An Examination of Emerging Public and Expert Judgments of Solar Radiation Management
Date
2014-01-14
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Abstract
Solar Radiation Management (SRM) is a proposed climate intervention that masks
anthropogenic climate warming by reflecting a small amount of sunlight. One possible method to achieve this cooling is through the continual injection of sulphate aerosols into the stratosphere. This would cool the planet quickly and cheaply, but also pose numerous physical and socio-political risks. At the outset of this dissertation, there was limited empirical research on opinions and judgments of SRM. This thesis examines criteria influencing its acceptability,
through two studies: 1) the first quantitative evaluation of international public opinion on SRM, and 2) an evaluation of expert trade-off judgments of climate responses, including SRM. Results from an online survey of 3105 nationally-represented individuals of the United States, Canada
and the United Kingdom suggest that awareness of SRM in public audiences is low, but growing. Support for SRM is associated with optimism about scientific research, a valuing of SRM’s benefits, and a perception that SRM is natural. Opposition to SRM is associated with an attitude that nature should not be manipulated. Individuals expressed concerns with: trusting the science
of SRM; future control and governance of the technology; knowledge limitations; and distribution of harms and benefits. The sampled opinions are just forming and sensitive to changes in framing, future information, and context. The results of an online expert survey of 43 climate experts provided contextualized trade-off judgments between climate responses e.g. mitigation, SRM, and adaptation. SRM was consistently ranked as the lowest preference, despite
high estimates of its effectiveness at managing temperature rise, and reducing ecosystem impacts and human vulnerabilities. Mitigation and efficiency measures were widely preferred responses, despite low assessments of their effectiveness. Assessments of SRM were characterized by large variability. Overall, nine criteria for acceptability of SRM were identified: perceived effectiveness of mitigation; extent and quality of the intervention; level of social trust; perceived
benefits; perceived risks; perceived naturalness; perceived control; perceived uncertainty; and perceived climate threat. Judgments about the acceptability of SRM are being made on a wide set of criteria, as such, there is no unifying public or expert opinion of SRM.
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Atmospheric Sciences, Psychology
Citation
Mercer, A. (2014). An Examination of Emerging Public and Expert Judgments of Solar Radiation Management (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/24875