University of Calgary-led study finds broad public support for geoengineering research
(firmenpresse) - CALGARY, ALBERTA -- (Marketwire) -- 10/24/11 -- Research on geoengineering - manipulating Earth's climate to counter global warming and climate change - appears to have broad public support, a University of Calgary-led international study has found.
In a new internationally representative survey done by researchers at the University of Calgary, Harvard University and Simon Fraser University, 72 per cent of survey respondents approved research into the climate-manipulating technique.
The study, published today in IOP Publishing's journal Environmental Research Letters, is the first international survey on public perception of geoengineering and solar radiation management. The results show that these terms are becoming increasingly embedded into public discourse.
"Some reports have suggested that opposition to geoengineering is associated with environmentalists, but our results do not support this view," said David Keith, a fellow with the university's Institute for Sustainable Energy, Environment and Economy (ISEEE) and a Harvard University professor.
"Support for geoengineering is spread across the political spectrum and is linked to support for science concern about climate change. The strongest opposition comes from people who self-identify as politically conservative, who are distrustful of government and other elite institutions, and who doubt the very idea that there is a climate problem," Keith said.
Surprisingly, global warming was not a key factor in determining an individual's support for or opposition of solar radiation management. The researchers had hypothesized that seeing climate change as an important issue, and its causes due to human activities, would be an obvious predictor of support.
Solar radiation management is a type of geoengineering that seeks to reflect sunlight by various means, including releasing sulphate-based particles into Earth's troposphere, to reduce warming.
"I think this is the first in line of many studies that will show that solar radiation management intersects with people's political and environmental attitudes in surprising ways," said study lead author Ashley Mercer, a PhD student in ISEEE's Energy and Environmental Systems graduate specialization program (Keith is her supervisor).
"The results suggest that dialogue surrounding this topic needs to be broadened to include ideas of risk, values and trade-off," Mercer said.
Public awareness of geoengineering is remarkably broad, the researchers found. Eight per cent of survey respondents were able to provide a correct definition of "geoengineering" - an increase compared with previous estimates.
However, 45 per cent also correctly defined the alternative term "climate engineering," adding weight to the argument that the word "geoengineering" may be misleading and difficult to understand.
The 18 question, internet-based survey was completed by 3,105 participants from Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States at the end of 2010. The survey was designed to ascertain how widespread public knowledge of geoengineering was and how the public actually perceived it.
The study's findings come at a crucial time for the Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate Engineering (SPICE) project (), which involves a plan to release sulphate-based particles into the troposphere in attempt to reflect the light rays from the sun and reduce warming.
A test project for SPICE, scheduled to take place in the UK, was recently delayed by six months in order to explore and discuss the social aspects associated with geoengineering.
The University of Calgary-led study is available at:
Contacts:
University of Calgary
Mark Lowey, Communications Director
Institute for Sustainable Energy,
Environment and Economy
403.210-8659 or Cell: 403.990.6986
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Datum: 24.10.2011 - 14:00 Uhr
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