 Neutralitarian Reasoning To summarize then, if Robock et al. are right in asserting that the “decision to implement geoengineering . . . require[s] a comparison of its benefits, dangers, and costs to those of other responses to global warming,”56 there may, for now, be a solid moral case against deployment.57 However, if conditions change and 51. Gardiner 2011: chap. 10. See also, Shue 1978; Gardiner 2013. 52. Jamieson 1996 may be an exception. 53. Gardiner’s discussion of evil is an example of how some have moved beyond the neutralitarian confines of standard geo-engineering debates, although it falls short of a fully developed ethical objection like that which I am defending here. I thank an anonymous reviewer for this point. 54. Preston 2011: 467–68. For his part, Gardiner seems to concede this point (2011: 357f.). 55. By “familiar environmental values,” Preston has in mind, e.g., the preservation of species or ecosystems, which are threatened by warming. Preston 2011: 473. 56. Robock et al. 2009: 1. 57. N.B.: Other, seemingly non-moral objections to geo-engineering exist that I have not surveyed here—e.g., those concerning how deployment might be governed. I call these objections non-moral because they routinely take an interrogative rather than an argumentative form, e.g., “How will deployment be governed?” rather than “Deployment cannot be gov- What’s the Problem with Geo-engineering? 481 climate catastrophe becomes imminent (and unavoidable via abatement and adaptation alone), then geo-engineering may become justified and even morally necessary. In other words, the cost and risk objections to geo-engineering are temporally contingent; should geo-engineering ultimately prove necessary to save lives, the same criteria would provide the moral case for deployment. But are cost and risk all that distinguish abatement from geo-engineering? Are there no other reasons for preferring abatement to geo-engineering, or at least for thinking geo-engineering deeply problematic (even if morally necessary)? I argue below that there are. But before getting to this, it is worth briefly inquiring into why geo-engineering debates often exclude all considerations but those of cost, benefit, and risk. I think this has much to do with the commitment to neutralitarian reasoning in contemporary moral-political thought (especially among liberal thinkers following John Rawls). As Tal Brewer explains, this commitment entails that, when debating core political issues, we “seek reasons whose force we can expect other citizens to recognize, despite the fact that they do not share our parochial interests and can reasonably disagree with our fully elaborated conception of the good.”58 The relative costs, benefits, and risks of geo-engineering count as public reasons in this sense, because they impact everyone, regardless of their other values or ends.59 Most other considerations fail this test. We could not, for instance, permissibly reject geo-engineering on the grounds that it fails to protect certain eco-systems that some regard as intrinsically valuable but that others think are worthless. (As David Miller argues, “from the perspective of social justice,” any attempt to protect an ecosystem for its own sake is “on a par with the claim that church C is the true church, since it is a claim with which others may reasonably disagree.”60) By prescinding considerations related to particular conceptions of the good life, the commitment to neutralitarianism significantly limits the range of reasons that can count for or against any response to climate change in the public calculus. This narrowing of evaluative reflection obscures the full range of concerns many (if not most) people share with respect to geo-engineering. It also makes it difficult to explain why, at the point of climate catastrophe, reasonable people might accept the need to engineer the climate but nonetheless find such erned well because . . .” These kinds of objections are weak, as, in principle at least, they could be answered. The “Oxford Principles” for geo-engineering offer a tentative step in that direction (Rayner et al. 2013), as do Jamieson’s (2013) reflections on these questions. 58. Brewer 2002: 108. 59. Of course, this is a very brief discussion of a substantial subject, but for the sake of space I cannot pursue the point further here. 60. Miller 1999: 300n33. Cf. Rawls 1999: 249–51; Rawls 2005: 214, 246; Rawls 2001: 152n26. 482 Ross Mittiga an outcome tragic. To clarify the ethical stakes of geo-engineering we need to look beyond the confines of public reason. This is not to deny that factors like cost, benefit, and risk can illuminate much of what is right (or wrong) with geo-engineering; rather, it is to suggest that rightness and wrongness are not exhaustive of what is at stake, normatively speaking. Most of us also care about what is good (and bad), beautiful (and repulsive), particularly with respect to environmental issues. Such considerations are deeply relevant to the geo-engineering question, and (more generally) for understanding the situation we have put ourselves in with respect to the climate. Yet, because these ethical and aesthetic values lie beyond the neutralitarian confines of the moral debate over geo-engineering, they are routinely neglected.61 While there are good reasons for such omissions—chiefly, the desire to ensure fair deliberation in pluralistic communities—in what follows, I consider one ethical reason for resisting geo-engineering (or, again, for thinking it tragic should exigency make such an intervention morally necessary). While this discussion is likely to be controversial precisely because it does not originate from a position of neutrality about “the good,” the ethical reason I present is, I argue, widely shared across cultures and time. Thus, even if the following discussion fails the test of public reason in its strictest application, I hope it nonetheless illuminates more of what matters for many people with respect to geo-engineering. 3. An Ethical Argument against Geo-engineering I noted previously that the most common objection to geo-engineering is that it threatens to derail abatement efforts. This is the moral hazard objection—moral because abatement is, today, still the less costly and risky option, and therefore the right one. Yet, I also noted that cost and risk objections are temporally contingent—if our failure to undertake abatement persists long enough, geoengineering may become morally justified (as it will become less costly and less risky than climate catastrophe). 61. This is not to say that all liberal thinkers are neutralitarians, or that all neutralitarians are oblivious to ethical or aesthetic values and their relevance to politics. Ronald Dworkin, for instance, argues that a recognition of intrinsic value (or at least the intrinsic value of a human life) can guide political decision-making outside of an appeal to basic liberal moral values like rights, interests, or duties (see Dworkin 2011: 11–15). Similarly, in his later work, Rawls permits the use of religious arguments that express clear, widely shared moral views in the domain of public reason (Rawls 2005: 464 and note). It nevertheless remains true that most of these thinkers believe excluding non-moral factors or values from public debate over fundamental issues is necessary for preserving a fair and impartial (typically, liberal) politics. What’s the Problem with Geo-engineering? 483 In this section, I reframe the moral hazard objection by arguing that, to the extent geo-engineering undermines the public commitment to abatement, it is not just a moral but an ethical hazard. Geo-engineering is an ethical hazard because it follows from, and threatens to sustain, the vice of intemperance. Notably, this objection to geo-engineering is not temporally contingent: if conditions change, and geo-engineering becomes morally justified, we may still think it ethically problematic because of its relationship to intemperance. Focusing on intemperance might strike some as an odd or even antiquated way of criticizing geo-engineering (or a world that must resort to it). First of all, what does it mean to say geo-engineering follows from and threatens to sustain intemperance? Moreover, even if we grant that point, who cares, especially if our primary interest is in promoting welfare?62 I begin this section by elaborating the link between geo-engineering and intemperance. I then argue that we should care about this ethical hazard for two important political reasons: intemperance is a source of unfreedom and injustice. This opens up several objections, which I address in turn. 3.1 The Relationship between Geo-engineering and Intemperance 3.1.1 What Is Temperance and Intemperance? Perhaps a better term than temperance is the more encompassing Greek word sophrosune, which is alternatively translated as temperance, moderation, or self-restraint. For Aristotle, sophrosune is best understood as a middle state between extreme indulgence in certain pleasures and “insensibility” to pleasure, the latter of which he claims is exceedingly rare and ostensibly inhuman.63 Of course, sophrosune is a virtue not just among the Greeks; something similar is lauded by Buddhists, Hindus,64 (especially pre-modern) Christians,65 and Jews.66 (This is not to deny the important differences among how different cultures and belief-systems understand temperance, or the relative importance they place on it, but to suggest the possibility of common ground.) For instance, in the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, the Buddha praises the temperate life much in the same way as Aristotle later does: i.e., as a “middle 62. Notably, many economists and political theorists measure improvements in welfare precisely by increased consumption. 63. Aristotle 2009: 1119a1–21. 64. See, e.g., the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, verse 5.2.3, which praises the virtue of damah, or self-restraint. 65. See, e.g., Galatians, 5:22–23; 2 Peter 1:5–7; Philippians 4:12. 66. Consider, e.g., Proverbs 25:16, 20:13, 23:1–3. 484 Ross Mittiga way,” albeit one between addiction to sensual indulgence and devotion to selfmortification and extreme asceticism.67 Importantly, for Aristotle, temperance is not merely “continence” (enkrasia)—i.e., a state characterized by a reluctant or even painful observance of temperate behavior;68 rather, the temperate person “finds no intense pleasure in any [bodily sensations], suffers no pain at their absence, and has no appetite for them, or only moderate appetite, not to the wrong degree or at the wrong time.”69 In other words, the temperate person’s desires, not just her actions, are appropriately mild and oriented to the good; she thus feels no “pain at the absence of what is pleasant, or at refraining from it.”70 Intemperance, on the other hand, typically refers to just one of the two “vicious” poles: specifically, excessive indulgence in sensual pleasures and material gratification.71 At the individual level, intemperance manifests in “insatiable” desires for food, sex, or the consumption of certain (sometimes trivial) goods.72 Consequently, intemperance is closely related to pleonexia— a rapacious grasping for more than one’s fair share or what one needs for a healthy life.73 (I return to this point in section 3.2.1.) We are intemperate when we eat past the point of being full, or drink to the point of heedlessness.74 In this sense, intemperance can be understood as corruption-by-augmentation of our natural appetites, which exist to prompt us to “fill[] a lack.”75 Intemperance is also characterized by an over-valuation of pleasure or pleasurable goods. According to Aristotle, the intemperate person “has an appetite for all pleasant things, or rather for the most pleasant of them, and his appetite leads him to choose these at the cost of the other things”76—i.e., at the cost of a virtuous life’s goods. This may sound strange: would not the person who consumes pleasurable goods all the time live a pleasant life? Aristotle thinks not: “appetite involves pain,” thus, the intemperate person suffers “both 67. See Bhikkhu 1993. Others, especially Damien Keown (1992), have noted the substantive overlap between Buddhist and Aristotelian virtue ethics. Cf. Charles Goodman (2015) for some points of disagreement. 68. An enkratic person is someone who acts the right way, but longs to do otherwise. In other words, his desires are out-of-sync with what reason tells him it is right and good to do. 69. Aristotle 2009: 1119a10–21; see also, 1118b30–35. 70. Aristotle 2009: 1118b30–35. 71. Aristotle 2009: 1118b15–25, 1118a15–19, 1118a30–b4. 72. Aristotle 2009: 1119b8–14, 1118a15–19, 1118a30–b4, 1119a1–5, a20–21. 73. Lane 2012: 32ff. 74. Aristotle 2009: 1118b15–21. 75. Aristotle 2009: 1118b17–18. Notably, Karl Marx emphasizes this point, and argues further that such corruption is an essential component of capitalism: “Excess and intemperance come to be its true norm” (Marx 1988: 116). On this, see O’Neill 1993: 203n12. 76. Aristotle 2009: 1119a1–3; see also 1119a20–21. What’s the Problem with Geo-engineering? 485 when he fails to get something and when he has an appetite for it.”77 In the first poem of the Atthakavagga (or Book of Eights), the Buddha expresses a similar view: When desire for sensual pleasure // Is fulfilled // One will surely be delighted. . . . //But if this pleasure fades away, // The person with this desire . . . // Is pained as if pierced by an arrow // . . . Through greed for . . . lots of sensual pleasures // One’s weakness overpowers; // Crushed by many troubles, // Suffering pours in // As water into a leaking boat.78 For both Aristotle and the Buddha, then, intemperance manifests in rapacious and ultimately painful desires for pleasure-bearing goods and activities— desires that reflect confusion about, or over-valuation of, those goods and activities. An aggregation of intemperate individuals makes an intemperate group. At the collective level, intemperance manifests as unnecessary and ecologically irresponsible over-consumption.79 It occurs whenever a group eats, drinks, breeds, and/or consumes resources beyond the limits of the ecosystem in which that group is embedded, ultimately harming themselves and the other beings and elements within that ecosystem.80 Collective intemperance is not just a human vice. In “Thinking Like A Mountain,” Aldo Leopold recounts his experience extirpating wolves so that there would be more deer to shoot: “I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters’ paradise.”81 His and his fellows’ efforts worked, for a time: as the wolves were killed off, the deer population exploded. Unanticipated ecological consequences soon followed, however. Spared natural predators, the deer exhibited their own kind of collective intemperance, both in eating and breeding. Before long “every edible bush and seedling” was reduced “to anaemic desuetude, and then to death,” and “every edible tree defoliated.” Having exhausted their sustenance, the deer population soon collapsed, “dead of its own too-much.”82 The point here is that the collective intemperance of the hunters, which unleashed that of their prey (the deer), devastated an entire ecosystem. (On Leopold’s estimation, the harm would take at least “two or three . . . decades” to repair.) 77. Aristotle 2009: 1119a3–5; see also 1118b30–35. 78. Fronsdal 2016: 41–42. 79. The topic of intemperance and over-consumption is well explored in the environmental virtue ethics literature. See, e.g., Barry 1999, esp. chap. 5; Cafaro 2001; Hursthouse 2015; O’Neill 1993. 80. Aristotle stresses that intemperance runs counter to “health and fitness” in the individual (1119a17–21; 1119b8–14). Notably, Barry (1999: 180) argues that attentiveness to the individual and ecological ill-effects of mass consumption forms a non-standard line of green critique, not just in Aristotle but also in Arendt, Fromm, and Marcuse. 81. Leopold 1989: 130. 82. Leopold 1989: 132. 486 Ross Mittiga The collective intemperance of human beings differs from that of deer in at least one key respect, however. For the deer, wolves served as a natural barrier to excessive consumption. It was only once that barrier had been removed that the deer ate and bred to the point of intemperance and collapse. In contrast, because of technology and modern agriculture, ecology’s ordinary checks and balances—predators, disease, exposure—have little impact on human populations and behavior. The only effective barrier to our collective over-consumption—and, by extension, our only long-term security against collapse—is temperance, cultivated through practice and sustained by socialization. In other words, for us, temperance cannot be externally imposed; it must be internally won and socially reinforced. Unlike the deer whose pleonetic appetites are ever present (if not always gratifiable), human appetites can be moderated or channeled to good ends through training and habituation.83 The value of temperance (and the dangers of intemperance) has been well understood among Western ethicists for much of the last two millennia. Alongside the oft-cited “Know Thyself” inscription at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi was another: “Nothing in Excess.”84 Yet, Melissa Lane argues that the commitment to temperance began to wane in the eighteenth century, as certain political philosophers like Adam Smith came to regard the emergence of pleonetic desires—especially those for material accumulation and wealth—as a way of dampening the violent passions of religious fanaticism while creating employment for the increasingly dispossessed poor.85 To be clear, as Lane notes, these philosophers were not arguing that “greed is good” or that the intemperate life was somehow praiseworthy. Rather, they simply felt that the danger pleonetic desires posed to individual virtue was outweighed by the social advantages stimulating such desires could engender: “[S]ociety as a whole could benefit from the greed for luxury . . . [as] consumption would stimulate production and so provide employment for the poor.”86 In other words, the social advantages of intemperance were considered substantial enough to excuse individual vice. More than two hundred years later, the effects of this gamble are everywhere present. While Westerners have not relapsed into large-scale religious 83. According to Aristotle (2009), at least (1119b5–15; 1998: 1267a1–15). 84. Lane 2012: 33. 85. On this point, Lane cites Albert O. Hirschman’s (1977) famous discussion of the historical shift from a focus on “the passions to the interests” (Lane 2012: 34 and note 10). Which philosophers she has in mind is less clear, though she goes on to discuss Adam Smith (Lane 2012: 35). Lane is careful to stress, however, that Smith—and, we might add, Bernard Mandeville, to whom this shift is most commonly attributed—seemed to believe that individual happiness involved resisting pleonetic desires, even if “society as a whole” stood to gain from indulging them. For further discussion of this point, see Broussois 2015 and Tolonen 2013. I thank an anonymous reviewer for encouraging me to clarify this. 86. Lane 2012: 35. What’s the Problem with Geo-engineering? 487 wars,87 our passions for sectarian violence have not diminished (a point to which the nationalist wars of the twentieth century and the race-based terrorism of the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries can attest). In the meanwhile, human beings—particularly the most affluent—have learned to consume virtually everything in excess. This is reflected in the basic idioms of modern consumerism: we “binge-watch” television, “feast” at “all-you-caneat” buffets, treat ourselves to “shopping sprees,” etc. The cumulative effects of these unbridled desires are perhaps nowhere more apparent than with respect to the environmental degradation of the last fifty years. In the words of Pope Francis: “The pace of consumption, waste and environmental change has so stretched the planet’s capacity that our contemporary lifestyle, unsustainable as it is, can only precipitate catastrophes.”88 Fittingly, he attributes these societal problems to “today’s self-centered culture of instant gratification”89 and argues that “[o]nly by cultivating sound virtues will people be able to make a selfless ecological commitment” to rehabilitating the earth.90 3.1.2 Geo-engineering and Intemperance We can now ask: how exactly does geo-engineering follow from and threaten to sustain intemperance? To answer the first part of this question, we need only consider the massive amount of GHG emissions that are produced by contemporary appetites for dirty energy, animal products (particularly meat and dairy), quick and easy travel (especially by plane), air conditioning, and cheap consumer goods. Often these goods and activities are entirely frivolous; as Gardiner aptly describes, climate change is significantly driven by our desires for “relatively modest” pleasures like “the joy of wearing t-shirts indoors in winter.”91 In other words, the pleonetic desires of the global affluent, whose collective intemperance is apparent both in the climatic effects of their over-consumption and in the irrational over-valuation of certain pleasures that such consumption reflects, is fueling the environmental crisis. The willingness to indulge these desires, often despite some level of awareness of the harm entailed by doing so, is characteristic of intemperance.92 87. Of course, religious-motivated violence has endured in many countries—e.g., Ireland throughout the twentieth century—and may well be on the rise again. 88. Francis 2015: 119–20. 89. Francis 2015: 120. 90. Francis 2015: 154. 91. Gardiner 2013: 30. 92. One might object here that my critique appears to overlook the fact that rich countries and consumers are not solely responsible for dangerous climate change. Rather, a large portion of global emissions originate in poor countries, as the natural by-product of development initiatives aimed at attaining minimally decent standards-of-living—initiatives, that is, which are not products of intemperance. Evidence of this is that many of the highest-emit- 488 Ross Mittiga If this is right, then a full response to the problem of climate change must involve moderating excessive appetites—viz., cultivating greater temperance. There is already some traction for this idea in the policy literature.93 The IPCC, for one, repeatedly emphasizes the need for behavioral and “lifestyle” changes, particularly among the global affluent: “Emissions can be substantially lowered through changes in consumption patterns . . . and dietary change and reduction in food wastes.”94 As Crutzen laments, however, international efforts in this direction have, so far, been “grossly disappointing,” making successful abatement appear increasingly like “a pious wish.”95 The interest in geo-engineering derives foremost from (researchers’ increasing acceptance of) our collective failure to cultivate temperance. For in facing a crisis precipitated by intemperance, two options are available. The first is to moderate excessive appetites through practice and concerted effort, until the pain of desire is no longer salient. The second is to attend narrowly to the downstream effects of intemperance—to treat the wounds of excess, without worrying about the disease that brought them to bear. Geo-engineering falls into this second category. In Jamieson’s words, geo-engineering is an attempt “to manipulate nature in order to make it conform to our desires rather than shaping our desires in response to nature.”96 Once this superficial fix is made available, an important impetus to cultivate temperance is lost. For if our only major concern vis-à-vis twentyfirst-century collective intemperance is its problematic tendency to warm the planet, geo-engineering offers an appealing solution. Recall the analogy to the AspireAssist. Why do the hard work of dieting and exercising when a low-cost solution to weight-gain—the most directly harmful effect of dietary intemperance—exists, which does not require limiting one’s appetites? Likewise, why do the hard work of abatement when a lower-cost solution to warming—the most anthropically harmful effect of climate-related intemperance—exists that 93. 94. 95. 96. ting countries are also poor and developing, like China, India, and Brazil. There are problems with this objection, however. Most critically, as recent work on “consumption-based emissions accounting” shows (see, e.g., Peters and Hertwich 2008; Davis and Caldeira 2010; Steininger et al. 2014; Mittiga 2018), many of the emissions standardly attributed to poor and developing countries are generated in the production of goods that are ultimately consumed by the global rich. This “off-shoring” of emissions obscures the fact that the desire for abundant cheap goods in wealthy countries remains a key driver of the climate crisis. Likewise among some climate ethicists. Jamieson (2007: 181), for instance, argues that “[t]emperance could be rehabilitated as a green virtue that emphasizes the importance of reducing consumption.” IPCC, AR5, WG3, p. 20; see also, IPCC, AR5, WG3, sections 6.8, 7.9, 8.3.5, 8.9, 9.3, 10.4, 11.4, 12.4–7, 15.3–5; and IPCC, AR5, WG1, TS, p. 57. Crutzen 2006: 217. Jamieson 2013: 534. What’s the Problem with Geo-engineering? 489 allows society’s appetites to remain unchecked? In short, geo-engineering, like the AspireAssist, promises to dissolve the causal link between intemperate appetites and their most serious harmful effects; in this way, it threatens to sustain intemperance. Yet, geo-engineering can only ever be a partial response to climate change. Just as, in many cases, reducing the fever may save the patient without curing the disease, deploying geo-engineering may save lives by cooling the planet without solving the underlying problem (intemperance) that gave rise to the need for such a solution in the first place. Geo-engineering, then, only appears like a plausible solution to the problem of climate change if we deflate that problem to its more superficial effects. It is only a partial, external fix for what is ultimately an internal behavioral issue brought on by constant social inducements to burn, eat, travel, and buy more and more. 3.2 The Good of Temperance and the Bad of Intemperance Of course, if geo-engineering can even partially sever the link between the practice of collective intemperance and its most harmful (external) effects, the question naturally arises: why care about cultivating temperance? In other words, if geo-engineering removes the instrumental justification for temperance, what impetus remains for being temperate? In response, we should begin by noting again that geo-engineering can only attend to some of the external effects of our collective, climatic intemperance—specifically, global warming. Other important problems will remain or continue to worsen (e.g., ocean acidification). Geo-engineering will also cause its own problems, perhaps necessitating further interventions. This is all to say that geo-engineering fails to completely erase the instrumental justification for cultivating temperance. Nevertheless, by slowing or reversing warming, geo-engineering does present a way to attenuate one of the most harmful effects of climate change for humans over the medium term. Thus, we should consider other reasons for cultivating temperance. In what follows, I identify two internal goods of temperance, and two corresponding bads of intemperance. I can only limn these goods and bads here. I hope, however, that this provisional argument is able to give some sense of why we should care about temperance apart from its potential to stall global warming. 3.2.1 Justice and Injustice One bad of intemperance concerns its relation to injustice. Aristotle argues that whenever human beings “have a desire for more than the necessities, they will 490 Ross Mittiga seek to remedy it by committing injustice.”97 The operant form of injustice is that of pleonexia. When guided by pleonetic desires, people tend to take what is not theirs. Buddhist doctrine also strongly cautions against the vice of pleonexia. Of the five precepts or virtues [pañca-sīla] defined in the Mahayana tradition, the second involves abstaining from taking what is not freely given.98 The potential need for geo-engineering follows very directly from a situation wherein some have used or are using much more than their fair share of the “atmospheric commons.”99 To understand this point, imagine that each generation has a “greenhouse gas budget”—measured in emission flows—that it can spend without jeopardizing the safety of future generations.100 On any reasonable measure, current generations—particularly, the affluent within current generations—have emitted far beyond their allowance. Consequently, the world is warming, and future generations will not be able to emit much (if any) GHGs if they are to avoid further harm. Geo-engineering arises as a response to this budgetary over-reach: a way of borrowing on the already exhausted credit of future generations. Geo-engineering does nothing to reign in the desires that give rise to this over-reach; rather, it threatens to sustain them, in part, by providing current generations the solace of thinking that at least some of the harm stemming from their consumption can be mitigated.101 In this sense, geo-engineering is a handmaiden to injustice: it provides current generations moral cover for continuing to emit more than their fair share. Indeed, geo-engineering is no more a remedy to injustice than would be a company compensating some victims of its pollution while nonetheless continuing to pollute. Justice, more fully conceived, would also require ending the practice that gives rise to the problem. According to Aristotle, the only way to extirpate the injustice that follows from pleonetic desires is to cultivate temperance.102 Only with self-control and moderated appetites will people stop grasping for more than their fair share. 3.2.2 Freedom and Unfreedom There are not just other-regarding reasons—like those of justice—to cultivate temperance. Temperance can also plausibly be understood as a condition of 97. Aristotle 1998: 1267a1–15. 98. Bhikkhu 1997. 99. Caney 2009; Singer 2010, esp. 192–93. See also Gardiner 2004: 583ff.; Caney 2012; Caney 2005: 770; Neumayer 2000; Jamieson 2001; and Baer 2002. 100. The idea of a greenhouse gas budget is Simon Caney’s (2012), though I use it somewhat differently here. 101. Keith et al. 2010; Gardiner 2011; Jamieson 2013: 533f. 102. Perhaps better put, Aristotle (1998: 1267a1–15) believes that the cure rests in cultivating temperance and redirecting one’s remaining desires toward the kinds of pleasures that are unaccompanied by pain (namely, those of philosophy). What’s the Problem with Geo-engineering? 491 personal freedom. Consider the following. Intemperance is fueled by pleonetic desires—i.e., desires for material gratification and pleasure in excess of one’s needs or fair share. In thrall to these desires, a delay or denial of satisfaction is painful or uncomfortable. To allay this pain, we may do things that we believe to be wrong or bad (or, in milder cases of intemperance, we may do what is right or good but only reluctantly).103 For this reason, Aristotle repeatedly construes intemperance as a kind of “slavishness.”104 In the grips of intemperate desires, our rational faculty, which Aristotle most closely associates with our personhood, becomes subordinated to our appetites, which are sub-human.105 On this view, intemperate actions do not follow from a rational will to the good but from a non- or irrational will to indulge our desires, whatever the cost (in way of health or virtue), and however trivial the benefit (recall Gardiner’s tshirt-in-winter example). When we act intemperately, we act against our better judgment, almost as if we are without a choice. Buddhist thought similarly links enslavement to unchecked appetites and freedom or liberation [moksha] to the mastery of desire, though for slightly different reasons. So long as we are guided solely by our appetites, we will subsist in ignorance and fail to address the sources of our suffering. Escaping samsara—the painful cycle of life, death, and rebirth—requires throwing off the yoke of desires for sensory pleasures; only in this do we achieve the liberation of nirvana.106 Thus, the Theranamo Sutra ends: “Not enslaved by anything, // It is possible to put aside all craving, // Resulting in a life of peace and joy.”107 In short, intemperance sustains cravings that overwhelm us, and that keep us locked in a cycle of suffering and subjection. Many of the global affluent’s pleonetic desires are deeply implicated in the climate crisis. To take just one example, the average American consumes about 381g of meat and 756g of eggs and dairy every day. In comparison, the average Indian consumes just 29g of meat and 235g of eggs and dairy per day.108 There are no health-based justifications for this difference; in fact, excessive consumption of animal products is known to cause heart disease, (especially colorectal) cancer, diabetes, obesity, and other serious illnesses.109 Nor is this difference completely reducible to wealth:110 the average person in the United Kingdom and in Germany each consumes only 283g of meat per day, despite 103. The difference here is between akrasia and enkrasia. 104. Aristotle 2009: 1118b15–22, 1118a25–b6. 105. Which is why Aristotle refers to intemperate behavior as counter-rational or irrational. See, e.g., Aristotle 2009: 1119b8–14. 106. Fronsdal 1998: 164–74; Williams 2002; Samuel 2008. 107. Hanh 2012: 231. 108. National Geographic n.d. 109. Bouvard et al. 2015. 110. Though meat consumption does track wealth, as the example of China attests. 492 Ross Mittiga having similar per-capita incomes as the US.111 Simply put, Americans have excessive appetites for meat and dairy—appetites which contribute enormously to climate change and their own dishealth.112 While it may be wrong to say that, in every case, excessive appetites express a kind of unfreedom, it is striking how often the US’s very non-Buddhist, non-Aristotelian culture attributes over-consumption to addiction, cravings, or compulsive eating habits—viz., internal, behavioral tendencies compounded by biochemical cues and social/commercial reinforcement. This strongly suggests a kind of unfreedom—a slavery to unhealthy desires. By contrast, a temperate person (or society) is not bound by compulsion and addiction,113 and is in this sense free from painful and persistent desires for ever more. 4. Conclusion The moral debate over geo-engineering so far has largely revolved around its potential costs, benefits, and risks in comparison to those of conventional abatement measures. Proponents argue that we could engineer the climate at a fraction of the cost of abatement. Others doubt this, emphasizing the many co-benefits of abatement, the non-quantifiable costs of geo-engineering (like the loss of blue skies), and the serious hazards associated with a large-scale intervention into a system as complex as earth’s climate. Yet, even among the staunchest critics of geo-engineering, few reject the conclusion that, if faced with catastrophe, engineering the climate to lower temperatures would be morally justified. Without disputing this, I argue that normative frameworks that focus narrowly on costs, benefits, and risks fail to elucidate fully the reservations many (if not most) people have about geoengineering. Clarifying these reservations requires thinking outside of what is merely right or wrong. Taking this approach, one key issue with geo-engineering is that it follows from, and threatens to sustain, excessive appetites for environmentally destructive forms of consumption. Geo-engineering promises to sever the connection between collective intemperance and its most obvious harmful effect for humans: global warming. Yet, even if preventing warming were all that mattered for us environmentally, there are goods and bads internal to temperance and intemperance, respectively, that count against geoengineering: politically, intemperance engenders unfreedom and injustice. 111. National Geographic n.d. 112. Most estimates attribute between 11 and 18 percent of all emissions to animal agriculture— a figure exceeding cumulative transportation-related emissions. See, e.g., Steinfeld et al. 2006: xxi; Wellesley et al. 2015: vii. 113. Aristotle 2009: 1118b30–35, 1119a12–20. What’s the Problem with Geo-engineering? 493 Unlike cost- and risk-based objections to geo-engineering, these ethical issues are not temporally contingent. Even if geo-engineering were to become the most cost-effective and least risky option, all things considered—as may be the case at the point of imminent climate catastrophe—reasonable people might still regard geo-engineering as tragic, precisely because it follows from, and helps to sustain, collective intemperance (and thus unfreedom and injustice). If this is right, then we cannot fully evaluate geo-engineering, or any response to geo-engineering, solely in relation to its costs, benefits, and risks. We must also consider whether it is ethically justified—including, as I have argued here, whether it promotes temperance or intemperance. In the case of geo-engineering, this kind of reflection provides yet another reason to demand immediate and aggressive abatement efforts. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile ross.mittiga@uc.cl Acknowledgements Earlier versions of this article were presented at the 2017 Western Political Science Association and American Political Science Association meetings. I thank the discussants, panel chairs, copanelists, and audience members—especially Les Thiele, Tim Luke, Stephen Gardiner, Steve Vanderheiden, Peter Cannavo, Yogi Hendlin, Jenn Lawrence, and Michael Lipscomb—for their comments on those occasions. I am also grateful to Colin Bird, Tal Brewer, Sonam Kachru, George Klosko, Jen Rubenstein, and Stephen White for their valuable feedback and suggestions. References Arctic Methane Emergency Group. 2012. “Declaration of Emergency.” http://www .ameg.me/index.php/about-ameg/13-ameg-declarationof-emergency. Aristotle. 1998. Politics, trans. C. D. C. Reeve. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. Aristotle. 2009. The Nichomachean Ethics, ed. Lesley Brown, trans. David Ross. New York: Oxford University Press. 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