COPENHAGEN: - Civil society clearly has something to say about this, "says physicist Jason Blackstock, who works for the think tank Center for International Governance Innovation (CIGI).
He looks out over an auditorium filled with business people, environmentalists, academics and reporters. Most are in Copenhagen to follow the climate change negotiations, and had been lured to the seminar on climate manipulation. Exciting technology can namely, save the world, but also destroy it.
An important reason why we organize this seminar is that many of these methods are too risky to be a good alternative on emissions, "said Blackstock. - We need a broad debate on climate manipulation, preferably before initiating major research programs.
Similar to the genetic modification
He points out the similarities with controversial issues such as genetically modified foods and nanotechnology.
We saw this with genetic modification. The technology came suddenly out of the lab, and the people so that their food were manipulated without it had been discussed much. We have much to learn from this about the need to discuss science in public, "said Blackstock.
But the debate is easier this time, I think the environmental.
Weather manipulation is NOK easier to discuss than gene manipulation and nanotechnology," said Nathaniel Keohane of the organization Environmental Defense Fund. It must be done on a large scale and can not be left to the various private actors.
Many ethical dilemmas
Many politicians have discovered the climate manipulation and believe they have the solution to global warming. But it can be a dangerous way to go if nations do not cut CO 2 emissions his, but rather leaves it to the engineers to clean up the climate problems.
You can not leave ethics to scientists and engineers, "says Richard Klein at the Stockholm Environment Institute.
Havkonvensjoner stops today large-scale fertilization of the ocean, but there is hardly any international rules against actions that change the climate. And when it was difficult to agree on climate in Copenhagen, one can imagine how difficult it is to agree on who should control the climate.
"It is very unfortunate if the climate manipulation can take place without the existence of a form of global monitoring of it,” said Blackstock.