Words&Dirt

Summary:

Gernot Wagner’s Geoengineering: The Gamble is a primer on the history of solar geoengineering, the state of current research, and possibilities for future experimentation and deployment. In a succinct and balanced fashion, Wagner discusses the various technical ways solar geoengineering might be implemented, as well as the morass of ethical and geopolitical problems that deployment may pose. The book lays out the incentives for and against solar geoengineering (including possible negative and positive side effects), presents three imaginary near-future deployment scenarios, and explores broad questions of “governance”––how to responsibly and rationally conduct international discussions and research so as to better understand this powerful technology that is both potentially dangerous and perhaps necessary to mitigate the worst effects of climate change.

Key Concepts and Notes:

• Framing solar geoengineering as a planetary-scale “gamble,” the key question is: Given how far carbon emissions have been allowed to proceed to this point and the anticipated climate consequences, is it a greater gamble to use solar geonengineering or not to?
• Another critical question is: Even if we do implement geoengineering at some point, who does “we” mean in this context? Wagner adroitly investigates this question using both game theory and practical scenarios.
• Wagner is adamant that the only sensible use of geoengineering would occur within the context of a greater climate plan, one that would necessarily include both aggressive carbon emissions reductions as well as a massive ramp-up of carbon capture technology. Solar geoengineering is in no way a silver bullet to solve our carbon woes, especially given that it does not address the root cause of global warming.
• Wagner considers whether solar geoengineering may become a “green moral hazard” that would discourage adoption of other essential climate solutions. He also considers the possibility of an “inverse moral hazard” effect that may actually hasten emissions reductions due to fears about geoengineering’s potential negative side effects.
• Wagner remains staunchly neutral for most of the book, insisting that we should be neither eager to deploy solar geoengineering nor completely unwilling to consider it. Toward the end, he advocates for more and better geoengineering research, and also asserts that an international moratorium on deployment is probably a good idea for the time being.
• Personally, I’m on the fence as to whether a moratorium is a good idea. I can definitely see the sense in it, but I also worry that it may discourage much-needed practical experimentation as the climate clock continues to tick. Wagner states repeatedly that we’re in a “not if, but when” relationship with solar geoengineering, so if he’s right my instinct is that deploying sooner is better than later. That said, I firmly believe that initial deployment should be gradual and globally-coordinated, and that proper safety protocols should be set up to roll it back if unacceptable negative side effects are observed.

Favorite Quotes:

The only appropriate way to look at the impacts of solar geoengineering is in the full context of where the world’s climate is heading already.

Viewed in isolation, (solar) geoengineering looks simply mad. Why develop a technology akin to a global thermostat, if it isn’t to try to address a real problem? View it with this underlying problem front and center, (solar) geoengineering indeed looks very different. (45-6)

We simply don’t yet know enough to make any kind of definitive decision about whether solar geoengineering overall might be good or bad. We do know much more research is needed. That research needs to include both natural and social sciences. The mere thought of solar geoengineering invokes something clearly visceral. Scientific facts alone can only do so much to assuage those feelings. In the end, solar engineering is unnatural and uncertain; it’s a technofix in the purest sense of the term. (73)

The only sensible way to approach either carbon removal or solar geoengineering…is not as an either-or but as a yes-and. Neither should stand on its own but must instead be seen as part of a much broader climate policy portfolio that includes cutting CO2 emissions in the first place, as well as plenty of adaptation to what’s already in store. That also makes any geoengineering deployment scenario neither a first nor a last resort. (126-7)

What often keeps be up at night––quite literally, frankly––is the fear that we might be slithering toward deployment of solar geoengineering without having done the hard work. That we––as researchers––are missing something fundamental and that time just isn’t on our side. It took a quarter-century after the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo lowering global average temperatures by 0.5 degrees Celsius for that first Nature cover article to estimate the agricultural effects of scattering sunlight. A quarter-century.

Meanwhile, people are dying from unmitigated climate change today! The clear answer, of course, is to mitigate: cut CO2 emissions, now. That may well be the best use of solar geoengineering today: scare people into wanting to mitigate more (See moral hazard, inverse). But what if deploying solar geoengineering, arguably another form of mitigation, might indeed save more people sooner?

Put slightly more philosophically: At what point did not cutting enough CO2 turn from an error of omission to an error of commission? If we believe we’ve crossed that threshold––and I certainly do––at what point then does something similar apply to geoengineering?

That is precisely where we return to the “gamble” inherent in solar geoengineering. Pursuing it is risky, perhaps unduly so. Not acting is similarly risky, perhaps even more so. No simple benefit-cost analysis will tell us which way to go. The decision is all about risk-risk tradeoffs, putting the risks of unmitigated climate change against the risks of potentially pursuing solar geoengineering.

That’s a highly uncomfortable position to be in. It’s a gamble, and a planetary-scale one at that. It’s also a gamble we aren’t being asked to participate in, or perhaps to observe as a neutral spectators. It’s a gamble we’re being pushed to play: “not if, but when.” I for one would much rather have us be prepared when that time comes. (144-5)

Rating: 8/10