LOCATION AND TIME
Friend Center Convocation Room, Princeton University
Friday, September 20
Saturday, September 21
EVENT DESCRIPTION
The fact we are living through a climate crisis becomes more and more visceral every year, the metrics of emergency ever more well known. As the world sets more and more records for warming, scholars and policymakers look for new solutions to the mounting ecological disaster. The possibility of geoengineering– the deliberate large-scale intervention in the Earth’s climate in order to moderate global warming– has been among these proposals, and in its most ambitious form presents the possibility that humanity might put a pause on warming long enough to enable decarbonization before crossing catastrophic climate tipping points. Emerging from ever-increasing fear for human life in a warmer world, and steadfast political deadlock, many have come to take very seriously the idea of mimicking the global cooling effect of volcanoes through “stratospheric aerosol injection” — the intentional spewing of aerosols into the stratosphere. This proposed ‘thermostat for the Earth’ can hardly now be ignored, but neither can it be discussed without confronting head-on the ethical and political turmoil of such technology.
Dale Jamieson first considered the ethics of intentional climate change 30 years ago. Since then, much more ink has been spilled on the topic. Yet, as the state of geoengineering science evolves and the socio-political context shifts, the need for sustained scholarly attention to the topic becomes clear. Hence, this conference will bring scholars from across the disciplines together in Princeton, New Jersey, to consider the various philosophical dimensions of the geoengineering proposal and especially the hypothetical technology of stratospheric aerosol injection. Together, we will scrutinize decades-long debates at the center of the geoengineering idea while also attending to more recent domains of the discussion. Participants from a range of backgrounds and beliefs will consider a variety of topics, including the prospects for inclusive and non-hegemonic geoengineering research; the morality of a moratorium; implications of an engineered climate for the human/nature relationship; the outlook for using geoengineering as a tool to address the extinction crisis; and the prudence of thinking in terms of emergency at all.