By Christopher Shea
You’ve read the debates about using taxes on oil or carbon to combat climate change. Perhaps you’ve read about proposals to send rockets into the upper atmosphere to disperse particulates that can shield Earth from some portion of the sun’s rays. But I’m guessing you haven’t heard anyone propose that humans should be bio-engineered to become smaller, so we will consume less of the planet’s resources.
That’s one of the ideas floated by S. Matthew Liao, Anders Sandberg, and Rebecca Roache in an article forthcoming in Ethics, Policy and the Environment. Two other unconventional ideas, from the paper:
- Make available drugs, perhaps in patch form, that would induce intolerance of animal protein in humans (not unlike drugs that currently induce nausea when combined with alcohol). Livestock farming contributes significantly to global warming, and such drugs might help people kick the meat habit.
- Genetically engineer eyesight that works better in the dark, so we’d need fewer lights.
I’ll withhold some of the others, so you read the full, wonderful interview of Liao by the Atlantic’s Ross Andersen (who notes that the NYU philosopher “emphasized the voluntary nature of the proposed modifications.”)