Abstract
One of the most-discussed topics in the social science literature regarding geoengineering is the inter-relationship between geoengineering and climate change mitigation. This literature has two distinct strands. What we might call Strand # 1 assumes that there may be some optimal mix of geoengineering and mitigation from a welfare economics perspective, and explores what an optimal mix might be and under what conditions it might obtain. What we might call Strand #2 of the literature builds on the recognition that global mitigation efforts have been wildly sub-optimal and that a huge increase in mitigation efforts, as a normative matter, is needed for the sake of current and future generations. Strand # 2 recognizes, too, that mitigation is not easy, it is expensive, it requires individual and collective changes in behavior, it poses a threat to entrenched, powerful economic interests, and it implicates complicated questions as to who exactly should bear the costs of mitigation and in what measure. Strand # 2 is also understandably concerned with the following question:
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Notes
- 1.
See,e.g., Jesse Reynolds, A critical examination of the climate engineering moral hazard and risk compensation concern, 2(2) The Anthropocene Rev. 174, 185 (2015) (“the simple economics of substitutes suggests that, to the extent climate engineering might actually reduce mitigation through substitution, that could be rational and beneficial”); Bjorn Lomborg, Geoengineering – A Quick Clean Fix?, Time, Nov. 14, 2010 (arguing that geoengineering is justified by the high costs of proposed mitigation), available at http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2030804,00.html;
Michael McCracken, On the possible use of geoengineering to moderate specific climate change impacts, 4(4) Envtl. Res. Letters: 045107 (2009). (modelling scenarios in which geoengineering would enhance welfare).
- 2.
Olaf Corry, The international politics of geoengineering: The feasibility of Plan B for tackling climate change, 48(4) Security Dialogue 297, 299 (2017).
- 3.
Keith and Lin both suggest that risk compensation is a more apt label for the concern than the most commonly-used term, moral hazard. See David Keith, A CASE FOR CLIMATE ENGINEERING 129-132 (2013); Albert Lin, Does geoengineering present a moral hazard, 40 ELQ 673, 688-690 (2013). Reynolds combines both ideas into “CE MH-RC,” which stands for climate engineering moral hazard-risk compensation. Reynolds, supra note 1, at 178.
- 4.
To the extent that some geoengineering efforts do not actually reduce the build up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere but rather only shield the surface from warming effects, the termination of geoengineering (intentional or not) could result in dramatic warming. See Andy Parker & Peter J. Irvine, The Risk of Termination Shock From Solar Geoengineering, Earth’s Future, 11 March 2018, available at https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2017EF000735 (describing the concerns surrounding SRM’s “termination shock,” but also suggesting ways this shock could be moderated).
- 5.
See David W. Keith and Douglas G. MacMartin, A temporary, moderate and responsive scenario for solar geoengineering, Nature Climate Change, 16 February 2015, available at https://keith.seas.harvard.edu/files/tkg/files/174.keith_.macmartin.atemporarymoderateandresponsivescenarioforsolargeoengineering.pdf (acknowledging that “[o]cean acidification is a risk of SRM,” assuming SRM is “used as a substitute for emissions mitigation’).
- 6.
As discussed below, the empirical support for the opposite proposition – that knowledge about geoengineering could increase support for mitigation efforts – comes primarily from small focus group studies in Europe, and that effect has not been established by any of the published studies from the United States. As noted below, there is a lack of empirical studies involving subjects outside of the United States, Western Europe and Australia
- 7.
Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk, 47 Econometrica 263, 265 (1979).
- 8.
Richard Thaler, The Psychology of Choice and the Assumptions of Economics, in Quasi-Rational Economics 137, 142 (Richard Thaler ed., 1991) (citing Kahneman & Tversky, supra note 22, 998. By contrast, where the loss at issue is small, but the probability of it occurring is so high as to make occurrence almost a sure thing, people are quite willing to purchase insurance. See Paul Slovic et al., Accident Probabilities and Seat Belt Usage: A Psychological Perspective, in The Perception of Risk 75-76 (Paul Slovic ed., 2000); Paul Slovic et al., Preference for Insuring Against Probable Small Losses: Insurance Implications, in The Perception of Risk, id., at 51-72.
- 9.
See David A. Dana, A Behavioral Economic Defense of the Precautionary Principle, 97 N
NWU L. Rev. 1315, 1317 (2007) (arguing that the precautionary principle can function as a counterweight to heuristic biases in the context of climate change). I do not mean to suggest, however, that application of the precautionary principle to the geoengineering issue is straightforward, as one could make the argument that the precautionary principle counsels against geoengineering given its uncertain effects and also counsel in favor of geoengineering as insurance against climate change and the risk that mitigation will be inadequate. For a full discussion, see Professor Kalyani Robbins contribution to this book.
- 10.
D. McLaren, Mitigation deterrence and the “moral hazard” of solar radiation management, 4 Earth’s Future 596, 599 (2016).
- 11.
See Rona Fried, Geoengineering solutions getting closer, Branson funding them, May 12, 2012, available at http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/geoengineering-solutions-getting-closer-gates-branson-funding-them-50385/ (“Bill Gates, Sir Richard Branson, tar sands magnate Murray Edwards and Niklas Zennström, co-founder of Skype, and other wealthy individuals have financed official reports on the future use of geoengineering, raising concerns that wealthy people could have undue influence on policy. “) Gates analogizes geoengineering to heart surgery: “one of the complaints people have against that is that if it looks like an easy out, it’ll reduce the political will to cut emissions. If that’s the case, then, hey, we should take away heart surgery so that people know not to overeat.” Bill Gates: The Rolling Stone Interview, March 13, 2014. The Paris Agreement could be read as implicitly acknowledging a need for geoengineering to some extent, as Daniel Farber has explained, http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2015/12/14/does-the-paris-agreement-open-the-door-to-geoengineering/
- 12.
Johanes Friedrich et al., Ap. 11, 2017, available at http://www.wri.org/blog/2017/04/interactive-chart-explains-worlds-top-10-emitters-and-how-theyve-changed
- 13.
Jacob Poushter and Dorothy Manevich, Aug. 1, 2017, available at http://www.pewglobal.org/2017/08/01/globally-people-point-to-isis-and-climate-change-as-leading-security-threats/
- 14.
See Tyler Cowen, Why Politics Is Stuck in the Middle, NY Times Feb. 6, 2010, available at https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/07/business/economy/07view.html (discussing the median voter theorem, first proposed by Anthony Downs in 1957, that “there is a dynamic that pushes politicians to embrace the preferences of the typical or ‘median’ voter, who sits squarely in the middle of public opinion.”).
- 15.
M. Gilens, M., & B. Page, Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens, 12(3) Perspectives on Politics 564, 564.
- 16.
Peter Temin, The Vanishing Middle Class 74 (2017).
- 17.
Of course, economic elites are not monolithic. Conservative political elites and business interests tied to the fossil fuel industry have sought to undermine mitigation and adaptation initiatives within the federal government and in a number of state governments. See, e.g., https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/dec/12/big-oil-lobby-get-what-it-wants-epa-trump-pruitt. Other economic elites in the United States, including those in the finance and technology sector, seem to have no interest in climate change denialism. Thus, any assessment of elite opinion may have to take account of the fact that there are many elites that may be relevant in any policy domain, including the mitigation and adaptation domains. See, e.g., http://money.cnn.com/2017/06/05/technology/business/businesses-paris-climate-agreement/index.html. The elites who may shape mitigation policy and adaptation policy, moreover, may be different. Both mitigation and adaptation require action at the level of the nation state, but many adaptation decisions will be made (or not) and implemented at the more local level. Thus, local elites may be as much the relevant audience for adaptation policy as national elites. See generally Hari M. Osofsky, Polycentrism and climate change, in Michael Faur (ed.), Elgar Encyclopedia of Environmental Law 324-36 (2016).
- 18.
For accounts of these shifts, see, e.g., https://www.bna.com/australia-survived-climate-n73014452981/; http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-faces-limits-in-attempt-to-reverse-climate-change-policies-2017-10; https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2017/09/14/florida-governor-remains-unsure-about-climate-change-after-hurricane-irma-114498
- 19.
Dan Kahan, June 21, 2012, available at http://www.culturalcognition.net/blog/2012/6/21/politically-nonpartisan-folks-are-culturally-polarized-on-cl.html
- 20.
See, e.g., Adam Corner and Nick Pidgeon, Geoengineering, climate change skepticism, and the “moral hazard” argument: an experimental study of UK public perceptions, 372 Phil. Trans.Royal Soc’y. 20,140,063 (2014); Victoria Campbell-Arvai et al., The influence of learning about carbon dioxide removal on support for mitigation policies, 143 Climactic Change 321-336 (2017); Malcolm Fairbrother, Geoengineering, moral hazard and trust in climate science: evidence from a survey experiment in Britain, 139 Climactic Change 477-489 (2016); Dan Kahan, et al., Geoengineering and Climate Change Polarization: Testing a Two-Channel Model of Science Communication, 658(1) ANNALS A. Acad.Pol.l& Social Sci. 199-222 (2015).
- 21.
See, e.g., Victoria Wibeck et al., Questioning the technological fix to climate change – Lay sense-making of geoengineering in Sweden, 7 Energy Research & Soc. Sci. 23-30 (2015).
- 22.
See Duncan McLaren, Public Conceptions of Justice in climate engineering: Evidence from secondary analyses of deliberations, 41 Global Ent’l Change 64-73 (2016).
- 23.
Merk et al. found German subjects were willing to offset their own emissions when they receive information about solar geoengineering. Subjects appeared to view solar geoengineering as a potential threat and appear willing to increase their investment in carbon offsets to help prevent a level of climate change that would make the deployment of solar aerosol injection more likely. Christine Merk et al., Knowledge about aerosol injection does not reduce individual mitigation efforts, 11 Envt’l Research Letters (2016) 054009. For a general review of the weakened resolve literature, see Elizabeth T. Burns et al., What do people think when they think about solar geoengineering? A review of empirical social science literature, and prospects for future research, 4 Earth’s Future 536–542 (2017), doi:https://doi.org/10.1002/2016EF00046; Corry, supra note 2, at 298.
- 24.
See Corner and Pidgeon, supra note 20; Campbell-Arvai et al., supra note 20; Fairbrother, supra note 20; Kahan, et al., supra note 20; Kaitlin T. Raimi, Alexander Maki, David Dana & Michael P. Vandenbergh (2019) Framing of Geoengineering Affects Support for Climate Change Mitigation, Environmental Communication, 13:3, 300-319, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2019.1575258
- 25.
Kahan, supra note 20, at 213.
- 26.
Indeed, the geoengineering prompt in Kahan (2015) depicts mitigation as essentially irrational comparted to geoengineering: “Land-based filters could remove excess CO2 from the air; high-altitude reflectors could be turned on and off to reduce solar heating . . . . ‘geoengineering’ technologies . . .would not only be more effective than enactment of emission restrictions, but also spare consumers and businesses [of] heavy costs . . . .” Kahan, supra note 20, at 213.
- 27.
See Fairbrother, supra note 20, at 481 (informing subjects that “to deal with global warming, scientists are developing ways of cooling the Earth’s climate, such as by putting large mirrors in space to block some of the sun rays that heat the planet. Another technique they are researching is spraying particles in the atmosphere, to reflect some light from the sun back into space.”).
- 28.
I use the term precautionary principle in a “thin” sense, simply to mean a principle that requires taking serious account of nonquantifiable, uncertain risks as part of decisionmaking. Getting the framing right for geoengineering also could be supported by a sophisticated cost-benefit analysis without explicit invocation of the precautionary principle. See Noah M. Sachs, Rescuing the Strong Precautionary Principle From Its Critics 2011 U Ill L Rev. 1285 (discussing different versions of the principle).
- 29.
For example, David Keith, one of the most prominent scientists advocating for and engaging in geoengineering research, speaks of geoengineering in very measured, sober terms. See, e.g., David Keith, Guardian, March 29, 2017, Fear of solar geoengineering is healthy – but don’t distort our research (“Fear of solar geoengineering is entirely healthy. Its mere prospect might be hyped by fossil fuel interests to thwart emissions cuts. It could be used by one or a few nations in a way that’s harmful to many. There might be some yet undiscovered risk making the technology much less effective in reality than the largely positive story told by computer models.”).
- 30.
Jonas Anshelm and Anders Hansson, Has the grand idea of geoengineering as Plan B run out of steam?, Anthropocene Review 64, 68 (2016).
“We. .. illustrat[e] the gradual but significant move towards more modest and critical descriptions of geoengineering as a climate control measure, away from emergency framings and notions of geoengineering as ‘Plan B’, and instead towards lowered expectations and ambiguity of the very notion of geoengineering.. .. Few now publicly question the position that geoengineering ought not be understood as a substitute for emissions reductions or an emergency option, and accordingly does not constitute ‘Plan B’. Few actors seem to oppose the mass media’s mainly negative interpretation of the Climate Intervention reports’ treatment of CDR and SRM. Instead, Simon Nicholson of American University states that ‘the idea advanced by the Royal Society that albedo modification is some kind of ‘Plan B’ has largely fallen out of favour’. . .”
- 31.
See Union of Concerned Scientists, Global Warming Skeptic Organizations (2013), August 2013, available at https://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/solutions/fight-misinformation/global-warming-skeptic.html
- 32.
See, e.g. John Siciliano and Josh Siegel, Daily on Energy: Did Lamar Smith just outline a Republican climate plan?, Nov 8, 2017, http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/daily-on-energy-did-lamar-smith-just-outline-a-republican-climate-plan/article/2176978’ (describing a House Hearing on Geoengineering convened by House Science, Space & Technology Committee Chairman Lamar Smit, a “noted skeptic of climate change”; S. Fred Singer, https://www.heartland.org/news-opinion/news/saving-humanity-from-catastrophic-global-cooling-a-task-for-geo-engineering?source=policybot (“While the science is certainly interesting and important, there is no need to delay the crucial and urgent tests of geo-engineering; they involve only minor costs and little risk to the atmospheric environment.”); Eric Bickel & Lee Lane, An Analysis of Climate Engineering as a Response to Climate Change, https://www.heartland.org/_template-assets/documents/publications/Copenhagen%20Consensus%20geoengineering.pdf (“we believe it makes a strong case that the potential net benefits of SRM are large”); Amy Goodman, Democracy Now, referencing reporting from Naomi Klein, Sept. 18, 2014 (“I mean, you have the Heartland Institute describing geoengineering as, quote, “much less expensive than seeking to stem temperature rise solely through the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions”; Cato Institute arguing “geo-engineering is more cost-effective than emissions controls altogether”; Hudson Institute saying that geoengineering, quote, “could obviate the majority of the need for carbon cuts and enable us to avoid lifestyle changes.” The very point you’re making.”), available at https://www.democracynow.org/2014/9/18/naomi_klein_on_motherhood_geoengineering_climate
- 33.
See Clive Hamilton, The Philosophy of Geoengineering (“the thinking that gives rise to geoengineering is the same thinking that first creates the world as an object suitable for technological manipulation. As a result, the only global warming escape routes that occur to us are technological ones, whether they be new forms of low-emission energy, carbon capture and storage or engineering the climate. So this view prompts the rhetorical question: How can we think our way out of a problem when the problem is the way we think?), available at http://clivehamilton.com/philosophy-of-geoengineering/
- 34.
See Clive Hamilton, The Risks of Climate Engineering, NY Times, Feb. 12, 2015 (“President Obama has been working assiduously to persuade the world that the United States is at last serious about Plan A — winding back its greenhouse gas emissions. The suspicions of much of the world would be reignited if the United States were the first major power to invest heavily in Plan B.”).
- 35.
See Lin, supra note 3, at 709 (arguing that in addition, a portion of any funding for geoengineering research and development should be directed toward public outreach).
- 36.
David Morrow offers some helpful suggestions for scientists that may help mitigate the weakening of resolve, including an assessment of a broad range of technologies and scenarios;, messaging that highlights the limits of each technology; and active engagement with policy and policymakers. DR Morrow, Ethical aspects of the mitigation obstruction argument against climate engineering research, 372 Phil. Trans. R. Soc’y. 20,140,062 (2014), at 11-12.
- 37.
See Dan M. Kahan et al., Cultural cognition of scientific consensus, 14. J. Risk Research, Issue 2 (2011) (“But because the source of the enfeebled power of scientific opinion is different from what is normally thought, the treatment must be something other than what is normally prescribed. It is not enough to assure that scientifically sound information – including evidence of what scientists them-selves believe – is widely disseminated: cultural cognition strongly motivates individuals – of all worldviews – to recognize such information as sound in a selective pattern that reinforces their cultural predispositions.”)
- 38.
For examples of climate change framing that may transcend cultural divides, see https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/evangelical-climate-scientist-explains-why-christians-should-care-about-the-environment_us_586eadfee4b099cdb0fc3e5f; http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2011/01/19/the-national-security-frame-a-path-forward-for-climate-change-communication/. For a discussion of the power of traditional actors adopting an innovative position, see Forrest Briscoe and Sean Safford, The Nixon-in-China Effect: Activism, Imitation, and the Institutionalization of Contentious Practices, 53 (3) Admin. Sci. Q. 460-491 (2008). https://doi.org/10.2189/asqu.53.3.460
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Dana, D.A. (2021). Geoengineering and the Question of Weakened Resolve. In: Burns, W., Dana, D., Nicholson, S.J. (eds) Climate Geoengineering: Science, Law and Governance. AESS Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies and Sciences Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72372-9_7
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