What are the ethical implications?
Which ethical concerns drive OIF?
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“This is also called the moral hazards argument around geoengineering. If it's thought to be even slightly credible that we can just geoengineer our way out of the problem then that takes away political will and ultimately capital from really addressing the problem. It is not insignificant that groups that are pushing harder for geoengineering in places such as Washington but also Brussels are the same right wing think tanks which were saying that climate change does not exist.”
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“People point to these moral quandaries like if these guys pursue geoengineering then people who don’t want society to take action against climate change will point to geoengineering options as things why we just don’t have to take emissions reductions actions at all. Those are simply irrational. First of all, the whole concept of there being a market to fund these strategies, specially on the carbon side, means that there has to be an overall cap or target that these strategies would play a part in. [...] So I don't see there being some sort of slippery slope or a moral trade off here. To my mind, most of the moral arguments are merely excuses that bolster this kind of ‘hands off mother earth’ attitude but aren’t from a rational understanding of how actually this would play out.
Another objection is on the moral side, the idea of meddling with mother earth in a way that is simply not appropriate for humans to do. There, you might say we have already done quite a bit and we have set in motion a series of events that are going to create potentially negative conditions on the planet for natural life. You could argue the other side, that if there is something that we could do to lessen the impact of what we are pretty certain is coming, that we actually have a moral imperative to figure out whether or not we should take action to alleviate the impacts that we are creating. Simply arguing that we are not capable of acting in a way because we are flawed and we created these problems in the first place I think it’s lazy thinking.” |
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“Geoengineers will say: 'yes, geoengineering is a terrible cure', yet we have diseases for which we have to use terrible cures such as cancer that you have to cure with chemotherapies, etc. I think this a terrible argument to make. It is not up to engineers to say that they are the doctors and to cure without an agreement and frankly, I am not sure we can trust them to be particularly good doctors. The idea that they are going to give us the medicine and that we are going to accept it is a problematic argument.”
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“Geoengineering protects the power and the profits of the fossil fuel industries. And it seems to provide an alternative, seems to preserve the dominant ideology of technological control of the natural world and protects the interests of fossil fuel corporations. So, it is a kind of system preserving technology, the one that avoids to make the social and political changes that climate change demands.”
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