Benjamin Hofbauer defended his PhD dissertation “Governing Prometheus: Ethical Reflections on Risk & Uncertainty In Solar Climate Engineering Research” on 19 June at TU Delft.
His thesis explores the ethical challenges a potential research program for solar climate engineering via Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI) could incur. These ethical challenges are comprised of epistemic hurdles in relation to the research process, as well as societal questions of justice and the value of nature. The thesis proposes a variety of tools and approaches to assess and possibly govern the risks and uncertainties invoked by the research on SAI and its societal implications. The methodological approach is based mainly on ethical and philosophical analysis and reflection and the main findings take the form of discursive argumentation and normative reflection.
Benjamin has already started working as a Research Associate at the Research Institute for Sustainability (RIFS) Helmholtz Centre in Potsdam, where he is working on the project Disaster Resilience for Extreme Climate Events.
You can watch the recording of the defense here, and read Benjamin’s dissertation here.