Deep Dive: Climate & Geo-Engineering

The project explores futures of green skills and jobs and their supply and demand in Europe 2050. We are making a deep dive into developments which are currently underway and will take us to different possible 2030s, according to events largely unpredictable and decisions bound by a number of constraints of diverse nature. The project is one of eight foresight deep dives of the project 'European R&I foresight and public engagement for Horizon Europe' carried out by the Horizon Europe consortium.

Welcome to "Global Futures of Climate”, the first Course in our series on Global Systems designed for individuals and organisations committed to facing global challenges and finding solutions.This self-paced, online Climate Education Course is scientifically-based, and incredibly well researched to give you a deep understanding of our emerging world, providing a solid basis for you to build your personal, professional, and family futures. The innovative solutions offered align with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Course Content includes 12 Lessons across 3 Modules: Climate Change, Energy Systems, and Ecosystem. There are two lessons in each, examining the challenges, and addressing the alternatives. The Course Content incorporates over 100 learning resources, including:12 Lessons over 3 Modules: Climate Change, Energy Systems, Ecosystem.Four lessons per Module, two on the challenges, two addressing the solutions.12 Instructor videos (one per Lesson) to guide you through the Course Content and Resources .Over 40 expert videos (climate and ocean scientists, EC, UN, OECD, European Parliament, Carbon Brief, WWF, World Bank, Universities)Over 50 expert articles/reports (NASA, UN, IPCC, UNFCC, UNSDGs, State of the Planet, Blue Carbon Initiative, Greenpeace, Universities, UNDP, Global Commission for Adaptation, to name a few).36 reflection questions to journal your progress.60 fun quiz Qs to test knowledge gained.Certificate of Completion.

This deep dive is part of the European R&I foresight and public engagement for Horizon Europe project. A number of tendencies seem to conspire together to threaten societies with forms of social dysfunction and perhaps breakdown. Social cohesion and social capital have declined very substantially over the last generation or so. So too have levels of trust – not only in how much people feel they can trust others, but also public trust in government and in major institutions.  Many occupations command much less respect than they used to, including politicians, the media, the police, banks and big business.   At the same time democracy is increasingly threatened by factors such as growing political polarisation, caused not only by the increasing numbers of people who believe in conspiracy theories, but also by the growing importance of money in politics, by the growth of inequality and the rise of populism and the far right. To this mix will be added high levels of disruption caused by the development of AI and other new technologies. This expert group on social confrontations is intended to draw attention to issues which may give rise to disruptive social confrontations in the future within the EU – regardless of the parties involved.  Indeed, factors such as the political complexion of governments may change whether a dispute is between social movements and civic authorities, within governments and parliamentary assemblies, or between social groups. We have tried to identify the likely root causes of disruptive confrontations while acknowledging that most forms of confrontation are likely to be multi-causal. Four scenarios depict diverging paths how the development of social confrontations in the EU might shape our future society. From these scenarios we derived policy implications with a link to issues for research and innovation.

This deep dive is part of the Foresight towards the 2nd Strategic Plan of Horizon Europe project. Mass media from around the world is constantly heralding new scientific and technological breakthroughs that bring upon the promise of healthier, longer, more fulfilling lives: partially restoring the sight of blind people with the aid of artificial retinas, restoring partial movement of previously non-responsive limbs by linking a paralyzed person’s brain to a computer chip, artificial bones, skin, blood, along with more controversial endeavours: editing the human genome through gene-splitting techniques, stem cells primed to promote regeneration, cryogenics and many, many others. The transhumanist movement regards breakthroughs like these as springboards not only to healing people but to changing and improving humanity. Thanks to scientific developments in converging technologies such as biotechnology, neurotechnology, information technology and nanotechnology, humanity may be on the cusp of an enhancement revolution. The transhumanist movement considers this revolution - allowing people to control and fundamentally change their bodies and minds towards ‘humanity plus’ - as both inevitable and desirable. Some proponents of the movement go even further into envisioning a (more future distant) stage of civilization freed from bodily and even earthly constraints – a posthumanism marked by, for e.g., linking human intelligence to the AI, whole brain emulation (‘mind uploading’), or a superintelligence (technological singularity). ​ The transhumanist debate is expansive both in regard to the enhancements and the values and beliefs, ethics and the role of the government. An open-minded exploration of this topic would shy away from taking sides, a priori, with either the transhumanist movement (who speak of ‘transcendence’) or the conservative positions (who speak of ‘transgressions’), but explore the spectrum of positions with generosity and curiosity.  Moreover, such exploration should pierce through (and go beyond) the rhetorical strategies of either movement, and try to investigate with an open, critical mind, the substantive points of the debate. About this topic The deep dive on transhumanist revolutions opens an investigation of the human condition, around questions such as the ones listed below. In brief, C. Wright Mills’ questions will be asked of the enhanced: ‘‘In what ways are they selected and formed, liberated and repressed, made sensitive and blunted?’’ ​ Should the right to control one’s body include the right to augment one’s body? What would more radical human-tech ensembles mean for our lived experience? (1) If the ‘trans’ revolutions run their course towards ‘humanity-plus’, will we still be human &humane? How will various enhancements (e.g. bodily or cognitive) affect the embodied selves - our lived bodies - and their engagement with the world? (2) Will we still define ourselves (including) through our limitations and overcoming adversity or we will lose that one constituting factor? Is transhumanism about progressing or blunting the self? (3) To what extent it will affect our ability for inwardness if all the mending of the self is done outwardly (i.e. transforming humans to better fit the external world)? Would it be possible to also enhance morality, kindness, compassion, and other cardinal virtues or ‘pro-social’ feelings? Can a child have true autonomy if parents genetically design his or her capacities and proclivities? ​ The debate also explores new social orders, issues of justice or (in)equity, political and economic power: Will society’s repugnance/resistance to controversial/’suspect’ technologies water down, just as it did in the past with other technologies (e.g., oral contraceptives, IVF)? (4) Who decides what is a “limitation” and what is an “enhancement”? Will enhancements truly be optional? Will enhancements be afforded only by the rich, or some will progressively be considered essential services to be provided by the state in the spirit of social welfare? (negative vs. positive rights). Who is responsible for the enhancements, e.g. who guarantees the “spare parts” or is liable for damages?  (5) What kind of regulation is needed, e.g., limiting the enhancement or surveillance? How can public health systems be redesigned/reconfigured to deliver in this context? Could enhancements displace the sense of common humanity that has undergirded the democratic social contract for centuries? If liberal democracies go down the transhumanist path, will this mean diminishing free will and increased power of exploitation on the part of the government or, on the contrary, regulating, controlling, or banning enhancement technologies amount to a loss of personal autonomy and increased state power? ​ References (1) Sociotechnical ensembles (See Bijker and Pinch, 1984) posit that technologies are social through and through (their design and implementation are affected by social, cultural, economic and political context), just as society is technological through and through (technological artifacts are crucial to social order). Socio-technical ensembles constitute themselves through this interaction. See also Bijker, 1995, Latour on actor-network approach, 1992, Ihde on the role of tech in the interrelation of human beings and world when technological artifacts are involved, 1990. (2) See for e.g. the phenomenology of perception, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, where the body is central to our understanding of our relationships with others (through a space of ‘intercorporeality’) and to the wider ecological context we’re immersed within. (3) Even services now deemed banal, like google, that allows us to access any information at any time, have affected our memory, inclination towards mental effort; or google maps perfectly orienting us while robbing our sense of orientation. (4) Note that IVF’s role extended, from a medical procedure for otherwise infertile couples, to identifying embryos free of devastating genetic diseases. But it also extended to sex selection (5) See Fred Hirsch, 1977 on ‘positional goods’ – goods whose value to those who have them depends on others not having them.