Naomi Klein on the Dangers and Insufficiencies of Geoengineering
In the chapter titled “Geoengineering: Testing the Waters” from her book On Fire: The Burning Case for a Green New Deal, Naomi Klein discusses the strange and troubling attempts by governments and corporations to combat climate change using what is called geoengineering, a form of emerging technology that is used to manipulate the environment. She opens by describing a group of whales that she sighted off of the coast of British Columbia, a beautiful scene that was later tarnished through learning that the whales had been moving through that area because an entrepreneur named Russ George dumped 120 tons of iron into the water off the coast of a nearby island. George created an algae bloom half the size of the state of Massachusetts which attracted scores of aquatic creatures from surrounding waters in search of food, among which were whales (102). This story, of a perceived wonder of nature turning out to be the result of a reckless human intervention in the environment, is how she frames her whole discussion of geoengineering. Through geoengineering, small unregulated entities, public and private, can drastically modify the natural world. Rather than addressing the industrial and consumer practices that have caused climate change in the first place, entrepreneurs are trying to modify the Earth itself, so that we can continue on as we’ve been going, putting an end to the climate change issue without at all adjusting our way of life.
There are widespread international political issues that arise from this. Many geoengineering projects could have long term negative impacts on large areas of the Earth. For example, one proposed project is to release sulfur into the stratosphere in order to reduce the intensity of radiation from the sun, which could easily trigger droughts in Asia and Africa (108). There are no international laws or regulatory bodies that could adequately deal with this. There is nothing to stop a company or government in the West from “going rogue” and carrying out a hasty, under-researched geoengineering project that has severe long term impacts on areas of the Global South, which has already been disproportionately impacted by climate change despite contributing significantly less to it. Geoengineering is therefore not only a reckless and potentially ineffective solution to climate change, but also stands to potentially exacerbate the global inequalities caused by climate change in the first place. Relations between Western countries trying to use geoengineering as a way to combat climate change and non-western countries impacted by said geoengineering could become so strained that the people in these countries may come to view these as imperialist attacks (108).
What is interesting about this chapter from Klein is that it demonstrates a key issue in liberal approaches to combating climate change. Rather than dialing back, many of these people would rather double down. Instead of rolling back the technologies that caused the ecological crisis in the first place, they seek to merely advance technology and use it in new ways. As she says in “The Right is Right,” such moderates end up being more deluded than even right-wingers. They think that somehow our late capitalist economy and consumer lifestyle can be preserved in the face of the radical changes that addressing climate change will necessitate. Adherents of geoengineering tend to hold a similar delusion. Geoengineering presupposes that technological capitalism can be maintained in the face of climate change and ecological decay. The idea that a dialing back of our use of technology and of our manipulation of nature is never even considered. The fact that geoengineering could not only fail but even make things worse should not come as a surprise because it is built on delusion, it is trying to use what caused the problem to solve it.
These problems are only with geoengineering as we know it now, as a reckless capitalist venture that seeks to profit and to preserve the Earth as a resource for production. However, they do not necessarily pertain to geoengineering as such. In fact, some degree of geoengineering may end up being necessary in order to ensure a future for humanity and some other species. The question is whether it can be done in a safe and equitable manner, without making the climate even worse or harming already impoverished regions of the Earth. Klein does not seem to address this possibility. Instead, she maintains that it would be better to modify our own behavior and change our lifestyles (109). This ignores what may very well be the reality of the situation: that we may have to both geoengineer and radically modify our behavior and lifestyle if we are to continue life on Earth. Her concerns, while certainly well-grounded, verge on luddism, a rejection of technological innovation as such because of a perversion of what she finds beautiful in nature.
Questions to consider: What extent of geoengineering is acceptable? What extent is taking things too far? How can we ensure that geoengineering is carried out in a cautious and equitable manner?
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Klein, Naomi. “Geoengineering,” On Fire: The Burning Case for a Green New Deal, Simon & Schuster, 2019, pp. 104–109.
