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The need for public engagement is increasingly evident as discussions intensify around emerging methods for carbon dioxide removal and controversial proposals around solar geoengineering. Based on 44 focus groups in 22 countries across the Global North and Global South (N = 323 participants), this article traces public preferences for a variety of bottom-up and top-down engagement practices ranging from information recipient to broad decision authority. Here, we show that engagement practices need to be responsive to local political cultures and socio-technical environments, while attending to the global dimensions and interconnectedness of the issues at stake. Establishing public engagement as a cornerstone of inclusive and sustainable governance of climate-intervention technologies requires (i) recognizing the diversity of forms and intensities of engaging, (ii) considering national contexts and modes of engagement, (iii) tailoring to technological idiosyncrasies, (iv) adopting power-sensitive practices, (v) accounting for publics' prior experience, (vi) establishing trust and procedural legitimacy and (vii) engaging with tensions and value disagreements. Meaningful public engagement is key to sustainable governance of carbon removal and solar radiation modification. A study across 22 countries emphasizes tailored approaches sensitive to local contexts, technological nuances, power dynamics and trust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Negative emissions technologies and solar radiation management techniques could contribute towards climate stability, either by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it permanently or reflecting sunlight away from the atmosphere. Despite concerns about them, such options are increasingly being discussed as crucial complements to traditional climate change mitigation and adaptation. Expectations around negative emissions and solar radiation management and their associated risks and costs shape public and private discussions of how society deals with the climate crisis. In this study, we rely on a large expert survey (N = 74) to critically examine the future potential of both negative emission options (e.g., carbon dioxide removal) and solar radiation management techniques. We designed a survey process that asked a pool of prominent experts questions about (i) the necessity of adopting negative emissions or solar radiation management options, (ii) the desirability of such options when ranked against each other, (iii) estimations of future efficacy in terms of temperature reductions achieved or gigatons of carbon removed, (iv) expectations about future scaling, commercialization, and deployment targets, and (v) potential risks and barriers. Unlike other elicitation processes where experts are more positive or have high expectations about novel options, our results are more critical and cautionary. We find that some options (notably afforestation and reforestation, ecosystem restoration, and soil carbon sequestration) are envisioned frequently as necessary, desirable, feasible, and affordable, with minimal risks and barriers (compared to other options). This contrasts with other options envisaged as unnecessary risky or costly, notably ocean alkalization or fertilization, space-based reflectors, high-altitude sunshades, and albedo management via clouds. Moreover, only the options of afforestation and reforestation and soil carbon sequestration are expected to be widely deployed before 2035, which raise very real concerns about climate and energy policy in the near- to mid-term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Making sense of the implications of climate engineering approaches (solar radiation management, SRM; and carbon dioxide removal, CDR) at planetary scales occurs via a host of methods that calculate, project, and imagine the future in distinct ways. We take a systemic and synthesizing view of some of the (inter)disciplinary methods by which these futures are derived: climate and integrated assessment modeling, 'deductive' modes of social science inquiry, deliberative stakeholder engagement, and foresight-based scenarios. We speak to the epistemologies, objectives, and user communities surrounding these research practices, highlighting that different modes of constructing and interpreting evidence about an unformed future yield different kinds of results and signals for actions to be taken. We show how different methods for exploring 'futures' form an evolving history of how the risks of CE have been assessed (or constructed), and conclude by echoing calls for a stronger shared understanding of the practices and politics that underpin future-oriented research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several zebrafish P2X receptors (zP2X1, zP2X2, and zP2X5.1) have been reported to produce little or no current although their mammalian orthologs produce functional homomeric receptors. We isolated new cDNA clones for these P2X receptors that revealed sequence variations in each. The new variants of zP2X1 and zP2X5.1 produced substantial currents when expressed by Xenopus oocytes, however the new variant of zP2X2 was still nonfunctional. zP2X2 lacks two lysine residues essential for ATP responsiveness in other P2X receptors; however introduction of these two lysines was insufficient to allow this receptor to function as a homotrimer. We also tested whether P2X signaling is required for myogenesis or synaptic communication at the zebrafish neuromuscular junction. We found that embryonic skeletal muscle expressed only one P2X receptor, P2X5.1. Antisense knockdown of P2X5.1 eliminated skeletal muscle responsiveness to ATP but did not prevent myogenesis or behaviors that require functional transmission at the neuromuscular junction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A letter to the editor is presented in which the author discuss various issues related to the field testing of solar climate engineering.