Crafting a public for geoengineering.

Rob Bellamy,Javier Lezaun

doi:10.1177/0963662515600965

Abstract

In a short period of time, climate ‘geoengineering’ has been added to the list of technoscientific issues subject to deliberative public engagement. Here, we analyse this rapid trajectory of publicization and explore the particular manner in which the possibility of intentionally altering the Earth’s climate system to curb global warming has been incorporated into the field of ‘public engagement with science’. We describe the initial framing of geoengineering as a singular object of debate and subsequent attempts to ‘unframe’ the issue by placing it within broader discursive fields. The tension implicit in these processes of structured debate – how to turn geoengineering into a workable object of deliberation without implying a commitment to its reality as a policy option – raises significant questions about the role of ‘public engagement with science’ scholars and methods in facilitating public debate on speculative technological futures.

Highlights

Over the last few years, ‘geoengineering’, or the possibility of intentionally manipulating the climate system to counteract global warming, has been added to the list of technoscientific issues subject to deliberative public engagement
The basic format of the new dialogues was similar to those conducted under Experiment Earth? – these were all invited ‘mini-publics’ carefully staged by expert facilitators – but the inputs provided to participants and the framings offered to position geoengineering as an object of discussion were very different from those of the previous inquiry
Geoengineering constitutes a very particular object in the historical trajectory of the field of ‘public engagement with science’. It represents a high-water mark in terms of the influence of structured mini-publics on policy-making, at least in relation to the formulation of a governmental research funding agenda in the United Kingdom

Summary

Introduction

Over the last few years, ‘geoengineering’, or the possibility of intentionally manipulating the climate system to counteract global warming, has been added to the list of technoscientific issues subject to deliberative public engagement. Dialogue, was followed by a second wave of dialogic experiments that actively sought to problematize geoengineering as a self-contained ‘engagement matter’ (Irwin et al, 2013) This process of unframing was supported by a series of methodological innovations in the conduct of public deliberation – from a redefinition of the role of (natural–scientific) experts in articulating the matter under consideration, to a conscious effort to blur the boundaries of geoengineering as a distinct object of debate. Our interviews with PES researchers suggest that their effort to place the issues within a broader, looser range of matters of concern was driven by the fear that geoengineering was being stabilized too quickly as a policy alternative, not least by the apparent success of PES initiatives in elucidating a set of stable public concerns and imaginaries. The result was a distinct methodological and political challenge: how to make planetary-scale climate engineering amenable for public deliberation without in the process making it ‘more real’ as a policy option

From Geoengineering the climate to Experiment Earth?

Setting the stage for a second wave of public engagement

Methodology

Public engagement and the reality of geoengineering

Discussion