Geoengineering/Climate Engineering

"A catastrophic draught event was reported across much of the north of South America during August - December 2005. This resulted in extensive and irreversible damage in parts of the
Amazon river network. The 2005 Amazon draught followed very unusual changes in the Atlantic Ocean’s circulatory system that altered typical wind and rain patterns. Many climatic models predict the future desiccation of the Amazon region. This paper discusses dangers of sudden swings in the Amazon’s climate and how these risks can be reduced and securing the future of the river system.

The Amazon river systems’ inability to adapt to the new seasonal climate patterns in 2005, which led to a complete destruction of some river ecosystems, suggested us to look at water engineering solutions to prevent the risks of more tributaries of such dying. We made a case study to oxygenate the Amazon river to raise its draught-stress threshold during the likely future draughts that may be even worse than today if the Atlantic weather system generates more storms as the world’s temperature rises.

We studied a 100 kilometre wide section near the Amazon’s mouth. We assumed temperature +30C (when 100% oxygenated water contains 7,6 mg O2 / litre). The addition of 2,5 mg O2 / l represents 1/3 of the total, i.e. raising from 70% to 100%. This large water body oxygenation project requires 4 million kg O2 / day. 2,000 MIXOX units consume 80 MW / 100 km of river. 1,000 km demand is at 800 MW (1 power station), costing ~500 million euros p.a." http://www.vesieko.fi/yhteystiedot

This report offers a detailed examination,
by a team of global governance experts,
of governance needs and options for Solar
Radiation Management (SRM) technologies.
The report focuses on near-term governance,
outlining feasible and needed actions that
can be taken by approximately 2025, at the
national, regional, and international levels
and by non-state actors.
The fourteen experts who contributed to
this report were convened as the Academic
Working Group on Climate Engineering
Governance (the Working Group). Starting in
March 2016, we gathered for five meetings
to consider and define the challenges
and opportunities associated with SRM
technologies and to craft a set of specific,
actionable governance recommendations.
During these meetings, the group heard
from established experts on SRM as well as
experts in the governance of other emerging
technologies. Between meetings, group
members delved into and contributed to the
academic literature on SRM and into related
policy conversations.
The report focuses on SRM as a subset
of speculative climate engineering or
geoengineering responses to climate
change. SRM refers to technologies that
might reflect a small percentage of incoming
solar radiation back into space before it can
warm the planet. Although the term “climate
engineering” is often used to encompass
both SRM and technologies that would
remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
in large quantities, the Working Group
decided to focus solely on SRM in order to
provide clear, sharp, and implementable
recommendations pertaining to the specific
governance challenges surrounding SRM.

Warnings about climate change often come wrapped in apocalyptic language and scenarios, often as a rhetorical strategy to convey the sense of urgency with which action is required. Similarly, technologies that promise to deliver us from the impending climate apocalypse often come shrouded as savior-technologies. Once such example are carbon capture and storage solutions. Language and imagery on websites and in marketing material presents these technologies as transformative technologies: they promise to transform something harmful in the atmosphere (CO2) into paradisiacal plentitude: carbon as infinite energy resource. This paper will discuss and explore the underlying ideas behind carbon capture and storage technologies and discuss how language used to talk about the climate opportunities they offer transcends the everyday and the ordinary. Based on David Chidester’s understanding of religion, this paper argues that the power of carbon capture narratives is grounded in religious tropes and ideas.

Many modelling studies suggest that the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), in interaction with the tropical Pacific background climate, will change under rising atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations. Solar geoengineering (reducing the solar flux from outer space) has been proposed as a means to counteract anthropogenic greenhouse-induced changes in climate. Effectiveness of solar geoengineering is uncertain. Robust results are particularly difficult to obtain for ENSO because existing geoengineering simulations are too short (typically ~50 years) to detect statistically significant changes in the highly variable tropical Pacific background climate. We here present results from a 1000-year sunshade geoengineering simulation, G1, carried out with the coupled atmosphere-ocean general circulation model HadCM3L. In agreement with previous studies, reducing the shortwave solar flux  more than compensates the warming in the tropical Pacific that develops in the 4×CO2 scenario: we observe an overcooling of 0.3oC (5 %) and 0.23-mm day-1 (5 %) reduction in mean rainfall relative to preindustrial conditions in the G1 simulation. This is due to the different latitudinal distributions of the shortwave (solar) and longwave (CO2) forcings.The location of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) located north of equator in the tropical Pacific, which moved 7.5o southwards under 4×CO2, is also restored to its preindustrial location. However, other aspects of the tropical Pacific mean climate are not reset as effectively. Relative to preindustrial conditions, in G1 the zonal wind stress, zonal sea surface temperature (SST) gradient, and meridional SST gradient are reduced by 10 %, 11 %, and 9 %, respectively, and the Pacific Walker Circulation (PWC) is consistently weakened. The overall amplitude of ENSO strengthens by 5-8 %, but there is a 65 % reduction in the asymmetry between cold and warm events: cold events intensify more than warm events. Importantly, the frequency of extreme El Niño and La Niña events increases by 44 % and 32 %, respectively, while the total number of El Niño events increases by 12 %. Paradoxically, while the number of total and extreme events increase, the most extreme El Niño events also become weaker relative to preindustrial state while the La Niña events become stronger. That is, extreme El Niño events in G1 become less extreme than in preindustrial conditions, but extreme El Niño events become more frequent. In contrast, extreme La Niña events become stronger in G1. This is in agreement with the general overcooling of the tropical Pacific in G1 relative to preindustrial conditions, which depict a shift towards generally more La Niña-like conditions.

A number of commentators have expressed concern about the role of intellectual property rights (IPRs) in climate engineering (CE) research and governance. However, these concerns have often been couched in general terms, and diverge in the relative importance that they attach to the issue. Whether, how, and why IPRs might matter for the governance of CE activities has
yet to receive a comprehensive treatment; thus the policy and governance implications remain completely unclear.

To untangle the issue, this paper focuses on patents and trade secrets as the most relevant categories of intellectual property, and develops a framework within which to situate IP-related
concerns, specifically as related to direct air capture, ocean iron fertilization, and stratospheric aerosol spraying. The paper shows that there is no a priori “yes or no” answer to the question of whether IPRs are desirable and appropriate for “geoengineering.” Rather, the question of whether they ought to be encouraged or discouraged is highly conditional. We must first ask “What are the specific challenges that IP claims might pose for the technological domain in question?” Next, we must explicitly foreground normative concerns by asking, “Given the scale and distribution of
potential risks and benefits, what is the appropriateness of introducing private property rights?” Only after we have answered these first two questions can we reasonably ask “What is the best
way to incentivize research,” and determine whether IPRs should be recommended or discouraged. The paper concludes by calling for an enhanced research program among CE and IP scholars on the relationships between IPRs and CE research, development, and governance.

Solar geoengineering has been proposed as a means to cool the Earth by increasing the reflection of sunlight back to space, for example, by injecting reflective aerosol particles (or their precursors) into the lower stratosphere. Such proposed techniques would not be able to substitute for mitigation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as a response to the risks of climate change, as they would only mask some of the effects of global warming. They might, however, eventually be applied as a complementary approach to reduce climate risks. Thus, the Earth system consequences of solar geoengineering are central to understanding its potentials and risks. Here we review the state-of-the-art knowledge about strato-spheric sulfate aerosol injection and an idealized proxy for this, 'sunshade geoengineering,' in which the intensity of incoming sunlight is directly reduced in models. Studies are consistent in suggesting that sunshade geoengineering and stratospheric aerosol injection would generally offset the climate effects of elevated GHG concentrations. However, it is clear that a solar geoengineered climate would be novel in some respects, one example being a notably reduced hydrological cycle intensity. Moreover, we provide an overview of nonclimatic aspects of the response to stratospheric aerosol injection, for example, its effect on ozone, and the uncertainties around its consequences. We also consider the issues raised by the partial control over the climate that solar geoengineering would allow. Finally, this overview highlights some key research gaps in need of being resolved to provide sound basis for guidance of future decisions around solar geoengineering.

Chapter 5 (“Governing BECCS: “Slippery Slope” or “Uphill Struggle”?”) highlights how BECCS and other large-scale interventions in the Earth’s climate system, proposed to moderate anthropogenic global warming, are commonly portrayed as threatening to initiate a “slippery slope” from research to deployment. The argument suggests that governance should constrain or even proscribe research into BECCS on the grounds that allowing it to proceed unchecked could lead to a chain of events resulting in deployment and the undesirable consequences that this might bring. This chapter begins by critically examining the slippery slope argument as articulated in relation to BECCS. It then draws on the empirical findings of an expert scenario method designed to explore how far BECCS might develop in the future and under what governance arrangements. Rather than a slippery slope, the scenarios instead illustrate what might best be described as an “uphill struggle,” in which BECCS innovators confront manifold technical, political, and societal challenges to deployment. The chapter concludes by seeking to reframe the governance task as one of responsible incentivization, rather than one of constraint or proscription.

The presence of experts holding patents and simultaneously providing policy advice on areas where they hold patents pose several normative questions. Through a comparative study of several IPCC reports, this article documents the scope of this phenomenon and discusses it with respect to a theory of conflict of interest. Seemingly, it is more likely to be patent-holders on issues of infrastructures, industry and transport rather than for single technologies as such. According to insights from studies on conflict of interest, there is an increased risk for bias. The article investigates the possible relations between patenting and conflicts of interest according to theoretical and empirical insights from the relation between science and society.

Recent assessments of the international community’s
ability to hold the increase of global average temperature
to well below 2°C, while pursuing efforts to limit
that increase to 1.5°C, indicate that this goal is unlikely
to be achieved without large-scale implementation of
climate engineering (CE) technologies. In light of the
prominent, albeit contested, role that CE is likely to
play in international climate policy, this Article analyzes
the specific provisions of the Paris Agreement
with a view to assessing the extent to which the Agreement
can provide an institutional framework to effectively
govern CE internationally, and how it may shape
the development and implementation of CE options.
In particular, the Article examines a number of critical
interpretive questions that will need to be addressed as
states begin to develop CE technologies at large scales,
including the need to provide guidance respecting
the acceptability of exceeding the Paris targets before
drawing down atmospheric CO2 levels, the challenges
for equity, human rights, and sustainability objectives
that CE poses, and the need to incorporate CE technologies into accounting and incentive structures.

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 emissions reductions options.

Despite a growing literature on the climate response to solar geoengineering—proposals to cool the planet by increasing the planetary albedo—there has been little published on the impacts of solar geoengineering on natural and human systems such as agriculture, health, water resources, and ecosystems. An understanding of the impacts of different scenarios of solar geoengineering deployment will be crucial for informing decisions on whether and how to deploy it. Here we review the current state of knowledge about impacts of a solar-geoengineered climate and identify the major research gaps. We suggest that a thorough assessment of the climate impacts of a range of scenarios of solar geoengineer-ing deployment is needed and can be built upon existing frameworks. However, solar geoengineering poses a novel challenge for climate impacts research as the manner of deployment could be tailored to pursue different objectives making possible a wide range of climate outcomes. We present a number of ideas for approaches to extend the survey of climate impacts beyond standard scenarios of solar geoengineering deployment to address this challenge. Reducing the impacts of climate change is the fundamental motivator for emissions reductions and for considering whether and how to deploy solar geoengineering. This means that the active engagement of the climate impacts research community will be important for improving the overall understanding of the opportunities, challenges, and risks presented by solar geoengineering.

After more than two decades of UN negotiations,
global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions continue
to rise, with current projections indicating the
planet is on a pathway to a temperature increase of
approximately 3.2°C by 2100, well beyond what is
considered a safe level. This has spurred scientific and
policy interest in the possible role of solar radiation
management (SRM) and carbon dioxide removal
(CDR) geoengineering activities to help avert passing
critical climatic thresholds, or to help societies recover
if global temperatures overshoot expectations of
safe levels. There are various proposals for SRM and
CDR marine geoengineering, but aside from ocean
iron fertilization (OIF) and marine cloud brightening
(MCB), none of these options have moved beyond
conceptual development and laboratory testing.
Marine geoengineering proposals show significant
diversity in terms of their purpose, scale of application,
likely effectiveness, requisite levels of international
cooperation and intensity of environmental risks. This
diversity of marine geoengineering activities will likely
place significant new demands upon the international
law system to govern potential risks and opportunities.
International ocean law governance is comprised
of a patchwork of global framework agreements,
sectoral agreements and customary international
law rules that have developed over time in response
to disparate issues. These include maritime access,
fisheries management, shipping pollution, ocean
dumping and marine scientific research (MSR). This
patchwork of oceans governance contains several
bodies of rules that might apply in governing marine
geoengineering activities. However, these bodies
of rules were negotiated for different purposes,
and not specifically for the governance of marine
Executive Summary
vii
geoengineering. The extent to which this patchwork
of rules might contribute to marine geoengineering
governance will vary, depending on the purpose
of an activity, where it is conducted, which state is
responsible for it and the types of impacts it is likely
to have. Applying this patchwork to a specific marine
geoengineering activity is complex, and existing
rules may provide only limited concrete guidance as
to how an activity ought to be conducted. The 2013
amendment to the London Protocol on ocean dumping
provides the most developed and specific framework
for marine geoengineering governance to date. But the
capacity of this amendment to bolster the capacity of
international law to govern marine geoengineering
activities is limited by some significant shortcomings.
Negotiations are under way to establish a new global
treaty on conservation of marine biodiversity in areas
beyond national jurisdiction, including new rules
for area-based management, environmental impact
assessments (EIAs) and capacity building/technology
transfer. The potential provisions of this agreement
could be pertinent to marine geoengineering options.
This negotiation is both an opportunity and a risk
for marine geoengineering governance. A new
agreement has the potential to fill key gaps in the
existing patchwork of international law for marine
geoengineering activities in high-seas areas. However,
it is also important that this new treaty be structured
in a way that is not overly restrictive, which might
hinder responsible research and development
of marine geoengineering in high-seas areas.

Chapter 6 (“Multilevel Policy Incentives for BECCS in Sweden”) builds on the high potential for BECCS in Sweden identified in chapter 4, summarizing the current policy incentives for BECCS research, development, demonstration, and diffusion (RDD&D). It examines the given policy drivers and obstacles at multiple scales (e.g., international, supranational, and national) and in terms of various forms of instruments (e.g., economic, regulatory, and informational). The chapter concludes that current policy instruments mostly fail to incentivize BECCS RDD&D in Sweden. The instruments partly favor R&D yet fail to provide incentives covering operational costs. Under current circumstances, BECCS is unlikely to reach demonstration scale in Sweden.

Przy wprowadzaniu każdej nowej technologii potrzebny jest czas na jej adaptację, naukę i testowanie ewentualnych konsekwencji, zarówno zamierzonych, jak i tych zaskakujących i niepożądanych. Często mogą one wystąpić w obszarach odległych od kontekstu, w którym wprowadzamy zmianę. Badacze techniki podkreślają, że
każda innowacja przynosi też destrukcję: zastane sposoby postępowania zostają wyparte przez nowe. Przezorność podpowiada, że dramatycznych transformacji na globalną skalę powinniśmy unikać.

The development of climate engineering research has historically depended on mostly western, holistic perceptions of climate and climate change. Determinations of climate and climate change as a global system have played a defining role in the development of climate engineering. As a result, climate engineering research in general, and solar radiation management (SRM) in particular, is primarily engaged in research of quantified, whole-Earth solutions. I argue that in the potential act of solar radiation management, a view of climate change that relies on the holistic western science of the climatic system is enshrined. This view, dependent on a deliberative intentionality that seems connected to anthropocenic notions of responsibility and control, profoundly influences the assumptions and research methods connected to climate engineering. While this may not necessarily be to the detriment of climate engineering proposals-in fact, it may be the only workable conception of SRM-it is a conceptual limit to the enterprise that has to be acknowledged. Additionally, in terms of governance, reliability, and cultural acceptance, this limit could be a fundamental objection to future experimentation (or implementation).

As emergency measures to prevent the global warming, large-scale geoengineering technology has recently attracted attention worldwide. In the Copenhagen conference, the fossil-fuel dependent United States and the emerging economies such as China refused to assume any obligation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The world seems already too late to combat the global warming. The global warming prevention measures become required to have some rapid and outstanding effects. The huge umbrella covering the earth, the increase of cloud cover, the proliferation of algae by the iron-nutrients spraying over the ocean and even the stimulation of
volcanic activity have been seriously discussed as the possible climate geoengineering measures. The air microbubbles sequestration technology is to be proposed as a new method to reduce the atmospheric CO2 level. The atmosphere contains the very thin carbon dioxide less than 0.04% in spite of the recent artificial addition. The air is not the waste and unharmfull to the human health. The microbubbles of the air or the mildly carbon concentrated air through porous membranes or by adsorbents can be injected safely even into the shallow sea water or land soils. However, some mechanisms to isolate CO2 in the long term from the atmosphere is required to reduce the atmospheric CO2 level.
The air-microbubbles sequestration is a new but very simple efficient technology to reduce the carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere. The air-microbubbles, smaller than several micrometers in diameter, can be easily formed in several meters deep water through the injection of pure air through filters with tiny pores. The carbon dioxide in the air-microbubbles quickly dissolve into water at the higher pressure than the atmospheric pressure while most of oxygen and nitrogen remain in bubbles to reappear at the water surface. The air-microbubbles sequestration is safe and envronment-friendly injecting the pure air only without any additives into water. The air is available everywhere on the earth's surface even in the remote ocean and chilly high latitude regon far from any major carbon emission sources. As a first attempt for application, I designed the ocean-going carbon scrubber-that is a floating platform with four wind turbines. A wind turbine directly drive a air-blower to compress the air and to inject the air-microbubbles through pipes and filters into the surrounding sea water at the depths of several meters.

Despite (or perhaps reflecting) widespread awareness of its ambiguity, the term ‘geoengineering’ has in recent years become massively more prominent. Academic, policy and civil society circles routinely use this term to describe, support or oppose a diverse range of techniques and ideas.  This study aims to contribute to understandings of ways in which variously envisaged approaches to ‘geoengineering’ of the global climate are currently being framed. It asks not only about variously viewed implications of geoengineering itself, but also what these diverse framings can reveal about wider politics in contemporary debates around climate change, science and technology.  The paper applies Q methodology to analyse geoengineering as a subjective discursive construct, the bounds of which are continually negotiated and contested.  35 participants from a variety of disciplinary and institutional backgrounds in the UK, US, Canada and Japan undertook a ‘Q sort’ of 48 opinion statements about geoengineering between December 2012 and February 2013.  Four distinctive framings emerged from this analysis, labelled: ‘At the very least we need more research’; ‘We are the planetary maintenance engineers’; ‘Geoengineering is a political project’; and ‘Let’s focus on Carbon.’  Results indicate a strong polarity around divergently-construed pros and cons of geoengineering as a whole – underscoring the political salience of this term. But additional axes of difference suggest a more nuanced picture than straightforward pro/anti positioning.  The ambiguity of the term is argued to offer interpretive flexibility for articulating diverse interests within and across contending framings. The paper questions whether increasing terminological precision will necessarily facilitate greater clarity in governance discussions or public engagement, and argues that the merits of any given form of precision will depend on particular framings. Much ambiguity in this area may thus be irreducible, and hence the challenge lies rather in realising the wider implications of the political pluralities this reveals.

The climatic effects of climate engineering - or geoengineering - via cirrus cloud thinning are examined. Thinner cirrus clouds can allow more outgoing longwave radiation to escape to space, potentially cooling the climate. The cloud properties and climatic effects due to perturbing the ice crystal fall speed are investigated in a set of hemispheric-scale sensitivity experiments with the Community Earth System Model. It is found that increasing the ice crystal fall speed, as an analogue to cirrus cloud seeding, depletes high level clouds and reduces the longwave cloud forcing. Deliberate depletion of cirrus clouds increases outgoing longwave radiation, reduces the upper tropospheric water vapor and cools the climate. Global cirrus cloud thinning gave a net cloud forcing change of -1.55 Wm -2 and a global annual mean temperature change of -0.94 K. Though there is negligible change in the global annual mean precipitation (-0.001 mm/day), the spatially non-homogeneous forcing induces circulation changes, and hence remote climate changes. Climate engineering the Southern Hemisphere only results in a northwards shift of the Intertropical Convergence Zone and possible Sahelian drought alleviation, whilst targeting the Northern Hemisphere alone causes a greater cooling. It was found that targeting cirrus clouds everywhere outside of the tropics results in changes to the circulation and precipitation even in the non - climate engineered regions, underscoring the risks of remote side effects and indeed the complexity of the climate system.

Faced with the urgency of climate change, Climate Engineering has been framed as a fast and feasible technological solution. At the same time, however, critique against it is getting increasingly louder. This paper articulates a critical analysis of Climate Engineering technologies from a point of view situated within the degrowth discourse. In the first part two approaches discussed within the degrowth debate are presented: the concept of viability based on a biophysical perspective and the concept of conviviality based on a socio-cultural approach. In a second step formalized arguments from the point of view of applied ethics are articulated and applied to three Climate Engineering Technologies: Sulfate Aerosol Injection, Bio-energy with Carbon Capture and Storage, and Afforestation. In a third step, an extended version of the trade-off argument about mitigation versus Climate Engineering solution is discussed from a degrowth perspective: accordingly, within the current dominant growth paradigm, climate engineering technologies might lead to reduced mitigation efforts. The paper follows the argumentative turn in applied ethics and displays a formalization of arguments that can help clarify decision-making and identify the different dimensions at stake. The paper articulates arguments against the deployment of CE technologies and advances a new version of the trade-off-argument based on a degrowth perspective. From the point of view of a degrowth-based critique of technology, the only type of Climate Engineering Technology ethically acceptable would be afforestation under specific conditions. Highlights: • Critique of technology based on degrowth is applied to Climate Engineering • Biophysical (viability) and socio-cultural (conviviality) criteria are presented • Via formalized arguments a critique of Climate Engineering Technologies is discussed • Sulfate Aerosol Inj., Bio-energy w. Carbon Capture & Storage, Afforestation analyzed Acknowledgments We would like to thank the editors and the anonymous reviewers for their very interesting comments that greatly helped improve this paper.

Solar radiation management or geoengineering can be used to deliberately alter the Earth’s radiation budget, by reflecting
sunlight to space. This has been suggested as a response to Anthropogenic Global Warming, to partly or fully balance radiative
forcing [1]. Approximately 22% of sun-like stars have Earth-like exoplanets [2]. Advanced civilisations may exist on these, and
may use geoengineering for positive or negative radiative forcing. Additionally, terraforming projects [e.g. 3], may be used to
expand alien habitable territory, or for resource management or military operations on non-home planets. Potential observations
of alien geoengineering and terraforming may enable detection of technologically advanced alien civilisations, and may help
identify widely-used and stable geoengineering technologies. This knowledge may assist the development of safe and stable
geoengineering methods for Earth. The potential risks and benefits of possible alien detection of Earth-bound geoengineering
schemes must be considered before deployment of terrestrial geoengineering schemes.

Proposed ways of governing climate engineering have most often been supported by narrowly framed and unreflexive appraisals and processes. This article explores the governance implications of a Deliberative Mapping project that, unlike other governance principles, have emerged from an extensive process of reflection and reflexivity. In turn, the project has made significant advances in addressing the current deficit of responsibly defined criteria for shaping governance propositions. Three such propositions argue that (1) reflexive foresight of the imagined futures in which climate engineering proposals might reside is required; (2) the performance and acceptance of climate engineering proposals should be decided in terms of robustness, not optimality; and (3) climate engineering proposals should be satisfactorily opened up before they can be considered legitimate objects of governance. Taken together, these propositions offer a sociotechnical framework not simply for governing climate engineering but for governing responses to climate change at large.

Geoengineering is the deliberate modification of the climate system. It has been discussed as a technique to counteract changes expected as a result of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW).1 Speculation has occurred that the possibility of geoengineering will reduce or delay efforts to mitigate AGW. This possible delay or reduction in mitigation has been described as ‘moral hazard’ by various authors. We investigate the definitions and use of the term ‘moral hazard’, and the related (but significantly different) concept of ‘morale hazard’, in relevant law, economic and insurance literatures. We find that ‘moral hazard’ has been generally misapplied in discussions of geoengineering, which perhaps explains unexpected difficulties in detecting expected effects experimentally.2 We clarify relevant usage of the terms, identifying scenarios that can properly be described as moral hazard (malfeasance), and morale hazard (lack of caution or recklessness). We note generally the importance of correctly applying this distinction when discussing geoengineering. In conclusion, we note that a proper consideration of the risks of both moral and morale hazards allows us to easily segment framings for both geoengineering advocacy and the advocate groups who rely on these framings. We suggest mnemonics for groups vulnerable to moral hazard (Business as Usuals) and morale hazard (Chicken Littles) and suggest the development of an experimental methodology for validating the distinction thus drawn.

The online video-sharing website YouTube is extremely popular globally, also as a tool for information on science and environmental topics. However, only little is known about what kind of information users find when they are searching for information about climate science, climate change, and climate engineering on YouTube. This contribution presents results from an exploratory research project that investigates whether videos found on YouTube adhere to or challenge scientific consensus views. Ten search terms were employed to search for and analyze 200 videos about climate and climate modification topics, which are contested topics in online media. The online anonymization tool Tor has been used for the randomization of the sample and to avoid personalization of the results. A heuristic qualitative classification tool was set up to categorize the videos in the sample. Eighty-nine videos of the 200 videos in the sample are supporting scientific consensus views about anthropogenic climate change, and climate scientists are discussing climate topics with deniers of climate change in four videos in the sample. Unexpectedly, the majority of the videos in the sample (107 videos) supports worldviews that are opposing scientific consensus views: 16 videos deny anthropogenic climate change and 91 videos in the sample propagate straightforward conspiracy theories about climate engineering and climate change. Videos supporting the scientific mainstream view received only slightly more views (16,941,949 views in total) than those opposing the mainstream scientific position (16,939,655 views in total). Consequences for the public communication of climate change and climate engineering are discussed in the second part of the article. The research presented in this contribution is particularly interested in finding out more about strategically distorted communications about climate change and climate engineering in online environments and in critically analyzing them.

Poster's note : discusses the potential for hostile use of geoengineering technologies in interplanetary warfare. Preview available, showing most of the article text.

http://www.jbis.org.uk/paper.php?p=2015.68.150
Deliberate Destruction of Planets and Biospheres
Science fiction offers scenarios in which a planet is destroyed in combat. However, these are often impractical. Instead of supplying all the energy required, more plausible attacks may use leverage in order to damage or destroy the planet or its biosphere. In order to study the conduct, observation, or defence associated with such attacks, a range of potentially practical weapon and defence technologies are discussed. These are: altering the radiation budget of a planet so as to substantially change its temperature; introducing invasive species to transform the biogeochemistry; and using orbital perturbations of comets and asteroids to cause collisions, or to move the planet to an unstable or uninhabitable orbit. Weapon transit and effect times associated with these technologies render them suitable only for extreme slow-motion warfare, assuming near-term technologies.

The feckless response of the world community to the mounting threat of climate change has led to a growing interest in climate geoengineering research. In early 2015, the us National Academy of Sciences released two major reports on the topic. While it is notable that both reports recommended some form of public participation to inform research, this article argues that the vagueness of these recommendations could mean that their implementation might not comport with optimal approaches for public deliberation. We outline some options for public deliberation on climate geoengineer-ing and important design considerations.

Geoengineering is a proposed response to anthropogenic global warming (AGW). Conventionally it consists of two strands: Solar Radiation Management (SRM), which is fast-acting, incomplete but inexpensive, and Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR), which is slower acting, more expensive, and comprehensive. Pairing SRM and CDR offers a contractually complete solution for future emissions if effectively-scaled and coordinated. SRM offsets warming, while CDR takes effect.We suggest coordination using a blockchain, i.e. smart contracts and a distributed ledger. Specifically, we integrate CDR futures with time and volume-matched SRM orders, to address emissions contractually before release. This provides an economically and environmentally proportionate solution to CO2 emissions at the wellhead, with robust contractual transparency, and minimal overhead cost.

Our proposal offers a ‘polluter pays’ implementation of Long & Shepherds SRM ‘bridge’ concept. This ‘polluter geoengineers’ approach mandates and verifies emissionslinked payments with minimal friction, delay, or cost. Finally, we compare alternative market designs against this proposal, finding that this proposal offers several advantages. We conclude that blockchain implementation of the ‘polluter geoengineers’ approach is attractive and feasible for larger wellhead contracts. We also identify a handful of advantages and disadvantages that merit further study.

The possibility of altering the world's climate through intentional stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI)—or indeed through any other solar radiation management (SRM) technology—brings with it not just a new technology for humans to consider but a new category of problem. As authors such as Bron Szerszynski, Willis Jenkins, and Christopher J. Preston have pointed out, intervening deliberately in the skies would " begin the era of global artificing. "  In his article " Carbon Emissions, Stratospheric Aerosol Injection, and Unintended Harms, " which explores the relative moral culpability of agents inducing climate harms through their actions, Preston applies the doctrine of double effect (DDE) to investigate one specific question: Does intentionality make an ethical difference when considering culpability for causing climate harms? He reaches the conclusion—surprising both to him and to me—that those who might deliberately engineer the world's climate through SAI may be less culpable than those who continue to emit greenhouse gases (GHGs). Preston’s exploration of the application of the DDE as a partial ethical defense for SAI is provocative and useful, but it leads to a confusing and unpersuasive conclusion.

The article addresses the problem of monitoring of technology. It presents the analysis of the inherent limits of the very idea of possible control. These inevitable limits are of philosophical, theoretical and practical nature. We refer to selected critical arguments that are formulated on this subject within the area of the philosophy of technology, Technology Assessment and Science and Technology Studies. The paper demonstrates that the project of geoengineering exemplifies dangerous standpoints of arogant scientism, the so-called technological imperative and instrumentalism, the tendency to underestimate future risks, and finally, the dilemma of control.

We present a suite of new climate model experiment designs for the Geoengineering Model Intercompari-son Project (GeoMIP). This set of experiments, named Ge-oMIP6 (to be consistent with the Coupled Model Intercom-parison Project Phase 6), builds on the previous GeoMIP project simulations, and has been expanded to address several further important topics, including key uncertainties in extreme events, the use of geoengineering as part of a portfolio of responses to climate change, and the relatively new idea of cirrus cloud thinning to allow more longwave radiation to escape to space. We discuss experiment designs, as well as the rationale for those designs, showing preliminary results from individual models when available. We also introduce a new feature, called the GeoMIP Testbed, which provides a platform for simulations that will be performed with a few models and subsequently assessed to determine whether the proposed experiment designs will be adopted as core (Tier 1) GeoMIP experiments. This is meant to encourage various stakeholders to propose new targeted experiments that address their key open science questions, with the goal of making GeoMIP more relevant to a broader set of communities. Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union. 3380 B. Kravitz et al.: GeoMIP6: simulation design and preliminary results

Integrated assessment models (IAMs) treat the global climate and the global economy as two coupled parts of a single hybrid system, and can be used to construct policy portfolios that reflect a wide variety of social and scientific values and priorities.  However, there is a high degree of uncertainty endemic to both climatological and economic models, which is inherited by IAMs.  In addition, the decision of which models to use, how to prioritize future outcomes, and how to delineate relevantly similar states of the hybrid system are deeply value-laden and perspectival choices, complicating the task of constructing policies based on IAMs.  In this paper, we examine the conceptual and technical challenges associated with IAM-based policy and argue that the best way to meet these challenges is to use IAMs to construct policies that maximize the range of future policy options available, rather than to pursue specific outcomes.  By optimizing our policy choice to produce a maximally wide range of future choice, we both mitigate the practical impact of structural model uncertainty and minimize the extent to which individual evaluative choices are irreversibly enshrined in policy decisions.  This approach greatly enhances the potential utility of IAMs, and has concrete, specific implications for climate policy deliberations.

The concept of climate engineering (CE, also: geoengineering) is discussed as a “plan B” against climate change. This makes CE an alternative to low-carbon energy approaches which help to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and therefore mitigate effects of climate change. CE intervenes directly into the climate system.
The central question of this paper: Is responsibility an adequately respond to the need for governance of CE?
The concept of responsibility will be sociologically analysed. I did not look much into the Horizon2020 documents and will not work with the fixed term of Responsible Research and Innovation. My impression is that often the term responsibility is used to insert some ethics without discussion the term itself.

[1] Cirrus clouds, thin ice clouds in the upper troposphere, have a net warming effect on Earth's climate. Consequently, a reduction in cirrus cloud amount or optical thickness would cool the climate. Recent research indicates that by seeding cirrus clouds with particles that promote ice nucleation, their lifetimes and coverage could be reduced. We have tested this hypothesis in a global climate model with a state-of-the-art representation of cirrus clouds and find that cirrus cloud seeding has the potential to cancel the entire warming caused by human activity from pre-industrial times to present day. However, the desired effect is only obtained for seeding particle concentrations that lie within an optimal range. With lower than optimal particle concentrations, a seeding exercise would have no effect. Moreover, a higher than optimal concentration results in an over-seeding that could have the deleterious effect of prolonging cirrus lifetime and contributing to global warming. Citation: Storelvmo T., J.