# The Buying Time Argument within the Solar Radiation Management Discourse
## 2 Building Blocks of BTA  
The original idea of \"buying time\" stems from [PERSON] [7], who argues that if a society takes a lot of time to solve a specific problem, it might be prudent to buy time by technological means. Even if the problem might be solved within less time in principle (as, in our case, by aggressive immediate abatement of GHG-emissions), buying time might be reasonable if the trade-offs of radicalsolutions look nasty and repugnant. [PERSON]'s question was \"To what extend can social problems be circumvented by reducing them to technological problems?\" [7] (p. 42). [PERSON] deems the reframing of societal problems as technical ones (\"technological fix\") to be promising. Societal problems tend to be very complex and solving them might require change in collective behavior and institutions which is hard to achieve. Technological fixes look as clear cut, easy and seemingly effective solutions to some societal problems. The mandatory seatbelt may count as example. [PERSON] is, however, well aware about limitations of such technological fixes. Social problems need to be solved by social means eventually, and technological fixes are always a second-best solution. If second-best solutions may have severe side effects or impose new risks upon societies, a fresh look upon first-best solutions, however costly, may become mandatory. To [PERSON], one beneficial feature of a technological fix is that it may buy more time for social transition. Such time generating quality of technological fixes lies at the heart of the BTA. Buying time, however, is not an end in itself. It serves objectives and, in our case, is seen as a tool within a comprehensive \"climate policy portfolio\". Questions emerge: What exactly does it mean to 'buy time' within a period of global climate change? Why? From whom? How much? At what costs? For which ends? As we shall see, proponents of BTA give different answers. One prominent answer to the \"why\" question is given in terms of \"peak shaving\", namely that there will be a peak of negative impacts due to climate change in some specific periods in time on a global scale. The critical period of time are decades between 2030 and 2100. This predictive assumption can be backed by many climate impact models. Cumulative GHG emissions have moved the global climate system forward into a highly critical state [8]. There is a bleak outlook of \"hothouse Earth\" in the longer run, but much loss and damage will occur in the middle run. BTA focusses on the critical middle-term period. There holds a moral obligation to reduce such impacts (some may say loss and damage) which will hit mostly vulnerable groups, especially in the Global South. Beside means of adaptation, the reduction of such adverse impacts requires CE technologies, SAI among them. This strategy can be backed by climate ethics. [PERSON] in her important \"After Geoengineering\" [9] is the prominent climate ethicists who argues for a temporary pro-poor \"humanitarian\" SAI based on BTA. Thus, BTA looks as a morally decent and respectable line of reasoning which cannot be falsified by repugnant intuitions against SAI. The authors of [10] investigate and compare different environmental stop-gap measures. Note that the \"peak shaving\" strategy displays some interesting parallels with the strategy to \"flatten the curve\" of infections in the COVID-19 epidemic in 2020, although the measures to buy time to flatten the curve are societal ones (as social distancing). Since the report of the Royal Society [11], the risks of SAI have been pinpointed. No credible author is enthusiastic about SAI. Many authors see the deployment of SAI as conditional. Conditionalities are constraints and requirements which can be warranted in terms of risks, side effects, moral hazard, governance, exit strategies, political misuse (\"militarization\"), and other lines of reasoning. If one accepts some conditionality, BTA refers in a morally decent way to a conditional and imperfect second-best solution with contested side-effects.