GES Center receives NSF Grant to investigate geoengineering for global climate change

The Genetic Engineering and Society (GES) Center will partner with Duke University, Appalachian State University, and Colorado State University on a new project recently funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to investigate how individuals and nations make choices about whether to deploy unproven and potentially risky technologies in order to address important global, collective-risk problems. The research will focus on Solar Radiation Management (SRM), a geoengineering technology proposed for mitigating global climate change that involves the injection of reflective particles into the stratosphere.

Professors Jennifer Kuzma and Khara Grieger, coPIs for NC State, will help the team design experimental games, formulate decision models, and investigate individual and national behaviour within international governance systems. They will also take the lead on applying the team’s findings to emerging genetic technologies such as gene drives.

Gene drives are currently being considered for ecological deployment in order to decrease the transmission of human diseases and protect endangered species from invasive predators. Yet like SRM, gene drives also come with potentially high risks and significant uncertainties. The models, experimental tools, and theoretical findings from this project will be applicable to other technologies and global risks plagued by both ambiguity and urgency.

Award Abstract #1948154: Collaborative Research: Implications of Solar Radiation Management for Strategic Behavior and Climate Governance; $313K Total; $69K to NC State