Geoengineering is no place for corporate profit making
“Save the world and make a little cash on the side.” That’s the motto of Russ George, the colourful entrepreneur behind Planktos Science who wants to put geoengineering into practice now. George is convinced that by adding iron sulphate to the oceans, he can stimulate plankton blooms and so suck enough carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere to […]
Geoengineering might work in a rational world … sadly we don’t live in one
The publication of a hefty two-volume report on geoengineering by the US National Research Council represents a marked shift in the global debate over how to respond to global warming. To date, the debate has been about mitigation, with the need for some adaption because of the failure to reduce emissions adequately. The new report, backed by […]
The Risks of Climate Engineering
The Republican Party has long resisted action on climate change, but now that much of the electorate wants something done, it needs to find a way out of the hole it has dug for itself. A committee appointed by the National Research Council may just have handed the party a ladder. In a two-volume report, […]
Will China Save the World, Or Destroy It?
China’s greenhouse gas emissions now surpass the combined total of the United Sates and the European Union. When measured on a per person basis, the average Chinese is responsible for more damage to the climate than the average European. The gaps will become wider. Unless China soon stops and reverses the rampant growth of its […]
The New Environmentalism Will Lead Us To Disaster
The New Environmentalism Will Lead Us To Disaster So-called ecopragmatists say we can have a “good Anthropocene.” They’re dead wrong. Clive Hamilton Published in Scientific American, 19 June 2014 Fourteen years ago, when a frustrated Paul Crutzen blurted out the word “Anthropocene” at a scientific meeting in Mexico, the famous atmospheric chemist was expressing his […]
Can humans survive the Anthropocene?
So profound has been the influence of humans that Earth system scientists have proposed that the Earth has entered a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene. The new epoch marks the end of the Holocene, a 10,000-year period of climatic stability and clemency that permitted civilization to flourish. What does it mean for humankind to inscribe […]
Everything you need to know about geoengineering in 11 minutes
Why Geoengineering Suits Russia’s Carbon Agenda
Published in the Guardian, 24 September 2013 News that Russia is calling for geoengineering be considered by the IPCC as a possible response to global warming makes a perverse kind of sense. No government, not even those of Canada and Australia, has been more eager to open up new sources of fossil energy than Russia’s. […]
Geoengineering: Governance Before Research Please
In a recent issue of Science, Edward Parson and David Keith put forward a plan to ‘end the deadlock on governance of geoengineering research’ (1). Like geoengineering research itself, the question of governance is in its infancy (2, 3). It is not apparent that rival camps with well-developed but conflicting proposals have emerged, but Parson […]
What Would Heidegger Say About Geoengineering?
Abstract Proposals to respond to climate change by geoengineering the Earth’s climate system, such as by regulating the amount of sunlight reaching the planet, may be seen as a radical fulfillment of Heidegger’s understanding of technology as destiny. Before geoengineering was conceivable, the Earth as a whole had to be representable as a total object, […]