Arguments
Skeptical Science New Research for Week #12, 2020
Posted on 25 March 2020 by Doug Bostrom
Tamper with The System?
Well, we already are.
But there's a difference between accidentally trickling sand into a precision gearbox versus formulating a plan to alter it on the fly with improvements in mind. One action is more or less innocently unscrupulous, the other amenable to earning an easy conscience. Low & Buck offer a critical analysis of "RRI" or "Responsible Research and Innovation" in connection with climate change in their paper The practice of responsible research and innovation in “climate engineering.” We've an amply bitter track record of hastily deployed technological products that swiftly became entrenched and very difficult to remove despite obvious problems. RRI seeks to draw from that history to help produce a more rational means of progress. Here it's in connection with avoiding multiplying our problems by thoughtlessly deploying technology while seeking to mitigate an earlier unplanned technological mess of our own creation. The abstract:
Sunlight reflection and carbon removal proposals for “climate engineering” (CE) confront governance challenges that many emerging technologies face: their futures are uncertain, and by the time one can discern their shape or impacts, vested interests may block regulation, and publics are often left out of decision?making about them. In response to these challenges, “responsible research and innovation” (RRI) has emerged as a framework to critique and correct for technocratic governance of emerging technologies, and CE has emerged as a prime case of where it can be helpfully applied. However, a critical lens is rarely applied to RRI itself. In this review, we first survey how RRI thinking has already been applied to both carbon removal and sunlight reflection methods for climate intervention. We examine how RRI is employed in four types of activities: Assessment processes and reports, principles and protocols for research governance, critical mappings of research, and deliberative and futuring engagements. Drawing upon this review, we identify tensions in RRI practice, including whether RRI forms or informs choices, the positionalities of RRI practitioners, and ways in which RRI activities enable or disable particular climate interventions. Finally, we recommend that RRI should situate CE within the long arc of sociotechnical proposals for addressing climate change, more actively connect interrogations of the knowledge economy with reparative engagements, include local or actor?specific contexts, design authoritative assessments grounded in RRI, and go beyond treating critique and engagement as “de facto” governance.
The juggling act of addressing risks and hazards while pursuing important, compelling benefits is nicely illustrated by the beguiling article Halving warming with stratospheric aerosol geoengineering moderates policy-relevant climate hazards, by Irvine & Keith. From the abstract:
Using a linearized scaling of GLENS we find that halving warming with stratospheric aerosols moderates important climate hazards in almost all regions. Only 1.3% of land area sees exacerbation of change in water availability, and regions that are exacerbated see wetting not drying contradicting the common assumption that solar geoengineering leads to drying in general. These results suggest that halving warming with stratospheric aerosol geoengineering could potentially reduce key climate hazards substantially while avoiding some problems associated with fully offsetting warming.
It sounds great. But would we really act on this, without a public process of evaluation, consent and governance? And what's consent, and what's governance? Does one country and its citizens get to make decisions that don't stay neatly within borders, decisions that may be mistaken and even so redound on all? Isn't that kind of decision process at the root of many of the problems we face? It's for exactly these reasons that Low & Buck and many others are attempting to illustrate processes for such grave matters that will hopefully help us to obtain better long term results than we've so far produced by more chaotic means.
49 Articles
Physical science of global warming & effects
Understanding Arctic Ocean circulation: a review of ocean dynamics in a changing climate
How oceanic melt controls tidewater glacier evolution
Observations & observational methods of global warming & effects
Permafrost degradation in the Western Russian Arctic
A recent decline in North Atlantic subtropical mode water formation
A satellite era warming hole in the equatorial Atlantic Ocean
Assessments of the Arctic amplification and the changes in the Arctic sea surface
Spatiotemporal changes of rice phenology in China during 1981–2010
Modeling & simulation of global warming & global warming effects
Future wave-climate driven longshore sediment transport along the Indian coast
Climate model advancement GCMA
Biology & global warming
The changing physical and ecological meanings of North Pacific Ocean climate indices (open access)
A global perspective on the climate?driven growth synchrony of neighbouring trees
GHG sources & sinks, flux
Soil greenhouse gas budget of two intensively managed grazing systems
Carbon sequestration in paddy soil as influenced by organic and inorganic amendments (open access)
Climate change communications & cognition
Political populism, responsiveness, and public support for climate mitigation (open access)
Humans dealing with our global warming
Doubling of U.S. Population Exposure to Climate Extremes by 2050 (open access)
Attitudes towards climate change migrants (open access)
Climate change adaptation strategies, productivity and sustainable food security in southern Mali
The costs of achieving climate targets and the sources of uncertainty (open access)
Climate and health damages from global concrete production
Global Climate and Human Health Effects of the Gasoline and Diesel Vehicle Fleets (open access)
Warm spells and climate risk to human health in the Mexico City Metropolitan Area
Global warming effects on climate zones for wine grape in Ningxia region, China
Halving warming with stratospheric aerosol geoengineering moderates policy-relevant climate hazards
Consumption-oriented policy instruments for fostering greenhouse gas mitigation (open access)
A Stress Test for Climate Change Impacts on Water Security: a CRIDA Case Study
Other
Tidal pressurization of the ocean cavity near an Antarctic ice shelf grounding line
Deep time perspective on rising atmospheric CO2
Informed opinion & nudges
The practice of responsible research and innovation in “climate engineering” (open access)
From Hubris to Humility: Transcending Original Sin in Managing Hydroclimatic Risk
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"accidentaly trickling sand into a precision gearbox"
What a hook!