Members may be interested in http://www.petridish.org/ - a service to invite 'crowdsourced' public funding for research projects. Geoengineering is often in the public eye, and the small sums required for research may be available from the crowd. I'm sure that group members have their own ideas on projects, but some which spring to my mind are the testing of 'Brightwater' and the measurement of the effect of ocean iron fertilization on sea surface albedo.
I am sure that crowdfunding of geoengineering will attract a degree of controversy. To aid debate, I've set out a draft 'for' and 'against' argument below. FOR Geoengineering offers the opportunity to take radical action to tackle climate change. It is also controversial. The electoral cycle of democratic states, which tend to be the leaders in science, cause politicians to shy away from tough decisions which risk popular backlash. Likewise, wealthy individuals and institutions which may seek to fund such research remain concerned by this potential public disapproval. Sadly, geoengineering research is therefore trapped in a politically inconvenient hole. Despite the promise of the technology to control the worst effects of climate change, funding is minimal, and mired in controversy at every stage. Even experiments which have no effect on the climate system, such as SPICE, have been pushed onto the back burner by a bureaucracy more focussed on avoiding career-ending clashes than in preparing for a climate disaster. The risk of the current impasse is that politicians will deploy geoengineering in a panic, with inadequate research, or may miss the opportunity to prevent an otherwise certain disaster. Crowdfunding allows early action to depoliticise the situation. With many small, safe geoengineering experiments available, both in the lab and outdoors, researchers can sidestep the quangos and get on with the science. This will help ensure that any future decision to deploy or not is taken with the benefit of the best possible science, giving mankind the greatest possible change of avoiding a climate disaster. Oversight will always be available through the legal system, and ultimate decisions on deployment will remain in the hands of governments. We have nothing to lose but our ignorance. AGAINST If ever there was a poster child for avoiding crowdfunding in science, then geoengineering is it. Research into this technology sets in place a chain of events which affects the future of humanity by the very existence of the knowledge revealed. Adam cannot un-eat the apple. Keanu Reeves cannot forget the Matrix. We fund science publicly because we wish to regulate its excesses as surely as we wish to capture its benefits. Science is not inherently good or bad, and thus there is a degree of democratic control in the current funding system. Whilst imperfect, the research councils perform two crucial democratic functions: to control science, and to appear to control science. Both are vital in a democracy. We cannot allow scientists to develop powerful technologies, potentially useful to maverick individuals, rogue states or terrorists, without proper control. Research which is based on a funding pool attracted from fanatics and radicals flies in the face of this control. When funding is denied, it is because the democratic system makes a willful and specific decision not to fund such research. We should not allow scientists to appeal to naive private funders, and the positively malevolent, to fund unsavoury projects. This is especially so where the research hands the keys to the climate system to the highest bidder, or when the research itself threatens the stability of the climate system. We cannot even be sure that the knowledge and control afforded by this experimentation would make it into the public domain. Even if we had such unattainable transparency, we must still insist that research which sets humanity on a specific path remains firmly constrained by the accountability to institutional funders. Whilst some geoengineering research is currently aided by benefactors, the traceability and public position of these supporters is at least a poor analogue of democratic oversight. With crowdfunding, we enter a research agenda which is no better controlled than a street fight. Regardless of the desires of the individuals involved, society rightly does not allow men to fight in the street. If geoengineers wish to develop their discipline, they must do so in the boxing ring, and must submit to the authority of the referee. I hope that's helpful. A -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en.
