Author: David Keith Publisher: MIT Press ISBN: 0262019825 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 224
Book Description
A leading scientist argues that we must consider deploying climate engineering technology to slow the pace of global warming. Climate engineering—which could slow the pace of global warming by injecting reflective particles into the upper atmosphere—has emerged in recent years as an extremely controversial technology. And for good reason: it carries unknown risks and it may undermine commitments to conserving energy. Some critics also view it as an immoral human breach of the natural world. The latter objection, David Keith argues in A Scientist's Case for Climate Engineering, is groundless; we have been using technology to alter our environment for years. But he agrees that there are large issues at stake. A leading scientist long concerned about climate change, Keith offers no naïve proposal for an easy fix to what is perhaps the most challenging question of our time; climate engineering is no silver bullet. But he argues that after decades during which very little progress has been made in reducing carbon emissions we must put this technology on the table and consider it responsibly. That doesn't mean we will deploy it, and it doesn't mean that we can abandon efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But we must understand fully what research needs to be done and how the technology might be designed and used. This book provides a clear and accessible overview of what the costs and risks might be, and how climate engineering might fit into a larger program for managing climate change.
Author: Jeroen Oomen Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1000380092 Category : Nature Languages : en Pages : 201
Book Description
This book highlights the increasing attention for climate engineering, a set of speculative technologies aimed to counter global warming. What is the future of the global climate? And who gets to decide—or even design—this future? Imagining Climate Engineering explores how and why climate engineering became a potential approach to anthropogenic climate change. Specifically, it showcases how views on the future of climate change and climate engineering evolved by addressing the ways in which climate engineers view its respective physical, political, and moral domains. Tracing the intellectual and political history of dreams to control the weather and climate as well as the discovery of climate change, Jeroen Oomen examines the imaginative parameters within which contemporary climate engineering research takes place. Introducing the analytical metaphor ‘ways of seeing’ to describe explicit or implicit visions, understandings, and foci that facilitate a particular understanding of what is at stake, Imagining Climate Engineering shows how visions on the knowability of climate tie into moral and political convictions about the possibility and desirability of engineering the climate. Marrying science and technology studies and the environmental humanities, Oomen provides crucial insights for the future of the climate change debate for scholars and students.
Author: Forrest Clingerman Publisher: Lexington Books ISBN: 1498523595 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 244
Book Description
The climate is changing as an unintended consequence of human industrialization and consumerism. Recently some scientists and engineers have suggested climate engineering—technological solutions that would intentionally change the climate to make it more hospitable. This approach focuses on large-scale technologies to alleviate the worst effects of anthropogenic climate change. This book considers the moral, philosophical, and religious questions raised by such proposals, bringing Christian theology and ethics into the conversation about climate engineering for the first time. The contributors have different views on whether climate engineering is morally acceptable and on what kinds of climate engineering are most promising and most dangerous, but all agree that religion has a vital role to play in the analysis and decisions called for on this vital issue. Calming the Storm presents diverse perspectives on some of the most vital questions raised by climate engineering: Who has the right to make decisions about such global technological efforts? What have we learned from the decisions that caused the climate to change that might shed light on efforts to reverse that change? What frameworks and metaphors are helpful in thinking about climate engineering, and which are counterproductive? What religious beliefs, practices, and rituals can help people to imagine and evaluate the prospect of engineering the climate?
Author: Christopher J. Preston Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield ISBN: 0739175416 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 279
Book Description
Engineering the Climate: The Ethics of Solar Radiation Management discusses the ethical issues associated with deliberately engineering a cooler climate to combat global warming. Climate engineering (also known as geoengineering) has recently experienced a surge of interest given the growing likelihood that the global community will fail to limit the temperature increases associated with greenhouse gases to safe levels. Deliberate manipulation of solar radiation to combat climate change is an exciting and hopeful technical prospect, promising great benefits to those who are in line to suffer most through climate change. At the same time, the prospect of geoengineering creates huge controversy. Taking intentional control of earth’s climate would be an unprecedented step in environmental management, raising a number of difficult ethical questions. One particular form of geoengineering, solar radiation management (SRM), is known to be relatively cheap and capable of bringing down global temperatures very rapidly. However, the complexity of the climate system creates considerable uncertainty about the precise nature of SRM’s effects in different regions. The ethical issues raised by the prospect of SRM are both complex and thorny. They include: 1) the uncertainty of SRM’s effects on precipitation patterns, 2) the challenge of proper global participation in decision-making, 3) the legitimacy of intentionally manipulating the global climate system in the first place, 4) the potential to sidestep the issue of dealing with greenhouse gas emissions, and, 5) the lasting effects on future generations. It has been widely acknowledged that a sustained and scholarly treatment of the ethics of SRM is necessary before it will be possible to make fair and just decisions about whether (or how) to proceed. This book, including essays by 13 experts in the field of ethics of geoengineering, is intended to go some distance towards providing that treatment.
Author: Emilio Bastidas-Arteaga Publisher: Butterworth-Heinemann ISBN: 0128168404 Category : Technology & Engineering Languages : en Pages : 390
Book Description
Climate Adaptation Engineering defines the measures taken to reduce vulnerability and increase the resiliency of built infrastructure. This includes enhancement of design standards, structural strengthening, utilisation of new materials, and changes to inspection and maintenance regimes, etc. The book examines the known effects and relationships of climate change variables on infrastructure and risk-management policies. Rich with case studies, this resource will enable engineers to develop a long-term, self-sustained assessment capacity and more effective risk-management strategies. The book's authors also take a long-term view, dealing with several aspects of climate change. The text has been written in a style accessible to technical and non-technical readers with a focus on practical decision outcomes. - Provides climate scenarios and their likelihoods, hazard modelling (wind, flood, heatwaves, etc.), infrastructure vulnerability, resilience or exposure (likelihood and extent of damage) - Introduces the key concepts needed to assess the risks, costs and benefits of future proofing infrastructures in a changing climate - Includes case studies authored by experts from around the world
Author: Robert G. Watts Publisher: CRC Press ISBN: 1439888469 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 523
Book Description
A clear, concise discussion of today’s hottest topics in climate change, including adapting to climate change and geo-engineering to mitigate the effects of change, Engineering Response to Climate Change, Second Edition takes on the tough questions of what to do and offers real solutions to the practical problems caused by radical changes in the Earth’s climate. From energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions reduction, to climate-altering technologies, this new edition explores the latest concerns such as acidification of the ocean, energy efficiency, transportation, space solar power, and future and emerging possibilities. The editors set the stage by discussing the separate issues of the emissions of radiatively important atmospheric constituents, energy demand, energy supply, agriculture, water resources, coastal hazards, adaption strategies, and geo-engineering. They explain the difference between the natural and human drivers of climate change and describe how humans have influenced the global climate during past decades. Each chapter concludes with discussion questions, calculations, and possible research topics. See What’s in the Second Edition: New conceptual tools and research necessary for problems associated with fossil fuels Cutting-edge topics such as adaption and geo-engineering The latest concerns such as acidification of the ocean, energy efficiency, transportation, and space solar power Solutions to problems caused by changes in the Earth’s climate So much has changed in the 15 years since the publication of the first edition, that this is, in effect, a completely new book. However, the general theme is the same: the climate energy problem has become largely an engineering problem. With this in mind, the book explores what engineers can do to prevent, mitigate, or adapt to climate change.
Author: Clive Hamilton Publisher: Yale University Press ISBN: 0300186673 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 262
Book Description
Looks at the effects climate change will have on Earth by the end of this century, focusing on a collaboration between scientists and big business to develop advances in geoengineering so that humans can fight global warming.
Author: Mike Hulme Publisher: John Wiley & Sons ISBN: 0745685269 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 102
Book Description
Climate change seems to be an insurmountable problem. Political solutions have so far had little impact. Some scientists are now advocating the so-called 'Plan B', a more direct way of reducing the rate of future warming by reflecting more sunlight back to space, creating a thermostat in the sky. In this book, Mike Hulme argues against this kind of hubristic techno-fix. Drawing upon a distinguished career studying the science, politics and ethics of climate change, he shows why using science to fix the global climate is undesirable, ungovernable and unattainable. Science and technology should instead serve the more pragmatic goals of increasing societal resilience to weather risks, improving regional air quality and driving forward an energy technology transition. Seeking to reset the planet’s thermostat is not the answer.
Author: Daniel Edward Callies Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield ISBN: 1498586686 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 183
Book Description
Climate Engineering: A Normative Perspective takes as its subject a prospective policy response to the urgent problem of climate change, one previously considered taboo. Climate engineering, the “deliberate, large-scale manipulation of the planetary environment in order to counteract anthropogenic climate change,” encapsulates a wide array of technological proposals. Daniel Edward Callies here focuses on one proposal currently being researched—stratospheric aerosol injection—which would spray aerosol particles into the upper atmosphere to thus reflect a small portion of incoming sunlight and slightly cool the globe. This book asks important questions that should guide moral and political discussions of geoengineering. Does engaging in such research lead us towards inexorable deployment? Could this research draw us away from the more important tasks of mitigation and adaptation? Should we avoid risky interventions in the climate system altogether? What would legitimate governance of this technology look like? What would constitute a just distribution of the benefits and burdens associated with stratospheric aerosol injection? Who ought to be included in the decision-making process? Callies offers a normative perspective on these and other questions related to engineering the climate, ultimately arguing for research and regulation guided by norms of legitimacy, distributive justice, and procedural justice.
Author: David Keith
Author: Michael B. Gerrard
Author: Jeroen Oomen
Author: Forrest Clingerman
Author: Christopher J. Preston
Author: Emilio Bastidas-Arteaga
Author: Robert G. Watts
Author: Clive Hamilton
Author: Mike Hulme
Author: Daniel Edward Callies