4.4 Article

Fast, cheap, and imperfect? US public opinion about solar geoengineering

Journal

ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS
Volume 28, Issue 3, Pages 523-543

Publisher

ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD
DOI: 10.1080/09644016.2018.1479101

Keywords

Solar geoengineering; solar radiation management; public opinion; CCES; climate change; moral hazard

Funding

  1. Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
  2. Harvard's Solar Geoengineering Research Program

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Solar geoengineering, which seeks to cool the planet by reflecting a small fraction of sunlight back into space, has drawn the attention of scientists and policymakers as climate change remains unabated. Unlike mitigation, solar geoengineering could quickly and cheaply lower global temperatures. It is also imperfect. Its environmental impacts remain unpredictable, and its low cost and immediate effects may result in 'moral hazard,' potentially crowding out costly mitigation efforts. There is little understanding about how the public will respond to such tradeoffs. To address this, a 1000-subject nationally representative poll focused on solar geoengineering was conducted as part of the Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES) of the US electorate in October-November 2016. The importance that individuals place on solar geoengineering's speed and cost predicts their support for it, but there is little to no relationship between their concerns about its shortcomings and support for its research and use. Acquiescence bias appears to be an important factor for attitudes around solar geoengineering and moral hazard.

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