Public engagement on solar radiation management and why it needs to happen now
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Public engagement on solar radiation management and why it needs to happen now Wylie A. Carr & Christopher J. Preston & Laurie Yung & Bronislaw Szerszynski & David W. Keith & Ashley M. Mercer
Received: 5 September 2012 / Accepted: 4 April 2013 / Published online: 15 May 2013 # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
Abstract There have been a number of calls for public engagement in geoengineering in recent years. However, there has been limited discussion of why the public should have a say or what the public can be expected to contribute to geoengineering discussions. We explore how public engagement can contribute to the research, development, and governance of one branch of geoengineering, solar radiation management (SRM), in three key ways: 1. by fulfilling ethical requirements for the inclusion of affected parties in democratic decision making processes; 2. by contributing to improved dialogue and trust between scientists and the public; and 3. by ensuring that decisions about SRM research and possible deployment are informed by a broad set of societal interests, values, and framings. Finally, we argue that, despite the nascent state of many SRM technologies, the time is right for the public to participate in engagement processes.
This article is part of a special issue on “Geoengineering Research and its Limitations” edited by Robert Wood, Stephen Gardiner, and Lauren Hartzell-Nichols.
W. A. Carr (*) : L. Yung Department of Society and Conservation, University of Montana, 32 Campus Drive, Missoula, MT 59812, USA e-mail: [email protected] C. J. Preston Department of Philosophy, University of Montana, 32 Campus Drive, Missoula, MT 59812, USA B. Szerszynski Department of Sociology, Lancaster University, Bowland North, Lancaster LA1 1YT, UK
D. W. Keith School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and Kennedy School, Harvard University, Pierce Hall, 29 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA A. M. Mercer Institute for Sustainable Energy, Environment and Economy, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, Alberta T2N 1N4, Canada
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Climatic Change (2013) 121:567–577
1 The context for public engagement in solar radiation management Solar radiation management (SRM) has recently received increasing scientific, political, and public attention. SRM is a form of geoengineering that seeks to lessen the harmful impacts of climate change by altering the earth’s albedo. Possible techniques include increasing the concentration of sulfuric acid droplets in the stratosphere or increasing marine cloud lifespan and albedo using salt water droplets (Royal Society 2009). While not a new idea (Keith 2000), attention to SRM increased dramatically with the publication of atmospheric chemist and Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen’s (2006) article “Albedo Enhancement by Stratospheric Sulfur Injections: A Contribution to Resolve a Policy Dilemma?” We focus here on SRM, as a subset of geoengineering technologies, because several SRM techniques currently are regarded as potentially inexpensive and technologicall
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