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40 Ecology L.Q. 673 (2013)
Does Geoengineering Present a Moral Hazard

handle is hein.journals/eclawq40 and id is 697 raw text is: Does Geoengineering Present a Moral Hazard? Albert C. Lin* Geoengineering, a set of unconventional, untested, and risky proposals for responding to climate change, has attracted growing attention in the wake of our collective failure so far to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. Geoengineering research and deployment remain highly controversial, however, not only because of the risks involved, but also because of concern that geoengineering might undermine climate mitigation and adaptation efforts. The latter concern, often described as a moral hazard, has been questioned by some but not carefully explored. This Article examines the critical question of whether geoengineering presents a moral hazard by drawing on empirical studies of moral hazard and risk compensation and on the psychology literature of heuristics and cultural cognition. The Article finds it likely that geoengineering efforts will undermine mainstream strategies to combat climate change and suggests potential measures for ameliorating this moral hazard. Introduction............................................ 674 I. Geoengineering ............................... ..... 675 II. Attitudes Toward Adaptation: a Foreshadowing of Attitudes Towards Geoengineering? ....................................... 679 A. Initial Reluctance to Consider Adaptation ........ ....... 679 B. Subsequent Acceptance of Adaptation ............ ..... 682 III. Moral Hazard and Risk Compensation.............................. 684 A. Moral Hazard... ..................................684 1. Background. ................................. 684 2. Empirical Evidence ........................... 686 B. Risk Compensation .............................. 688 Copyright O 2013 Regents of the University of California. * Professor of Law, University of California, Davis, School of Law. Thanks to Eric Biber, participants at the 2012 Arizona State University Legal Scholars Conference and the 2012 Annual Meeting of the Law and Society Association, and the editors at Ecology Law Quarterly for helpful suggestions. Thanks also to Dean Kevin Johnson, Associate Dean Vik Amar, and the U.C. Davis School of Law for financial support for this project, and to Pearl Kan, Lynn Kirshbaum, and Christopher Ogata for their research assistance. 673

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