University Park, PA
“Nuclear power, geoengineering, and green moral hazards”
Nuclear power and geoengineering – both carbon removal and, even more controversially, solar geoengineering – are controversial, and for good reason. While these proposed interventions seem promising to some concerned about climate change, others see them as mere technofixes in the worst sense of the term: morally fraught because they seem to absolve actors from taking more difficult steps toward systemic solutions. They, thus, lead to ‘green’ moral hazards. Join Gernot Wagner in a discussion of some of the more controversial climate technologies, the ubiquity of green moral hazards, and why especially those opposed to these technologies should use them as an opportunity to expand the attention paid to the underlying climate problem in the first place, actively invoking ‘inverse moral hazards’.
My slides [PDF].
Part of the Penn State Earth and Environmental Systems Institute (EESI) Spring 2022 EarthTalks Series: “Energy and Climate Policy, Part 2: Strategies for Getting to New Zero”
Monday, 11 April 2022, 4:00-5:00 p.m.