Public perceptions of geoengineering research governance: An experimental deliberative approach
Public perceptions of geoengineering research governance: An experimental deliberative approach
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DOI：
10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2017.06.004
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发表时间：
2017-07-01
影响因子：
8.9
通讯作者：
Palmer, James
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Bellamy, Rob;Lezaun, Javier;Palmer, James
最近进行气候“地球工程”实验的尝试表明了这一科学研究领域的深刻争议性。社会科学家已经开始探索公众对地球工程的看法，并记录了对这一领域研究和实验的有效管理的重大关切。然而，公众对什么是合法的地球工程实验以及如何管理它的看法仍然没有得到充分的研究。在这篇文章中，我们报告了一系列的实验审议研讨会与公众成员，旨在引起和解释地球工程实验及其治理的不同理解。与以前的方法邀请公众审议，特权平等协商一致的话语和决策模式，我们测试一种新的方法，将多数主义，个人主义和协商一致的形式的公共审议平等的基础上。我们的研究表明，实验干预措施的可控制性是公众对其可接受性的看法的核心，但可控制性本身就是一个复杂的、多方面的品质，汇集了一系列对科学工作的目的和影响的不同担忧。参加我们研讨会的公民采用四个标准来判断地球工程实验的可接受性：（1）遏制程度，（2）实验结果的不确定性;（3）影响的可逆性;（4）企业的科学纯度。我们的理论，地球工程实验的公共合法性取决于变量，这些标准的特定背景的组合，以及适当的“规模”或“位置”的地球工程研究的技术决定将是穷人的预测的各种公众关注，将引发进一步的实验在这一领域。
Recent attempts to conduct experiments in climate 'geoengineering' have demonstrated the deeply controversial nature of this field of scientific research. Social scientists have begun to explore public perceptions of geoengineering, and have documented a significant degree of concern over the effective governance of research and experimentation in this area. Yet, public perception on what constitutes a legitimate geoengineering experiment and how it should be governed remains under-researched. In this article we report on a series of experimental deliberative workshops with members of the public designed to elicit and explicate diverse understandings of geoengineering experiments and their governance. In contrast to previous methods of invited public deliberation, which privilege egalitarian-consensual models of discourse and decision-making, we test a novel approach that places majoritarian, individualistic, and consensual forms of public deliberation on an equal footing. Our study suggests that the perceived controllability of experimental interventions is central to public views on their acceptability, but that controllability is itself a complex, multifaceted quality, drawing together a set of heterogeneous concerns about the purpose and repercussions of scientific work. The citizens who participated in our workshops employed four criteria to adjudicate the acceptability of geoengineering experiments: (1) the degree of containment, (2) the uncertainty surrounding experimental outcomes; (3) the reversibility of impacts; and (4) the scientific purity of the enterprise. We theorize that the public legitimacy of geoengineering experiments depends on variable, context-specific combinations of these criteria, and that technical determinations of the proper 'scale' or 'location' for geoengineering research will be poor predictors of the sorts of public concerns that will be triggered by further experimentation in this area.