Climate Justice and Geoengineering

Deadline for submission of abstracts: February 2nd, 2015.

In the last half dozen years, the ethics of climate engineering has become a topic of vigorous discussion. Not enough of this discussion, however, has placed the ethics of climate engineering squarely in the context of the other options on the table for dealing with the challenges of climate change. The editors are seeking chapters that will put the justice issues raised by various aspects of climate engineering into dialogue with the justice issues raised by alternative climate strategies. For example, how do the challenges of just participation in decision-making about stratospheric aerosols stack up against democratic ideals at stake in large scale protection of forests as carbon sinks? How do the ethical issues raised by climate refugees and migration compare to the issues that might be raised by possible shifting of participation patterns caused by solar radiation management? Would the ethical issues raised by a radical mitigation regime be more troubling than issues raised by business-as-usual coupled with a technology-based carbon dioxide removal strategy? Placing the ethical issues raised by specific geoengineering proposals into dialogue with the existing challenges of climate justice will provide both a more balanced and more useful evaluation of climate engineering.

Abstracts of potential chapters (approx. 350 words) should be submitted to Christopher.Preston@umontana.edu by 2nd February, 2015 for consideration. Final chapters of 4,000 to 5,000 words will be due by the end of 2015. Co-authorship and non-technical analysis is encouraged. The chapters selected will join those of contributors that already include David Keith and Joshua Horton (Harvard University), Jane Long (Senior Contributing Scientist, Environmental Defense Fund), Pene Lafale (Bodeker Scientific, NZ), Toby Svoboda (Fairfield University), and Richard Tol (University of Sussex, UK), and others.