[DIALOGnews] news

[Susan Weiler]

Handle With Care
from the New York Times (Registration Required)
Last year, a private company proposed "fertilizing" parts of the ocean  
with iron, in hopes of encouraging carbon-absorbing blooms of  
plankton. Meanwhile, researchers elsewhere are talking about injecting  
chemicals into the atmosphere, launching sun-reflecting mirrors into  
stationary orbit above the earth or taking other steps to reset the  
thermostat of a warming planet.
This technology might be useful, even life-saving. But it would  
inevitably produce environmental effects impossible to predict and  
impossible to undo. So a growing number of experts say it is time for  
broad discussion of how and by whom it should be used, or if it should  
be tried at all.
Similar questions are being raised about nanotechnology, robotics and  
other powerful emerging technologies. There are even those who suggest  
humanity should collectively decide to turn away from some new  
technologies as inherently dangerous.
http://snipurl.com/3f9yz


**********
C. Susan Weiler, Ph.D.
Office for Earth System Studies       Tel:   509-527-5948
Whitman College                          Fax:  509-527-5961
Walla Walla, WA 99362
weiler at whitman.edu
     Interdisciplinary Training for Ph.D. Graduates
        Climate-Change and impacts:
           http://disccrs.org
        IPY New Generation of Polar Researchers
           http://www.arcticportal.org/apecs/ngpr

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