Both Wired and the New Scientist covered a somewhat controversial gathering of geo-engineering scientists and policy makers at Asilomar last week that evoked both nostalgia and criticism. Nostalgia for the original conference that last week's was modeled after -- a 1975 meeting of scientific minds intent on self-regulating recombinant DNA experimentation. Criticism because the assumption that scientists, then and now, can self-govern without making regulations that would ultimately benefit their own self interest.

From Wired:

"Susan Wright, a historian of science at the University of Michigan, has called the bargain supposedly struck at Asilomar -- some research restrictions in exchange for scientific self-governance -- a myth on both sides of the deal.

"It is a myth that most scientists working under competitive pressures can address the implications of their own work with dispassion and establish appropriately stringent controls -- any more than an unregulated Bill Gates can give competing browsers equal access to the world wide web," she wrote. "Sure enough, some five years later, the controls proposed at Asilomar and developed by the National Institutes of Health were dismantled without anything like adequate knowledge of the hazards."

Further, she says, "it is equally a myth that scientists in this field are self-governing." Instead, their research agendas are shaped by utilitarian interests of government or corporate sponsors. Even at that early stage, before the biotech boom of later years, molecular biologists were never doing pure science."

And even with regulations, the New Scientist posits, as experiments progress to larger and larger scales, which countries or governing bodies decide whether the benefits outweigh the risks of altering the climate:

"If experiments progress to a larger scale, a second problem arises: which nations should decide whether a proposal has proved safe enough to implement? Most agreed that as some solutions could have a global impact, they could only be deployed after global talks, led by the United Nations, for instance. Talks would have to include plans to compensate people whose livelihoods could be damaged by side effects. Others argued that global negotiations could become impossible to manage, and cited UN-led climate talks as an example of how all-inclusive efforts can fail to solve problems requiring decisive action."

Geoengineering represents a potentially critical tool in mitigating climate change and warrants continued, expanded research. With that in mind, it is definitely not too soon to be tackling these tough questions and developing viable solutions so that research can move forward safely and responsibly.

For more information, the New Scientist also has an excellent graphical summary of the risks, costs, and potential effectiveness of different geo-engineering options (embedded below).