Engineering an Artful and Ethical Solution to the Problem of Global Warming

Shane J. Ralston

Review of Policy Research, 2009, vol. 26, issue 6, 821-837

Abstract: The idea of geoengineering, or the intentional modification of the Earth's atmosphere to reverse the global warming trend, has entered a working theory stage, finding expression in a variety of proposed projects, such as launching reflective materials into the Earth's atmosphere, positioning sunshades over the planet's surface, depositing iron filings into the oceans to encourage phytoplankton blooms, and planting more trees, to name only a few. However, geoengineering might not be as promising a solution to the problem of global warming as its advocates claim. Many scientists, policy makers, and ethicists still dismiss the option as infeasible and too risky given the immense scale at which most geoengineering projects must be instituted and the catastrophic consequences that could, in all likelihood, result. The thesis of this article is that geoengineering should not be so easily dismissed in policy debates concerning how to mitigate the anthropogenic emissions of global greenhouse gases. My plan is to investigate the desirability of the geoengineering option for addressing global climate change in terms of its capacity to overcome collective action issues, to accommodate ethical norms, and to provide an artful, or creative, response to the problem. In the first section, a general picture of the global warming problem and the particulars of some proposed geoengineering projects are laid out. The second section frames the issue as a collective action problem that demands an innovative approach to coordinating individual and group action. In the third section, I reveal six ethical quandaries that emerge in global climate change debates and how they complicate any attempts to ameliorate or resolve the problem. The penultimate section shows how the ideas and activism of two twentieth‐century titans in philosophy and ecology—John Dewey and Aldo Leopold, respectively—might be combined to address the problem of global warming through artful inquiry and the adoption of an Earth ethic. Finally, I conclude by arguing that a fundamental shift in perspective must occur if we are to take intentional climate change seriously as a possible, even if a second‐best, tool in the environmentalist's tool kit.

Date: 2009
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