This book provides an analysis of the major ethical issues surrounding climate engineering, or techniques to modify the global environment in order to manage some of the impacts of anthropogenic climate change. It focuses primarily on "solar radiation management" (SRM) techniques for engineering the climate, such as injecting reflective aerosols into the stratosphere or brightening marine clouds, both of which could cool the planet. While such techniques might avert or reduce some of the risks of climate change, they also raise many ethical questions that are both interesting in their own right and important to address for purposes of policy-making. These issues include questions of distributive justice, the ethics of risk imposition, procedural justice in decision-making, and obligations to future generations, among others. Despite various ethical problems with SRM, the author argues for the controversial claim that there are reasons to think that certain uses of it are ethically defensible under realistic future conditions. The Ethics of Climate Engineering is the first book to provide a unified overview of the ethics of SRM.
It will be of interest to scholars working in climate ethics, environmental ethics, global climate justice, or the many specific ethical and social-political issues raised by climate engineering.