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Climate change : Climate engineering through stratospheric aerosol injection Mike Hulme Progress in Physical Geography 2012 36: 694 originally published online 9 August 2012 DOI: 10.1177/0309133312456414

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Progress in Physical Geography 36(5) 694–705 ª The Author(s) 2012 Climate change: Climate Reprints and permission: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav engineering through DOI: 10.1177/0309133312456414 stratospheric aerosol injection ppg.sagepub.com

Mike Hulme University of East Anglia, UK

Abstract In this progress report on climate change, I examine the growing literature dealing with the proposal to engineer global climate through the deliberate injection of aerosols into the stratosphere. This is just one of a wide range of technology proposals to geoengineer the climate, but one in particular which has gained the attention of Earth System science researchers and which is attracting wider public debate. I review the current status of this technology by exploring a number of different dimensions of the proposal: its history and philosophical and ethical implications; how it is framed in public discourse and perceived by citizens; its economic, political and governance characteristics; and how the proposed technology is being researched through numerical modelling and field experimentation. Unlike many other geoengineering interventions, stratospheric aerosol injection has no additional societal co-benefits: its sole raison d’etre would be to offset planetary heating caused by rising concentrations of greenhouse gases. The deployment of such a technology would have profound implications for the view humans have of themselves in relation to the non-human world.

Keywords climate change, geoengineering, public engagement, science governance, solar radiation management, stratospheric aerosol injection

I Introduction This is not a review of the much wider field of deliberate engineering of the Earth’s climate This is the second of three progress reports I am (sometimes referred to as ‘geoengineering’, writing for Progress in Physical Geography although this term is rather imprecise). This covering the broad theme of (anthropogenic) topic would be too broad for a short progress climate change. Two years ago I reviewed the report and a good introduction exists in the form growing scholarly literature examining (criti- of the Royal Society’s (2009) report on geoengi- cally or otherwise) the knowledge-making prac- neering (see also popular books such as tices of the IPCC (Hulme and Mahony, 2010). Here, I turn my attention to another feature of climate change discourse which has gained salience in certain scientific, political and social settings Corresponding author: Mike Hulme, University of East Anglia, Science, Society and in recent years, namely the prospect of control- Sustainability (3S) Group, School of Environmental ling the Earth’s heat balance through deliberate Sciences, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK injection of aerosols into the stratosphere. Email: [email protected]

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Goodell, 2010, and Kintisch, 2010a). The tech- therefore divided into five sections dealing nical and environmental aspects of many of with, respectively: context and history; philo- these other forms of intervention have been sophy and ethics; framings, discourse and pub- comprehensively reviewed by Vaughan and lic perceptions; economics, politics and Lenton (2011). Rather, this review reports on governance; and numerical modelling and studies which consider the specific technology field experimentation. of stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), which I survey the literature in this order because at is itself merely one technology within the the very heart of SAI technology lies a series of geoengineering family of solar radiation man- crucial questions about, inter alia, the meaning agement (SRM) interventions. I focus on SAI of nature, the human desire for climate control, because of the danger that the policy and public the ethics of technology and the public govern- discourse around geoengineering ‘closes down’ ance of science. Earth System scientists, atmo- on this particular technology (cf. Stirling, spheric engineers and physical geographers 2008): this technology has been deemed who embark on research into the technical ‘affordable’ and ‘effective’ (Royal Society, feasibility and environmental sensitivities of 2009) and substantial work research into SAI such interventions need alerting to these prior is now being undertaken. It therefore demands questions emerging from human imagination close critical scrutiny. and public concern (cf. Macnaghten and Owen, SAI might be thought of as deliberate ‘global 2011). The literature reviewed here therefore dimming’ (Wild et al., 2007) with the intention extends well beyond physical geography and of offsetting the accumulation of heat in the includes publications in science and technology lower atmosphere and oceans caused by rising studies, policy studies, political science, envi- concentrations of greenhouse gases. The prog- ronmental sociology, philosophy of science and ress report does not survey other SRM tech- human geography. niques such as cloud-whitening or surface albedo enhancements, nor the other geoengineering family of Carbon Dioxide Removal II Context and history (CDR) techniques. As Robock (2008, 2011a) The growth of scientific, scholarly, political and points out, the philosophical, ethical and gov- public attention to the idea of stratospheric aero- ernance aspects of SRM and CDR interventions sol injection is frequently attributed to an article are radically different; and, as I suggest here, written in 2006 in the journal Climatic Change some of these aspects with regard to SAI are by the Nobel Prize-winning atmospheric che- also particularly distinctive. mist Paul Crutzen (Crutzen, 2006). Although Nor is this a review of merely the numerical the idea of SAI was not new at this time (cf. simulation studies of SAI which have been Budyko, 1977; NAS, 1992), Crutzen (2006: conducted using a variety of Earth System 212) argued that ‘the usefulness of artificially models to explore the atmospheric and biogeo- enhancing Earth’s albedo and thereby cooling chemical response to aerosol injection. My climate by adding sunlight reflecting aerosol concern is much broader than this. The very in the stratosphere might again be explored and idea of deliberately modifying the composition debated as a way to ... counteract the climate of the stratosphere to effect a global system forcing of growing CO2 emissions’. Although response – namely some form of temperature recognizing the important legal, ethical and regulation or ‘global climate control’ – evokes societal dimensions of such an undertaking, a wide range of cultural, social, political and Cruzten (2006: 216) called for ‘active scientific ethical responses. The progress report is research of the kind of geo-engineering

Downloaded from ppg.sagepub.com at Edinburgh University on December 16, 2012 696 Progress in Physical Geography 36(5) discussed in this paper’. Six years later, such example, claimed it to be the most ‘affordable’ active research is now taking place. and ‘effective’ of all the geoengineering tech- With SAI grouped alongside a range of other nologies they surveyed (Royal Society, 2009). large-scale climate intervention technologies, The present context in which SAI has gained rather loosely labelled together as ‘geoengineer- this emblematic status needs to be understood ing’, Crutzen’s 2006 article prompted signifi- against a much longer history of human desire cant scientific attention being given to the idea for climate control. Fleming’s excellent histori- of deliberate engineering of the Earth’s climate. cal survey of human efforts to ‘control’ climate For example, a simple Scopus search for ‘solar (Fleming, 2010) is recommended as the place to radiation management’ in peer-reviewed start such an examination (see also Keith, 2000; journal article titles, keywords and abstracts for a critical assessment of Fleming’s history, finds none pre-dating 2007. It has also prompted see Hamblin, 2011). The desire to ‘improve’ cli- significant media attention – especially in mate for human benefit is a long-standing one, Anglophone nations (Buck, 2012a; Nerlich and whether on regional scales through land modifi- Jaspal, 2012) – and the emergence of a new cation, locally through cloud-seeding, or public discourse about ‘Plan B’ and ‘global domestically through indoor and outdoor tem- climate control’. perature regulation (e.g. Hitchings, 2011; Within three years of Crutzen’s paper, the Meyer, 2002a, 2002b). The distinctiveness of first national academy assessment of ‘geoengi- SAI should be understood and analysed in this neering’ was published (Royal Society, 2009), context. Rather than seeking local or regional followed by governmental reports in the USA climate improvement, SAI is about limiting (USGAO, 2010, 2011) and from a variety of global climate deterioration believed to be NGOs and think-tanks (e.g., ETC Group, underway as a result of other large-scale human 2010; Olson, 2011). In 2010, the Asilomar Inter- changes to the environment; what some would national Conference on Climate Intervention term climate remediation (e.g. Long et al., Technologies was organized by the non-profit 2011). SAI proposals result from a contempo- foundation the Climate Response Fund together rary anxiety about climate and human flourish- with the Climate Institute in Washington, DC. ing which has deep cultural roots (Boia, 2005; Mimicking the 1975 Asilomar Conference on Fleming and Jankovic, 2011). recombinant DNA, Asilomar-2 as it became In contrast to the above historical discourses, known sought to develop a set of voluntary however, it is the distinctively global scale of guidelines for the conduct of research and test- SAI technologies that provokes some of the ing of such intervention technologies, SAI most challenging philosophical, ethical, legal included (Kintisch, 2010b). The conference and political questions which are surveyed statement from the 175 scientists gathered there below. included the call ‘to initiate further research in all relevant disciplines’. Through Crutzen’s intervention, therefore, it III Philosophy and ethics can be claimed that SAI is the technology that Jamieson (1996) developed one of the first sig- has catalysed this resurgent interest in planetary nificant assessments of the ethical dimensions climate control, and it remains the emblematic of what he termed ‘intentional climate change’ technology to achieve such ends because of the (i.e. geoengineering). Many of the concerns frequently made claim that SAI is relatively now being explored in much greater depth were cheap, is simple and brings about rapid results raised by Jamieson, although he did not specif- (Boyd, 2008). The Royal Society report, for ically refer to SAI as one of his intentional

Downloaded from ppg.sagepub.com at Edinburgh University on December 16, 2012 Hulme 697 technologies. What I am interested in highlight- considered as public ‘bads’, namely whitening ing here is recent work which has considered of the skies and redder sunsets. This would be some of the philosophical and ethical considera- a very visible consequence of SAI and would tions that are particularly significant for SAI. carry considerable psychological significance Galarraga and Szerszynski (2012) have (Robock, 2008). developed an interesting argument about solar Another distinctive feature of the ethics of radiation management and what they call ‘the SAI concerns the ‘slippery-slope argument’ in ethics of fabrication’. In particular, in consider- relation to research and deployment. This was ing what it means to ‘make something’ – as in to outlined originally by Jamieson (1996: 333) in remake global climate – they draw out distinc- a generic sense, the danger being that ‘in many tions between the ideas of ‘production’, ‘educa- cases [geoengineering] research leads unreflec- tion’ and ‘creation’. This raises philosophical tively to development’ and ultimately deploy- questions about what it might mean to bring ment. This argument is now much more global climate under the orbit of human-made pertinent, especially in relation to research into entities. What sort of a god would we become? SAI. Geoengineering research is increasingly They introduce the idea of the ‘climate artist’ as framed in relation to SAI – and conducted too: a way of capturing some of the imaginative not just through numerical simulations, but also practices involved in the technology of SAI. through field experimentation (e.g. Izrael et al., Their conclusion is not dissimilar from Buck’s 2009; Macnaghton and Owen, 2011). The con- call to assess all geoengineering technologies, sequences of ‘just’ researching such technolo- but especially SRM, within much wider socio- gies need to be evaluated upfront. This is an cultural frameworks than merely those of argument made forceably by Bunzl (2009). He techno-environmental risk assessment (Buck, suggests that the social history of scientific 2012b, 2012c). This is a proposition that will research shows that new technologies, once be familiar to many geographers (e.g. Hulme, embarked upon, are more than likely to be 2008; Tadaki et al., 2012). It also resonates with deployed. Betz (2012) also reaches this conclu- the argument against SAI put forward by Clive sion in his critique of the ‘arm the future’ argu- Hamilton (2011). ment for research (cf. Gardiner, 2010). In the Buck’s argument is to widen the setting in case of technologies like SAI, large-scale which ethical considerations of technologies research and deployment become one and the such as SAI take place. If new cohorts of climate same thing (although MacMynowski et al., engineers are to refashion planetary climates 2011, offer a partial rebuttal of this claim). then we all become clients of these engineers. The conclusion of these and other such stud- We need to decide what kind of Earth our engi- ies into the ethics of SAI is the necessity to dif- neers are being commissioned to make. Buck ferentiate between different geoengineering and (2012c) does not explore the problematic ‘we’ SRM technologies. They do not all carry the here (see the section on governance below), but same ethical or philosophical concerns and they she does ask what societal ‘goods’ other than can be analysed using different ethical frame- merely climate benefits might be co-delivered works: for example, deontological, consequenti- by the various geoengineering technologies. In alist and virtue-based ethics as suggested by the her judgement SRM fares rather poorly here Royal Society (2009). (SAI perhaps most easily relative to CDR technologies, and even within falls into a consequentialist framework; i.e. the SRM interventions SAI fares worst of all. end justifies the means.) But some ethical stance Conversely, there are certain aesthetic effects is inevitable when assessing (and indeed which are unique to SAI and which might be researching) geoengineering technologies; the

Downloaded from ppg.sagepub.com at Edinburgh University on December 16, 2012 698 Progress in Physical Geography 36(5) concern is whether this stance is made transparent advocates. Nerlich and Jaspal (2012) also sur- (Gardiner, 2011). All scientists who intervene vey a corpus of English-language popular liter- publicly and who also undertake research into ature about geoengineering between 1988 and SAI should make it very clear what their ethical 2010, but their interest was in the development position is.1 This is especially so given the and deployment of metaphor, or how geoengi- increasing salience of SAI in the public sphere – neeing was ‘linguistically engineered’. In this to which we now turn. corpus taken from the publication category of ‘Industry Trade Press’, they found one master argument, that of philosophical exceptionalism IV Framings, discourse and public (backing up Sikka’s assertion above): geoengi- perceptions neering is the only option to avoid a planetary The few longitudinal studies that have been catastrophe. Supporting this master narrative conducted into media representations of were three dominant metaphors: the planet as geoengineering have not differentiated between a machine, the planet as a body and the planet different technologies – and nor to my knowl- as a patient. SAI, therefore, is framed as either edge have they moved outside Anglophone fixing the machine, screening the body or heal- cultures. The post-2006 rise in media coverage ing the patient. Nerlich and Jaspal conclude is very evident in all such studies (Porter, 2011; their study by asserting the power of metaphor Buck, 2012a; Nerlich and Jaspal, 2012). What to influence political debate and public is also clear from such work are the particular understanding. framings and the narrow range of authoritative What these studies on representation, voices which are being offered to citizens. discourse and metaphor suggest is that the Buck’s analysis of the 93 substantive articles results of public surveys such as that reported dealing with geoengineering she found in the by Mercer et al. (2011) need careful and critical world’s major English print newspapers between scrutiny. In a survey of over 3,000 citizens in the 2006 and 2010 showed that natural scientists and USA, Canada and the UK, these authors found engineers together contribute 70% of all reported that 72% of respondents ‘somewhat’ or ‘strongly’ claims about geoengineering. Of these claims, supported scientific research into SRM. Mercer over half are made by the very small ‘geoclique’ et al. (2011: 5) conclude that ‘The public support (Kintisch, 2010a) comprising just 10 Earth Sys- for SRM found here provides empirical support tem scientists. Whether it be SAI or other climate for oft expressed fears of a rush toward imple- intervention technologies, through such media a mentation’. However, such a conclusion needs very small elite of Caucasian male scientists are cautioning. When asked at the beginning of the shaping the discourse surrounding these putative survey ‘Have you ever heard of geoengineering’, technologies of climate control. only 20% said ‘yes’; furthermore, only 8% could Sikka (2012) explores this exercise of discur- offer an adequate definition of ‘geoengineering’. sive power in her investigation of the particular How subsequent questions about SRM were ideologies being displayed by these authorial therefore framed – in this study they went on to individuals and institutions. ‘Language gains use a ‘climate emergency’ framing – must have power by the use powerful people make of it’ considerable bearing on the answers elicited. (Sikka, 2012: 173, citing Wodak, 2001) and she This points to a considerable dilemma in suggests that technological determinism, philo- attempts to engage publics with ideas such as sophical exceptionalism and a market-driven SAI. Drawing upon lessons from previous tech- ideology underpin the discursive strategies of nology controversies, Corner and Pidgeon many of these prominent geoengineering (2010) argue for widespread public engagement

Downloaded from ppg.sagepub.com at Edinburgh University on December 16, 2012 Hulme 699 before research into SAI and other geoengineer- Copenhagen Consensus process, Bickel and ing technologies proceeds, what has elsewhere Lane (2009) were commissioned to estimate the been termed ‘upstreaming’ (Corner et al., costs of different SRM technologies and for SAI 2012; Wilsdon and Willis, 2004). Yet citizen claimed costs of the order of US$230 billion to exposure to these technologies and their impli- offset 21st-century global warming: a benefit- cations remains either very weak (as in Mercer cost ratio of 25:1. All such estimates must be et al., 2011, and backed up in other survey work; taken with some incredulity (Goes et al., 2011; see Corner et al., 2012) or else heavily framed see also Barrett, 2008). through selective discursive strategies (as in Nevertheless, it is the claimed ease and Sikka, 2012). These concerns were recognized cheapness of SAI that lends this particular tech- in the Royal Society’s 2009 report and in subse- nology as a site of political protest. For exam- quent work funded in the UK to engage citizens ple, if the economic attractiveness of the in upstreaming activities around geoengineer- technology is reason to mobilize the global ing (NERC, 2011). In the NERC study, SAI financial system to direct capital into SAI devel- technology was not popular among UK citizens opment and deployment, then global capitalism and even though perceived as a ‘quick fix’ to needs to be brought to account (Castree, 2009; global heating, participants recognized it car- ETC Group, 2010; Storm, 2009). Furthermore, ried moral hazard and did not deal with the scientists such as those gathered by the IPCC for underlying causes of climate change. The fiasco an expert meeting on geoengineering in Peru in (Macnaghton and Owen, 2011) over one of the June 2011 (IPCC, 2010), are deemed by some to first field experiments to test a possible SAI have neither the expertise nor the legitimacy to delivery mechanism – spraying water into the determine the suitability of geoengineering gov- atmosphere through a 1 km balloon-tethered ernance mechanisms. Shortly before this meet- hose – shows the difficulty both of how to ing, the campaigning coalition Hands Off satisfy citizen concerns deploying the ‘slippery- Mother Earth (HOME) organized an open letter slope argument’ (see above) and of how to speak from many dozens of civil society organizations intelligibly across different scholarly commu- around the world to the Chair of the IPCC nities. Further careful work is clearly needed in Rajendra Pachauri claiming that ‘The likelihood this area (e.g. Kahan et al., 2012), not just in that geoengineering will provide a safe, lasting, Anglophone cultures but, given the global reper- democratic and peaceful solution to the climate cussions of technologies such as SAI, across the crisis is non-existent’ (HOME, 2011). This world (Corner et al., 2012). would be a conclusion seemingly shared by the experienced German climate scientist John Schellnhuber. On close inspection, he argues, V Economics, politics and SAI exhibits some of the same characteristics governance as the Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) Given the pre-embryonic state of SAI technol- of the Cold War, ‘that is, the ominous doctrine ogy at the present time, there are no reliable of the arms race frenzy. If the climate can be costs of deployment for different levels of aero- influenced rather inexpensively by sending sol loading. The Royal Society (2009), follow- aerosol rockets to the stratosphere, then who ing Robock et al. (2009), reported relatively decides when and where the buttons are modest costs in the order of tens of billions of pushed?’ (Schellnhuber, 2011: 20277). dollars, while Morgan (2010) suggests that very Questions of how SAI would be governed fine-sized particle injection could be done at rel- therefore become central (Allenby, 2010; atively low cost. As part of Bjørn Lomborg’s Suarez et al., 2010) and are now the subject not

Downloaded from ppg.sagepub.com at Edinburgh University on December 16, 2012 700 Progress in Physical Geography 36(5) just of research, but even of graduate summer geoengineering cannot be analysed as though schools.2 Virgoe (2009) offers an early account they belong to a single genre or family, and of generic geoengineering governance con- neither can those technologies grouped under cerns, drawing attention to the different roles SRM. Each proposed climate intervention tech- that could be played in relation to SAI by the nology has a unique set of technical characteris- United Nations, by single states or by consortia tics and environmental side-effects, and hence a of states such as the OECD. Following the unique set of ethical, legal and governance Royal Society’s report in 2009, a set of govern- concerns (Betz, 2012). Vaughan and Lenton ance principles for geoengineering – known as (2011), for example, argue that the simulated the Oxford Principles – have been developed uncertainties of SAI are much greater and more by social science scholars such as Steve Rayner, meteorologically complicated than those relat- Catherine Ridgewell and Nick Pidgeon. They ing to CDR technologies. were adopted at the Asilomar Conference and, There is already considerable environmental with caveats, endorsed by the UK House of and technical research being conducted into SAI Commons Report into the regulation of geoen- (Robock et al., 2010) – as called for in the gineering (UK Parliament, 2010). Asilomar-2 Conference Declaration. Most of These principles are being further researched this research is currently being conducted and developed as part of one of the SRM Gov- through numerical model simulation. Rasch ernance Initiatives (SRMGI). Their first report et al. (2008) provided one of the first syntheses was published in 2011 (SRMGI, 2011) in which of SAI environmental research, mostly an they argue for research into the ‘governance of assessment of climate modelling experiments risk’ (cf. Van Asselt and Renn, 2011) associated but also including some speculation about meth- with SRM – drawing in more countries and ods – such as guns, balloons and high-level air- wider perspectives. They do not call for a mor- craft – for delivering sulphur species into the atorium on research into technologies such as stratosphere. Since then new modelling work SAI, although even the SRMGI members were has offered an SAI-optimization framework divided on this position. Many commentators using reduced-form models (Moreno-Cruz have suggested that the complexity of this gov- et al., 2012), explored the effectiveness of SAI ernance challenge will dwarf the difficulties of as a function of climate sensitivity (Ricke finding governance mechanisms for reducing et al., 2012), simulated the regional climatic global carbon emissions (e.g. Humphreys, effects of SAI (Irvine et al., 2010; Robock 2011; although see Millard-Ball, 2012, for a dif- et al., 2008) and shown, using a multi-model ferent reading of the problem) – a task which ensemble, the impossibility of stabilizing both itself has proved largely intractable. As Robock regional temperature and precipitation through (2011b: 5) summarizes: ‘The UK SRMGI is just SAI(Rickeetal.,2010).Inrelationtoprecipi- beginning to address these issues, but it is not tation effects of SAI, MacMynowski et al. obvious that they will be successful. In any case, (2011) show that given the very large natural fundamentally new international rules, obser- variability of regional precipitation, establish- ving systems, and enforcement will be needed ing the effects of SAI experimentation on before we start spraying.’ regional hydrology would require decades of experimental monitoring (cf. Mahlstein et al., 2012). This result reinforces the concern VI Modelling and experimentation expressed in the ‘slippery-slope argument’: One of the arguments I make throughout this research and deployment become one and progress report is that the technologies of the same.

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But the environmental consequences of SAI 2008; Robock et al., 2008). Going beyond natu- extend well beyond the merely climatic. ral analogues, however, Izrael et al. (2009) have Additional sulphate aerosols in the stratosphere conducted limited-area field experiments to provide surfaces for enhanced heterogenous study solar radiation passage through aerosol chemistry, thus resulting in potentially clouds of differing thicknesses and particle increased ozone depletion (Crutzen, 2006; sizes. These empirical results were compared Rasch et al., 2008), although the associated against model simulations and found to be in radiation scattering and attenuation effects are close agreement. In proposed work in the UK, complex. The ratio of direct to diffuse radiation, the Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate too, would be altered with consequences for Engineering (SPICE) Consortium plans to test photosynthesis, ecosystems (such as coral; at least one possible aerosol delivery device (see Crabbe, 2009) and crop yields (e.g. Pongratz above). et al., 2012). And if SAI were to be used as a technology for limiting the rate of global sea-level rise then significant contradictions VII Conclusions arise between achieving this goal at the same Of the various climate engineering technologies time as stabilizing global temperature (Irvine that have been proposed – Vaughan and Lenton et al., 2012). (2011), for example, reviewed 19 such – SAI is All of these studies are, of course, simulation one that has gained particular salience within studies using a variety of Earth System simula- the climate science and Earth system modelling tion models. Their conclusions remain subject community. SAI offers a brute force way of to the well-known and enduring limitations of rebalancing the Earth’s heat budget and offers such models. For this and other reasons, there- most obviously the creation of what some have fore, Kravitz et al. (2011) have called for a metaphorically labelled a ‘global thermostat’. It Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project scored most highly of all the geoengineering (GeoMIP), along the lines of other climate and technologies evaluated by the Royal Society biosphere model intercomparison projects. (2009) against the criteria of ‘effectiveness’, Specifically applied to model investigations ‘affordability’ and ‘timeliness’, although it into the consequences of SAI, these authors call gained only a ‘low’ score with respect to for standard SAI scenarios to be applied to ‘safety’. multiple climate models to compare results and In contrast to other SRM technologies, how- to determine the robustness of model-simulated ever, and certainly in comparison with CDR, responses. Jones et al. (2010) show the results of there are no societal or ecological co-benefits one such study in which the effects of SAI, to offer alongside the primary objective of simulated in two leading climate models, were adjusting the radiative balance of the planet. intercompared. This is the argument explored by Buck Experimental research into SAI has tended to (2012c), where she was unable to offer any study natural analogues to gain insight into the social co-benefits of undertaking SAI – as effects of deliberate injection. The injection of opposed to some that could be imagined for sulphate aerosols into the lower stratosphere to other SRM and CDR technologies (such as, cool the climate seeks to mimic the effect of respectively, urban albedo enhancement or large volcanic eruptions such as Mt Pinatubo biochar). (Crutzen, 2006). The aggregate large-scale What therefore is at stake in the emerging effects of such eruptions are reasonably well research agenda into SAI technologies and with known (e.g. Kravitz et al., 2009; Rasch et al., respect to embryonic efforts to stimulate public

Downloaded from ppg.sagepub.com at Edinburgh University on December 16, 2012 702 Progress in Physical Geography 36(5) deliberation about the technology? What University of East Anglia for helpful comments on should be immediately clear from this brief sur- an early draft of this paper. vey of the literature is that SAI cannot simply be evaluated on the basis of some narrow Funding techno-environmental assessment of risk. Even This research received no specific grant from any the very proposition to conduct research into funding agency in the public, commercial, or SAI carries with it a set of ethical and political not-for-profit sectors. judgements, not to mention the much deeper Conflict of interest philosophical presumptions about the natures of nature, technology and humanity. As Gardi- The author declares no conflicts of interest. ner (2011) observes in his essay exploring the Notes ethical assumptions buried in the Royal 1. My own normative stance in relation to SRM technolo- Society’s 2009 report, any assessment of tech- gies can be discerned from these two popular articles I nologies such as SAI necessarily involves have written: ‘The Star Wars solution to climate change adopting an ethical stance. What matters is that will crash back to earth’, Times Higher Education, ‘whether it is made perspicuous’ (Gardiner, June 2008 (http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story. 2011: 184). asp? sectioncode¼26andstorycode¼402520andc¼1); ‘Cl My other claim here is the importance of dif- imate intervention schemes could be undone by geopoli ferentiating between the individual climate tics’, Yale Environment 360, June 2010 (http://e360.yale. engineering technologies being proposed. This edu/content/feature.msp? id¼2283). is as true for upstream public engagement work 2. For example: ‘Governing climate engineering – a trans- as it is for considerations about research, imple- disciplinary summer school’, 12–16 July 2010, held at mentation, ethics or governance. SAI is radi- the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law, cally different as a form of technology from, Heidelberg, Germany. say, biochar or roof albedo enhancement. The References distinctions must not be blurred by labelling them all together as simply ‘geoengineering’. Allenby B (2010) Climate change negotiations and geoengineering: Is this really the best we can do? Geographers have inherited the moniker Environmental Quality Management 20(2): 1–16. ‘earth-describers’ – geo-graphia. As a new Barrett S (2008) The incredible economics of geoengi- cohort of human actors and entrepreneurs come neering. Environmental Resource Economics 39(1): in to being – the ‘earth-engineers’ – it is impor- 45–54. tant that geographers engage in conversation Betz G (2012) The case for climate engineering research: with them and facilitate wider public scrutiny An analysis of the ‘arm the future’ argument. Climatic of their mission. What is the nature of this ‘geo’ Change 111: 473–485. being engineered? Whose stakes are at risk and Bickel JE and Lane L (2009) An Analysis of Climate whose are being defended? To whom should the Engineering as a Response to Climate Change. engineers be accountable? For geographers to Copenhagen: Copenhagen Consensus Centre. remain useful to society, are not the new worlds Boia L (2005) The Weather in the Imagination. London: that are today being created, mapped and colo- Reaktion Books. Boyd PW (2008) Ranking geo-engineering schemes. nized by SAI explorers exactly those worlds Nature Geoscience 1: 722–723. we are called upon to study and describe? Buck HJ (2012a) Geoengineering: Re-making climate for profit or humanitarian intervention? Development and Acknowledgements Change 43(1): 253–270. The author wishes to thank Rob Bellamy and Kate Buck HJ (2012b) Climate remediation to address social Porter in the School of Environmental Sciences at the development challenges: Going beyond cost-benefit

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