# data[].attributes.headline
Waag Future Lab | De beeldvorming van de planeet

# data[].attributes.subject
Waag Future Lab | De beeldvorming van de planeet

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Waag is in Europa penvoerder van het project More-than-Planet, waarin we samen met onderzoeksinstituten en kunstenaars werken aan nieuwe beeldvormingen van de planeet. Wat bedoelen we als we het over beeldvormingen van de planeet hebben, waarom zijn ze zo belangrijk en hoe relateert dit aan de klimaat- en ecologische crisis? Dat legt Bonnie van Vugt uit in dit essay. Leestijd: 11 minuten
Wat is de betekenis van de aarde?

Wat een voor de hand liggende vraag, denk je misschien wel. Dat is de wereld, de planeet waar jij en ik op leven.

Maar op welke planeet leef jij? Als je die vraag aan Elon Musk zou stellen, zegt hij misschien: 'een planeet die we in de toekomst gaan verlaten, omdat ik naar Mars wil.' Jijzelf hebt misschien wel een heel ander beeld van de aarde. Nog anders kan het antwoord zijn als je de vraag stelt aan een boer uit Zuid-Europa, die de hitte en droogte van deze zomer nog maar net heeft doorstaan. Het antwoord op de vraag is afhankelijk van wie je hem stelt, en uit welke visuele en filosofische cultuur voor het voorstellen van de aarde deze persoon afkomstig is.

De filosoof Bruno Latour stelde dat er vaak grappend wordt gezegd dat het lijkt 'alsof we niet op dezelfde planeet wonen' als mensen elkaar niet begrijpen of het niet met elkaar eens zijn. We kunnen deze uitdrukking echter ook letterlijk nemen, omdat de definitie die mensen van de aarde geven van zoveel verschillende factoren afhankelijk is, dat ze onderling enorm verschillen. En precies die ' planetary imaginaries', de manieren waarop wij de planeet verbeelden en afbeelden, zijn belangrijk. Ze hebben invloed op de manier waarop we met de aarde omgaan, bijvoorbeeld wanneer er beleidskeuzes gemaakt moeten worden.

Wanneer we het hebben over de huidige klimaatproblemen, gebruiken we termen zoals de CO2-afdruk en data over hoe de aarde verandert. Klimaatverandering wordt inzichtelijk gemaakt door middel van planetary computation, wat betekent dat computers, die met elkaar zijn verbonden via het internet, samenwerken om enorme hoeveelheden gegevens te verwerken. Deze gegevens helpen ons om klimaatpatronen te begrijpen en toekomstige voorspellingen te doen.

Visualisaties van het klimaat, zoals een afbeelding van de stijgende temperatuur in Europa, kunnen ervoor zorgen dat kwesties politieke aandacht krijgen: ze worden concreet en zijn daardoor aan te vechten. Deze visualisaties van klimaatdata geven ons een realistische en op feiten gebaseerde voorspelling van onze toekomst. Maar paradoxaal genoeg kunnen visualisaties van het klimaat er ook juist voor zorgen dat onze verbeelding van de toekomst van de aarde beperkt blijft.

Filosofe Chiara Bottici legt uit dat dit komt doordat er aan de ene kant ontzettend veel beelden aanwezig zijn in ons leven door digitale technologie en sociale media, maar ook op tv en in de krant. Aan de andere kant lijkt het erop dat er een gebrek aan verbeelding is in de politiek, omdat al deze klimaatbeelden ons in de weg zitten om nieuwe, radicale andere toekomstbeelden van het klimaat voor te stellen. Bottici is niet de enige die het heeft over de 'crisis van de verbeelding'. Auteurs als Amitav Ghosh noemen de klimaatcrisis 'een crisis van cultuur en dus van de verbeelding'. Als we ons echt in een crisis van verbeelding bevinden moeten we ons afvragen wat we daaraan kunnen doen. Het lijkt er nu op alsof we simpelweg niet in staat zijn om ons een andere wereld voor te stellen. Daarom zijn, naast deze door planetary computation verkregen milieuconcepten zelf, ook planetary imaginaries belangrijk.

'Een overgang naar een duurzame toekomst vergt een radicale herverbeelding van de aarde, omdat we nieuwe beelden, verhalen en concepten nodig hebben die de huidige overstijgen.'

Planetaire verbeelding

De term ' planetary imaginaries' valt lastig in het Nederlands te vertalen, maar duidt op de manieren waarop samenlevingen hun relatie met de planeet vertegenwoordigen en begrijpen. Het concept ' imaginary' wordt gebruikt in verschillende disciplines zoals sociologie, antropologie en filosofie, om de collectieve verbeelding van samenlevingen aan te duiden.

De filosoof Charles Taylor spreekt over 'moderne sociale beeldvormingen' in zijn werk. Taylor heeft het over "de manier waarop mensen zich hun sociale omgeving 'voorstellen'." Die sociale beeldvorming komt vaak niet in theoretische begrippen tot uitdrukking: het wordt overgedragen door beelden, verhalen, afbeeldingen, legenden, mythes, metaforen en memes. "Vaak is specifieke, theoretische kennis voorbehouden aan een kleine minderheid, terwijl het interessante aan sociale beeldvorming is dat ze door grote groepen mensen, zo niet de hele samenleving, wordt gedeeld," aldus Taylor.

Taylor is geïnteresseerd in beeldvorming in plaats van in kennis, omdat het hierbij gaat over de culturele structuur van een samenleving, en diens dieperliggende normen en waarden. In ons dagelijks taalgebruik maken we meestal niet zo strikt onderscheid tussen 'beeldvorming' en 'cultuur'. Sociale beeldvorming is echter geen synoniem voor cultuur. Beeldvorming is de achtergrond of het mentale territorium dat we nodig hebben om concepten zoals 'cultuur', 'politiek', en 'kunst' te kunnen maken. Deze nuance in het onderscheid tussen 'beeldvorming' en 'cultuur' wordt pas belangrijk als we willen begrijpen hoe samenlevingen grote veranderingen ondergaan, zoals de overgang van de jagers-verzamelaarssamenleving naar de agrarische samenleving, of van de moderne, industriële naar de informatie- samenleving.

In de pre-moderne samenleving ging bijvoorbeeld de dominante sociale beeldvorming volledig uit van een 'goddelijke orde', waarin God en de koning de heersers waren over iedereen. Het wereldbeeld van mensen werd gedomineerd door religie. Hier begon verandering in te komen tijdens de Verlichting, waarin de wereld niet meer werd bekeken vanuit de 'goddelijke orde', maar vanuit een wetenschappelijk rationalisme. Vandaag te dag kunnen we ons misschien bijna niet meer voorstellen hoe de samenleving eruit zou zien zonder wetenschappelijke methodes en het rationalisme, maar de overgang van pre-modern naar modern vroeg om een radicale herverbeelding van de hele samenleving waarin er nieuwe concepten werden gecreëerd die concepten als 'de goddelijke orde' compleet overstegen.

Een overgang naar een duurzame toekomst vergt dan ook een radicale herverbeelding van de aarde, omdat we nieuwe beelden, verhalen en concepten nodig hebben die de huidige overstijgen. Als de ecologische crisis tegelijkertijd een crisis van de verbeelding is, dan is het onze beeldvorming waar we aandacht aan zouden moeten besteden.

Maar eerst: waar is de beeldvorming van de aarde die we vandaag de dag hebben, op gebaseerd? De ruimte-expedities van de jaren zestig van de vorige eeuw brachten ons nieuwe manieren om naar de aarde te kijken. Iconische foto's van de aarde, zoals Earthrise en The Blue Marble, confronteerden ons met een beeld van de planeet als één geheel. Het waren dan ook dit soort afbeeldingen die ervoor zorgden dat het totaalbeeld van de aarde als één systeem het dominante framework werd om over de wereld na te denken.

De denkbeelden die we binnen deze context van de aarde hebben, zijn gebaseerd op een aantal onderliggende concepten, waardesystemen en technologieën die worden gebruikt om de planeet Aarde in beeld te brengen. Het totaalbeeld van de aarde vanuit de ruimte - afstandelijk en ver weg - suggereert de onderlinge verbondenheid van de mens: we zijn allemaal samen op die kleine blauwe knikker in de verte. Maar dit beeld van de aarde behelst ook een vorm van koloniale overheersing. Alsof we een objectief perspectief hebben over de gehele aarde, wat ons in staat zou stellen om haar volledig te besturen. Dit is natuurlijk niet zo: we kunnen wel modellen maken van het klimaat, maar we kunnen een extreme hittegolf of een storm niet voorkomen. Tegelijkertijd kan dit totaalbeeld van de aarde juist nodig zijn, zeker wanneer we een probleem als klimaatverandering in beeld brengen en aanpakken.

'The globe is on our computers.'

Van wereldbol naar planetair

Met de term ' planetary imaginaries' worden dus verschillende soorten beeldvorming van de planeet bedoeld. ' Planetary', in het Nederlands vertaald naar 'planetair', werd als concept bedacht door literatuurcriticus Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Zij gebruikte dit woord in de jaren negentig als alternatief voor het woord globe, omdat de wereldbol geassocieerd wordt met hiërarchie en het universalisme dat aan de basis lag van het huidige wereldwijde neoliberaal kapitalisme. Zo is het continent Afrika vaak veel kleiner afgebeeld dan dat het relatief is op wereldbollen of -kaarten. Door het gebruik van de zogenaamde Mercatorprojectie lijkt het op sommige wereldbollen of kaarten alsof Afrika en Groenland bijna even groot zijn, terwijl Afrika in werkelijkheid veertien keer groter is. Dit heeft er mee te maken dat er keuzes gemaakt moeten worden over verschillende zaken zoals de schaal en de oriëntatie bij het weergeven van een driedimensionale aarde op een tweedimensionale oppervlakte.

Maar deze keuzes kunnen beïnvloed worden door machtsverhoudingen en vooroordelen. Het is volgens historicus Thomas Smits dan ook niet toevallig dat Europa, Rusland en de Verenigde Staten relatief groot lijken op de huidige wereldbol, terwijl het continent Afrika en landen als India, Mexico en Saoedi-Arabië veel kleiner worden afgebeeld.

Met haar uitspraak "the globe is on our computers" suggereerde Spivak dat wat we 'de wereld' noemen, in stand wordt gehouden door onze uitwisselingen, representaties en berekeningen ervan. De wereldbol, zoals die van de icoontjes voor het World Wide Web en de World Bank, is een plek waar niemand woont. Daarom stelde Spivak voor om het idee van de wereldbol te vervangen door het concept 'planetair'. Het planetair is een poging om de aarde op een andere manier te conceptualiseren, een manier waarop we kunnen leven en hij niet alleen 'op onze computers' bestaat. Met planetaire beeldvorming wordt dus de grote verscheidenheid bedoeld in visies over hoe de aarde eruitziet én eruit zou kunnen zien. De aarde van Elon Musk, de boer uit Zuid-Europa, en die van jezelf bestaan allemaal naast elkaar.

'Oefenen met planetair zíjn vereist bijna letterlijk dat we onze handen en voeten in de aarde steken.'

Het planetarium verlaten om de bossen in te gaan

Het is echter niet genoeg om alleen maar te filosoferen over hoe de toekomst eruit zou moeten of kunnen zien. Planetaire beeldvorming is meer dan een theorie: het heeft ook een actieve component. Beeldvorming is een actief en performatief proces. Dat wil zeggen dat het niet alleen gaat over nadenken op verschillende manieren, maar ook over zíjn op verschillende manieren, legt hoogleraar in Environmental Humanities Jennifer Gabrys uit. Zij legt het planetair uit als een 'praxis': een verzameling aan oefeningen en handelingen.

Om dit te illustreren haalt Gabrys in haar essay 'Becoming Planetary' de filosoof Walter Benjamin aan. Hij betoogde dat wij moderne mensen steeds verder van de hemel verwijderd raken. In het poëtische 'To the Planetarium' uit 1928 stelt hij dat onze kosmische ervaring veranderd is nu we de sterrenhemel niet langer ervaren via collectieve rituelen, zoals in de oudheid, maar de natuur enkel nog via de tele- en microscoop bekijken. Met de komst van moderne technologie zou onze kosmische ervaring veranderd zijn.

Benjamins boodschap is dat we naar het planetarium toe moeten gaan. Gabrys daarentegen, roept nu juist op om het planetarium te verlaten. Ze stelt dat we weg moeten van het totaalbeeld van de aarde als één systeem, zoals het er bijvoorbeeld uitziet op de Earthrise-foto. In plaats van te kijken vanuit het planetarium, zouden we naar het bos moeten gaan: dáár zien we echt wat de planeet is. Het is een plek waar we onze manieren van mens-zijn en onze technologische en culturele handelingen in relatie tot de planeet kunnen heroverwegen. Het bos is een voorbeeld van een plek waar we zouden kunnen oefenen met planetair denken en handelen.

Gabrys noemt concrete voorbeelden van manieren om de relatie tussen mens en bos te ontdekken, zoals "het in kaart brengen en monitoren met remote sensing-platforms, toolkits voor boswachters en detectietechnologieën." Dit zijn voorbeelden van manieren waarop we de relatie met de planeet beter zouden kunnen begrijpen. Oefenen met planetair zíjn vereist bijna letterlijk dat we onze handen en voeten in de aarde steken. Bruno Latour verwoordt dit als 'terug naar de aarde gaan': we moeten ergens kunnen landen om het zogenaamde objectieve perspectief los te kunnen laten.

'Planetaire beeldvorming is als een soort donkere materie: ze is onzichtbaar voor ons, maar ze heeft wel een ontzettend grote impact.'

Opnieuw kalibreren, maar hoe dan?

Vanuit de techno-utopische en kapitalistische verbeelding van iemand als Elon Musk is de mens nog steeds de belangrijkste alleenheerser van de aarde. Vanuit dit perspectief wordt vaak nog gehandeld. Het is hard nodig om de relatie van de mens tot de planeet te heroverwegen voor een duurzame toekomst, omdat de manier waarop we ons de aarde zelf en onze relatie tot haar voorstellen een substantiële invloed op het milieu heeft. Pas als we ons een, of meerdere andere wereld(en) voorstellen, kunnen we ze tot leven wekken.

Dat blijkt niet zo gemakkelijk te zijn. Volgens filosofen Slavoj Žižek en Mark Fisher is het makkelijker om het einde van de wereld voor te stellen dan het einde van het kapitalisme. Science-fictionschrijver Ursula K. Le Guin liet een hoopvoller geluid horen toen ze tijdens haar speech op de National Book Awards zei: "We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings." Le Guin legt uit dat transformatie alleen mogelijk wordt als we onze verbeelding gebruiken en alternatieve toekomstbeelden scheppen, zoals zij doet in haar science-fiction.

En we kunnen nog veel meer verschillende manieren, media en verhaallijnen over een 'nieuwe' aarde creëren. Een voorbeeld van een project waar nieuwe planetary imaginaries zichtbaar worden is ' Feral Atlas ', een digitale atlas die de mechanismen achter het Antropoceen probeert uit te leggen. Het project is een poging om het tijdperk waarin we nu leven uit te leggen als een gefragmenteerde tijd, in plaats van een verenigd geheel. Op de website van Feral Atlas kun je verschillende verhalen lezen vanuit een protagonist naar keuze. Zo kun je bijvoorbeeld lezen over radioactieve insecten, plastic zakjes of onderwatergeluiden. Door middel van dit mozaïek aan verschillende verhalen probeert Feral Atlas je vanuit een nieuw, meer-dan-menselijk perspectief naar de wereld te laten kijken. Op die manier hoopt het mensen op een nieuwe manier te informeren, en vooral gevoelig te maken voor de wereld om ons heen.

Nieuwe verhaallijnen over de planeet worden ook in Waags Space Lab onderzocht en gemaakt. Uit een door het lab georganiseerde workshopserie voor kunstenaars kwam onder meer het project 'Mushmap' voort, waarin nieuwe (stads)grenzen worden ontworpen op basis van de biodiversiteit in het gebied, in plaats van op basis van politieke, kapitalistische of andere belangen. Het doel van de groep onderzoekers en kunstenaars was om de neokoloniale beeldvorming van grenzen in twijfel te trekken. Grenzen als afgebeeld op een kaart worden namelijk vaak bepaald aan de hand van bijvoorbeeld sociaaleconomische afwegingen. Een grens wordt getrokken omdat er een weg wordt aangelegd of het land van een eigenaar is. Kaarten zouden er heel anders uitzien als ze gemaakt zouden worden vanuit het perspectief van bijvoorbeeld bomen of schimmels. Deze worden nu vaak niet meegenomen in de manier waarop de ruimte wordt gedefinieerd.

Radicale herverbeelding

Op de vraag wat de aarde is bestaat niet één juist antwoord, net als op de vraag op wat voor planeet je zou willen leven. Elon Musk, de boer uit Zuid-Europa en jijzelf hebben daar waarschijnlijk allemaal andere antwoorden op, en dus hebben jullie een verschillende planetaire beeldvorming.

Planetaire beeldvorming is als een soort donkere materie: ze is onzichtbaar voor ons, maar ze heeft wel een ontzettend grote impact. Ze houdt alles bij elkaar. Onze beeldvorming wordt meestal niet expliciet uitgesproken omdat ze vaak niet in woorden te vatten valt. Ze wordt enkel zichtbaar in onze beelden: kunst, cultuur en verhalen. Milieuconcepten en data over de opwarming van de aarde alleen zijn niet effectief genoeg om ons gevoelig te maken voor de urgentie van de klimaat- en ecologische crisis. Ze motiveren ons niet voldoende om actie te ondernemen en hebben in elk geval, zo hebben we de afgelopen jaren gezien, geen drastische invloed op beleidsvorming. Het is dus zaak om te erkennen dat er nieuwe manieren ontwikkeld moeten worden om de verbeelding van het publiek te betrekken bij het zoeken naar hoopvolle perspectieven in tijden van crisis.

Om de samenleving gevoelig te maken voor klimaatproblematiek is het dus steeds belangrijker dat we niet alleen de wetenschap inzetten, maar ook de kunsten. We hebben nieuwe ideeën, verhalen en concepten nodig die verder gaan dan wat we nu kennen. Initiatieven zoals Feral Atlas en Mushmap bieden een radicale herverbeelding van de aarde: wat nu als de mens eens niet de protagonist is, maar de zee? Wat voor perspectief op de planeet geeft dat? En wat nu als bomen en schimmels de grenzen bepalen, hoe zouden de kaarten er dan uit zien? Om een overstap te maken naar een duurzame toekomst moeten we onze kijk op de aarde volledig herzien, en daar hebben we nieuwe verbeelding voor nodig.

Bibliografie

Benner, Ann-Kathrin, and Delf Rothe. "World in the Making: On the Global Visual Politics of Climate Engineering." Review of International Studies, March 2, 2023, 1-28.

Benjamin, Walter. "To the Planetarium", One-Way Street, Reflections, 93.

Blok, Vincent. Van Wereld naar Aarde. Filosofische ecologie van een bedreigde planeet. Amsterdam: Boom Uitgevers, 2022.

Edwards, Paul N. A Vast Machine: Computer models, climate data, and the politics of Global Warming. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2013.

Gabrys, Jennifer. "Becoming Planetary", e-flux Architecture (October 2018).

Ghosh, Amitav. The great derangement: Climate change and the unthinkable. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2017.

Latour, Bruno. "We Don't Seem to Live on the Same Planet"- A Fictional Planetarium, Designs for Different Futures exhibition catalogue, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Walker Art Center, and The Art Institute of Chicago, 2019.

Smits, Thomas. "Projecties van Macht. Wereldkaarten En Dekoloniale Geschiedenis." Over de Muur, 2018.

Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. "Planetarity." In Death of a Discipline. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003.

Taylor, Charles. Een seculiere tijd. Rotterdam: Lemniscaat, 2016.

Over More-than-Planet

Het Europese onderzoeksproject More-than-Planet onderzoekt met behulp van aardobservaties, satellietdata, kunst, cultuur en filosofie hoe we tot nieuwe kennis en verhalen kunnen komen over hoe we onze planeet zien. En dat is nodig, want meer dan 75 procent van het aardoppervlak staat onder menselijke druk. De manier waarop we ons de aarde voorstellen heeft een substantiële invloed op het milieu. More-than-Planet brengt trans-disciplinaire samenwerking tot stand om de crisis van onze beeldvorming van de planeet onder de aandacht te brengen.

Als penvoerder van More-than-Planet coördineert Waag Futurelab de samenwerking tussen alle deelnemende kunstenaars, wetenschappers en onderzoeksinstellingen in Europa. In 2022 openden we het project met de tentoonstelling 'More-than-Planet' in de Oude Sterrewacht in Leiden. Ook organiseerden we al meerdere internationale workshops en residenties voor kunstenaars. Op de Waag-kanalen houden we je op de hoogte van nieuwe ontwikkelingen en kansen.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Waag | Essay: Bouwen aan de beeldvorming van de planeet

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
We moeten op nieuwe manieren naar planeet Aarde kijken om de transitie naar een klimaatneutrale wereld te kunnen maken. Kunst helpt daarbij.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Huntington Beach-based Newlight Technology makes stylish accessories from their AirCarbon material, a meltable, moldable biomaterial that can be used to help replace plastic and leather.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Population growth, natural resource consumption, and an increasing demand for energy were issues that continually and substantially shaped the course of the twentieth century. New innovations in transportation and the expansion of electricity networks throughout the industrialized world required new approaches to solving the energy problem. In the spring of 1928 the Munich architect Hermann Sörgel (1885-1952) presented an idea which promised to solve all these difficulties: Atlantropa offered an "inexhaustible" source of energy, vast quantities of raw materials and new "Lebensraum" for innumerable people.

Atlantropa united a technological utopia with political visions of reform. Sörgel proposed building a giant dam across the Strait of Gibraltar to create the largest hydroelectric facility in the world. It would provide for half of Europe's electricity needs. At the same time, it would cut off the main water supply to the Mediterranean. Evaporation would lead to a drop in the sea level of up to 200 meters and would create new stretches of land along the coast as well as connecting Europe to Africa by land. The two continents would merge into a single entity. This newly-won mass of land would be used for agriculture, extending infrastructure, and as a site for entire cities.

The consequence of this, admittedly, would have been the destruction of the Mediterranean through salinization. However, the vision of creating Atlantropa did not fail due to concerns about ecological damage; this factor hardly came up in discussions of the project. Rather, it was political reasons that were decisive in the end. The project was not feasible either during the Nazi regime or in the post-war period. In addition, it was replaced by the promise of a new solution to the energy problem: Atomic energy became the new symbol of the belief in progress and the need for an unlimited supply of energy. In 1986, however, the reactor accident at Chernobyl would greatly unsettle this trust in nuclear power. Hermann Sörgel did not experience all this for himself. He died on 25 December 1952 as the result of an auto accident, and his project did not long survive him. The Atlantropa Institute, an association of the sponsors and supporters of the project, disbanded in 1960. Atlantropa was a thing of the past.

In retrospect, Atlantropa was by no means an isolated phenomenon, but rather was one of a whole series of large-scale technological proposals to solve the energy problem. Today, too, new gigantic energy projects are underway around the world, projects such as the Three Gorges Dam in China or the Itaipu Dam in South America, and their consequences for humans and nature cannot be foreseen.

How to cite

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Atlantropa - Endless Energy from the Mediterranean Sea

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The construction of a giant dam across the Strait of Gibraltar, proposed by the Munich architect Hermann Sörgel (1885-1952), would have created the largest hydroelectric facility in the world.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Inspired by the natural cooling effects of volcanoes, stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) is a scientific technique that acts like a sunscreen spray for the Earth. The balloons release tiny reflective particles into the stratosphere, creating a thin reflective layer that reduces the amount of heat reaching the Earth's surface and preventing the planet from overheating. SAI offers a promising solution to combat the immediate effects of global warming.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
We create global cooling by launching reflective, biodegradable, high-altitude clouds. main side effect: more vivid sunsets;)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Weather control. Juxtaposing those two words is enough to raise eyebrows in a world where even the best weather models still fail to nail every forecast, and when the effects of climate change on sea level height, seasonal averages of weather phenomena, and biological behavior are being watched with interest by all, regardless of political or scientific persuasion. But between the late nineteenth century-when the United States first funded an attempt to "shock" rain out of clouds-and the late 1940s, rainmaking (as it had been known) became weather control. And then things got out of control.

In Make It Rain, Kristine C. Harper tells the long and somewhat ludicrous history of state-funded attempts to manage, manipulate, and deploy the weather in America. Harper shows that governments from the federal to the local became helplessly captivated by the idea that weather control could promote agriculture, health, industrial output, and economic growth at home, or even be used as a military weapon and diplomatic tool abroad. Clear fog for landing aircraft? There's a project for that. Gentle rain for strawberries? Let's do it! Enhanced snowpacks for hydroelectric utilities? Check. The heyday of these weather control programs came during the Cold War, as the atmosphere came to be seen as something to be defended, weaponized, and manipulated. Yet Harper demonstrates that today there are clear implications for our attempts to solve the problems of climate change.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Weather control. Juxtaposing those two words is enough to raise eyebrows in a world where even the best weather models still fail to nail every forecast, and when the effects of climate change on sea level height, seasonal averages of weather phenomena, and biological behavior are being watched with interest by all, regardless of political or scientific persuasion.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Today, predicting the impact of human activities on the earth’s climate hinges on tracking interactions among phenomena of radically different dimensions, from the molecular to the planetary. Climate in Motion shows that this multiscalar, multicausal framework emerged well before computers and satel…

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Ecocentrists, Keith Makoto Woodhouse | 9780231165891 | Boeken | bol.com

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Ecocentrists (Paperback). Keith Mako Woodhouse offers a nuanced history of radical environmentalism in the late-twentieth-century United States.…

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Long Shadows is the first book to offer global perspectives on the environmental history of World War II. Based on long-term research, the selected essays represent the best available studies in different fields and countries. With contributions touching on Europe, America, Asia, and Africa, the…

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Nature & Power | 9780521616737 | Joachim Radkau | Boeken | bol.com

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Nature & Power (Paperback). This book aims to demonstrate that the changing relationship between humanity and nature is key to understanding world…

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Download Product Flyer

Download Product Flyer

Download Product Flyer is to download PDF in new tab. This is a dummy description. Download Product Flyer is to download PDF in new tab. This is a dummy description. Download Product Flyer is to download PDF in new tab. This is a dummy description. Download Product Flyer is to download PDF in new tab. This is a dummy description.

Description

Profit - getting more out of something than you put into it - is the original genius of homo sapiens, who learned how to unleash the energy stored in wood, exploit the land, and refashion ecosystems. As civilization developed, we found more and more ways of extracting surplus value from the earth, often deploying brutally effective methods to discipline people to do the work needed.

Historian Mark Stoll explains how capitalism supercharged this process and traces its many environmental consequences. The financial innovations of medieval Italy created trade networks that, with the European discovery of the Americas, made possible vast profits and sweeping cultural changes, to the detriment of millions of slaves and indigenous Americans; the industrial age united the world in trade and led to an energy revolution that changed lives everywhere. But when efficient production left society awash in goods, a new sort of capitalism, predicated on endless individual consumption, took its place.

This story of incredible ingenuity and villainy begins in the Doge's palace in medieval Venice and ends with Jeff Bezos aboard his own spacecraft. Mark Stoll's revolutionary account places environmental factors at the heart of capitalism's progress and reveals the long shadow of its terrible consequences.

About the Author

Mark Stoll is Professor of Environmental History at Texas Tech University.

Table of contents

1 How It Started
2 Trade and Empire
3 The Wonders of Coal and Machines
4 Age of Steam and Steel
5 Conserving Resources
6 Buy Now - Pay Later
7 Stepping on the Gas
8 Selling Everything
9 The Rise and Globalization of Environmentalism
Conclusion: Profit: Capitalism and Environment

Notes
Index

Reviews

"... eye-opening... Sweeping in scope yet grounded in intriguing particulars, this offers fresh perspective on an economic system 'we cannot live with... and cannot live without.'"
-Publishers Weekly

"Excellent."
-Resilience

"With knowledge, skill and stories of inventors, entrepreneurs and conservationists, [Stoll] traces developments in technology, transportation, energy, communication, trade and finance."
-Nature

"A concise and interdisciplinary history of capitalism ... an excellent read for history enthusiasts."
-World History Encyclopedia

"A sweeping and yet highly readable overview of human economic history, from foraging to modern industrial society. It surpasses all others in richness of detail and attention to environmental consequences."
Donald Worster, University of Kansas

"Our world today is threatened by a resource extractions-driven global economy, the most severe symptom of which is the fossil-fueled warming of our planet. Could tackling the climate crisis be the critical first step in charting a new course that places planet over profit, and sustainability over stuff? Read this book and learn how we got into this mess and how we might just get out."
Michael Mann, Presidential Distinguished Professor, University of Pennsylvania and author of The New Climate War

"This book offers important messages - but also fascinating asides and illuminating statistics, as it tells what may be the central tale of the human story."
Bill McKibben, author The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon: A Graying American Looks Back at his Suburban Boyhood and Wonders What the Hell Happened

" Profit is a must-read for anyone who's ever wondered, 'where do we go from here?' The answer begins with understanding how we got here, and that's the compelling story Profit tells. From the first human miners through the impetuous chaos of the Industrial Revolution to our current impasse between short-term profit and long-term survival, Stoll explains how 'we have always profited at nature's expense' - and how, if we truly understood the magnitude of this price, we'd know that nature offers the key to our survival."
Katharine Hayhoe, Texas Tech University, author of Saving Us: A Climate Scientist's Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Profit getting more out of something than you put into it is the original genius of homo sapiens, who learned how to unleash the energy stored in wood, exploit the land, and refashion ecosystems. As civilization developed, we found more and more ways of extracting surplus value from the earth, often deploying brutally effective methods to discipline people to do the work needed.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Given the ubiquity of environmental rhetoric in the modern world, it’s easy to think that the meaning of the terms environment and environmentalism are and always have been self-evident. But in Surroundings, we learn that the environmental past is much more complex than it seems at first glance. In…

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
1. Home

2. Make It a Green Peace! The Rise of Countercultural Environmentalism

By Frank Zelko,

Book description

The emergence of Greenpeace in the late 1960s from a loose-knit group of anti-nuclear and anti-whaling activists fundamentally changed the nature of environmentalism-its purpose, philosophy, and tactics-around the world. And yet there has been no comprehensive objective history of Greenpeace's origins-until now.

Make It a Green Peace! draws upon meeting... show more.

Why read it?

1 author picked Make It a Green Peace! The Rise of Countercultural Environmentalism as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

David Stradling and Richard Stradling

The history of politics can be dry stuff. But Frank Zelko is a natural storyteller - and a gifted historian. His subjects, Greenpeace and the men and women who formed it, provide access to the evolution of North American environmentalism from the 1960s through the 1980s. In vivid detail, Zelko narrates the drama at the heart of the Greenpeace strategy, the "mind bombs" that would activate citizens around the globe to stop whaling - at least mostly. Zelko makes us feel the urgency among these activists, their fear of nuclear testing, and their love of whales. Even among this relatively... show more.

Our community of 8,000+ authors has personally recommended 10 books like Make It a Green Peace! The Rise of Countercultural Environmentalism.

Browse books like Make It a Green Peace! The Rise of Countercultural Environmentalism

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in counterculture, environmentalism, and protecting the environment?

8,000+ authors have recommended their favorite books and what they love about them. Browse their picks for the best books about counterculture, environmentalism, and protecting the environment.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Why read Make It a Green Peace! The Rise of Countercultural Environmentalism?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Discover why Make It a Green Peace! The Rise of Countercultural Environmentalism by Frank Zelko is such a great book to read.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Some intellectual tsunamis begin with string quartets, others with overtures played on kettle-drums. The former often bores, the latter always deafens. After a while, if we're lucky, both crumble into questions that we can try to ask and need to answer if we are to survive. The Turning Points of Environmental History is a combination tool and a first aid kit of these.

Alfred W. Crosby, University of Texas, emeritus

From the time when humans first learned to harness fire, cultivate crops, and domesticate livestock, they have altered their environment as a means of survival. In the modern era, however, natural resources have been devoured and defiled in the wake of a consumerism that goes beyond mere subsistence. In this volume, an international group of environmental historians documents the significant ways in which humans have impacted their surroundings throughout history.

John McNeill introduces the collection with an overarching account of the history of human environmental impact. Other contributors explore the use and abuse of the earth's land in the development of agriculture, commercial forestry, and in the battle against desertification in arid and semi-arid regions. Cities, which first appeared some 5,500 years ago, have posed their own unique environmental challenges, including dilemmas of solid waste disposal, sewerage, disease, pollution, and sustainable food and water supplies.

The rise of nation-states brought environmental legislation, which often meant "selling off" natural resources through eminent domain. Perhaps the most damaging environmental event in history resulted from a "perfect storm" of effects: cheap fossil fuels (especially petroleum) and the rapid rise of personal incomes during the 1950s brought an exponential increase in energy consumption and unforseen levels of greenhouse gasses to the earth's atmosphere. By the 1970s, the deterioration of air, land, and water due to industrialization, population growth, and consumerism led to the birth of the environmental and ecological movements.

Overall, the volume points to the ability and responsibility of humans to reverse the course of detrimental trends and to achieve environmental sustainability for existing and future populations.

about the editor

Frank Uekötter is professor of environmental humanities at the University of Birmingham. He is the author of more than a dozen books on a broad range of environmental, political, and socioeconomic issues. Since October 2021, he is principal investigator of the global history project "The Making of Monoculture" with generous support from a European Research Council Advanced Grant.

learn more

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Turning Points of Environmental History - University of Pittsburgh Press

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
9780822961185| From the time when humans first learned to harness fire, cultivate crops, and domesticate livestock, they have altered their environment as a means of survival. In the modern era, however, natural resources have been devoured and defiled in the wake of a consumerism that goes beyond mere subsistence.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Environmental Histories of the Cold War (Publications of the German Historical Institute)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Environmental Histories of the Cold War explores the links between the Cold War and the global environment, ranging from the environmental impacts of nuclear weapons to the political repercussions of environmentalism. Environmental change accelerated sharply during the Cold War years, and so did ...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Plant breeders have long sought technologies to extend human control over nature. Early in the twentieth century, this led some to experiment with startlingly strange tools like x-ray machines, chromosome-altering chemicals, and radioactive elements. Contemporary reports celebrated these mutation-inducing methods as ways of generating variation in plants on demand. Speeding up evolution, they imagined, would allow breeders to genetically engineer crops and flowers to order. Creating a new food crop or garden flower would soon be as straightforward as innovating any other modern industrial product.

In Evolution Made to Order, Helen Anne Curry traces the history of America's pursuit of tools that could intervene in evolution. An immersive journey through the scientific and social worlds of midcentury genetics and plant breeding and a compelling exploration of American cultures of innovation, Evolution Made to Order provides vital historical context for current worldwide ethical and policy debates over genetic engineering.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Plant breeders have long sought technologies to extend human control over nature. Early in the twentieth century, this led some to experiment with startlingly strange tools like x-ray machines, chromosome-altering chemicals, and radioactive elements. Contemporary reports celebrated these mutation-inducing methods as ways of generating variation in plants on demand.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
American environmentalism is defined by its icons: the "Crying Indian," who shed a tear in response to litter and pollution; the cooling towers of Three Mile Island, site of a notorious nuclear accident; the sorrowful spectacle of oil-soaked wildlife following the Exxon Valdez spill; and, more recently, Al Gore delivering his global warming slide show in An Inconvenient Truth. These images, and others like them, have helped make environmental consciousness central to American public culture. Yet most historical accounts ignore the crucial role images have played in the making of popular environmentalism, let alone the ways that they have obscured other environmental truths.

Finis Dunaway closes that gap with Seeing Green. Considering a wide array of images-including pictures in popular magazines, television news, advertisements, cartoons, films, and political posters-he shows how popular environmentalism has been entwined with mass media spectacles of crisis. Beginning with radioactive fallout and pesticides during the 1960s and ending with global warming today, he focuses on key moments in which media images provoked environmental anxiety but also prescribed limited forms of action. Moreover, he shows how the media have blamed individual consumers for environmental degradation and thus deflected attention from corporate and government responsibility. Ultimately, Dunaway argues, iconic images have impeded efforts to realize-or even imagine-sustainable visions of the future.

Generously illustrated, this innovative book will appeal to anyone interested in the history of environmentalism or in the power of the media to shape our politics and public life.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
American environmentalism is defined by its icons: the "Crying Indian," who shed a tear in response to litter and pollution; the cooling towers of Three Mile Island, site of a notorious nuclear accident; the sorrowful spectacle of oil-soaked wildlife following the ExxonValdez spill; and, more recently, Al Gore delivering his global warming slide show in An Inconvenient Truth.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In this book, Tobias Menely develops a materialist ecocriticism, tracking the imprint of the planetary across a long literary history of poetic rewritings and critical readings which continually engage with the climate as a condition of human world making. Menely's central archive is English poetry written between John Milton's Paradise Lost (1667) and Charlotte Smith's "Beachy Head" (1807)-a momentous century and a half during which Britain, emerging from a crisis intensified by the Little Ice Age, established the largest empire in world history and instigated the Industrial Revolution. Incorporating new sciences into ancient literary genres, these ambitious poems aspired to encompass what the eighteenth-century author James Thomson called the "system . . . entire." Thus they offer a unique record of geohistory, Britain's epochal transition from an agrarian society, buffeted by climate shocks, to a modern coal-powered nation. Climate and the Making of Worlds is a bracing and sophisticated contribution to ecocriticism, the energy humanities, and the prehistory of the Anthropocene.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In this book, Tobias Menely develops a materialist ecocriticism, tracking the imprint of the planetary across a long literary history of poetic rewritings and critical readings which continually engage with the climate as a condition of human world making.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
What can a pesticide pump, a jar full of sand, or an old calico print tell us about the Anthropocene-the age of humans? Just as paleontologists look to fossil remains to infer past conditions of life on earth, so might past and present-day objects offer clues to intertwined human and natural histories that shape our planetary futures. In this era of aggressive hydrocarbon extraction, extreme weather, and severe economic disparity, how might certain objects make visible the uneven interplay of economic, material, and social forces that shape relationships among human and nonhuman beings?

Future Remains is a thoughtful and creative meditation on these questions. The fifteen objects gathered in this book resemble more the tarots of a fortuneteller than the archaeological finds of an expedition-they speak of planetary futures. Marco Armiero, Robert S. Emmett, and Gregg Mitman have assembled a cabinet of curiosities for the Anthropocene, bringing together a mix of lively essays, creatively chosen objects, and stunning photographs by acclaimed photographer Tim Flach. The result is a book that interrogates the origins, implications, and potential dangers of the Anthropocene and makes us wonder anew about what exactly human history is made of.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
What can a pesticide pump, a jar full of sand, or an old calico print tell us about the Anthropocene-the age of humans? Just as paleontologists look to fossil remains to infer past conditions of life on earth, so might past and present-day objects offer clues to intertwined human and natural histories that shape our planetary futures.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A welcome dive into the world of aquarium craft that offers much-needed knowledge about undersea environments.

Atlantic coral is rapidly disappearing in the wild. To save the species, they will have to be reproduced quickly in captivity, and so for the last decade conservationists have been at work trying to preserve their lingering numbers and figure out how to rebuild once-thriving coral reefs from a few survivors. Captive environments, built in dedicated aquariums, offer some hope for these corals. This book examines these specialized tanks, charting the development of tank craft throughout the twentieth century to better understand how aquarium modeling has enhanced our knowledge of the marine environment.

Aquariums are essential to the way we understand the ocean. Used to investigate an array of scientific questions, from animal behavior to cancer research and climate change, they are a crucial factor in the fight to mitigate the climate disaster already threatening our seas. To understand the historical development of this scientific tool and the groups that have contributed to our knowledge about the ocean, Samantha Muka takes up specialty systems-including photographic aquariums, kriesel tanks (for jellyfish), and hatching systems-to examine the creation of ocean simulations and their effect on our interactions with underwater life. Lively and engaging, Oceans under Glass offers a fresh history about how the aquarium has been used in modern marine biology and how integral it is to knowing the marine world.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A welcome dive into the world of aquarium craft that offers much-needed knowledge about undersea environments. Atlantic coral is rapidly disappearing in the wild. To save the species, they will have to be reproduced quickly in captivity, and so for the last decade conservationists have been at work trying to preserve their lingering numbers and figure out how to rebuild once-thriving coral reefs from a few survivors.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Discerning Experts assesses the assessments that many governments rely on to help guide environmental policy and action. Through their close look at environmental assessments involving acid rain, ozone depletion, and sea level rise, the authors explore how experts deliberate and decide on the scientific facts about problems like climate change. They also seek to understand how the scientists involved make the judgments they do, how the organization and management of assessment activities affects those judgments, and how expertise is identified and constructed.

Discerning Experts uncovers factors that can generate systematic bias and error, and recommends how the process can be improved. As the first study of the internal workings of large environmental assessments, this book reveals their strengths and weaknesses, and explains what assessments can-and cannot-be expected to contribute to public policy and the common good.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Discerning Experts assesses the assessments that many governments rely on to help guide environmental policy and action. Through their close look at environmental assessments involving acid rain, ozone depletion, and sea level rise, the authors explore how experts deliberate and decide on the scientific facts about problems like climate change.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The climate change reckoning looms. As scientists try to discern what the Earth's changing weather patterns mean for our future, Rachel Rothschild seeks to understand the current scientific and political debates surrounding the environment through the history of another global environmental threat: acid rain.

The identification of acid rain in the 1960s changed scientific and popular understanding of fossil fuel pollution's potential to cause regional-and even global-environmental harms. It showed scientists that the problem of fossil fuel pollution was one that crossed borders-it could travel across vast stretches of the earth's atmosphere to impact ecosystems around the world. This unprecedented transnational reach prompted governments, for the first time, to confront the need to cooperate on pollution policies, transforming environmental science and diplomacy. Studies of acid rain and other pollutants brought about a reimagining of how to investigate the natural world as a complete entity, and the responses of policy makers, scientists, and the public set the stage for how societies have approached other prominent environmental dangers on a global scale, most notably climate change.

Grounded in archival research spanning eight countries and five languages, as well as interviews with leading scientists from both government and industry, Poisonous Skies is the first book to examine the history of acid rain in an international context. By delving deep into our environmental past, Rothschild hopes to inform its future, showing us how much is at stake for the natural world as well as what we risk-and have already risked-by not acting.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The climate change reckoning looms. As scientists try to discern what the Earth's changing weather patterns mean for our future, Rachel Rothschild seeks to understand the current scientific and political debates surrounding the environment through the history of another global environmental threat: acid rain.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A Critical History of the Green Revolution

In this highly original work, Marci Baranski challenges a key claim of twentieth-century scientific ingenuity: wide adaptation. Wide adaptation was needed to make wheat a global crop and launch the Green Revolution of the 1960s. Yet, Baranski asks, what if the research was wrong? What if Norman Borlaug was wrong? Her book is a must-read for anyone interested in knowing how and why the science of the Green Revolution, flawed though it was, continues to garner attention and followers today.

Gabriela Soto Laveaga, Harvard University

Nominee, 2023 Wallace Award, Agricultural History Society

In The Globalization of Wheat, Marci R. Baranski explores Norman Borlaug's complicated legacy as godfather of the Green Revolution. Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for his role in fighting global hunger, Borlaug, an American agricultural scientist and plant breeder who worked for the Rockefeller Foundation, left a legacy that divides opinions even today. His high-yielding dwarf wheat varieties, known as miracle seeds, effectively doubled and tripled crop yields across the globe, from Kenya to India and Argentina to Mexico due to their wide adaptation. But these modern seeds also required expensive chemical fertilizers and irrigation, both of which were only available to wealthier farmers. Baranski argues that Borlaug's new technologies ultimately privileged wealthier farmers, despite assurances to politicians that these new crops would thrive in diverse geographies and benefit all farmers. As large-scale monocultures replaced traditional farming practices, these changes were codified into the Indian wheat research system, thus limiting attention to traditional practices and marginal environments. In the shadow of this legacy, and in the face of accelerating climate change, Baranski brings new light to Borlaug's role in a controversial concept in agricultural science.

about the author

Marci R. Baranski is an interdisciplinary scientist and historian working in the field of climate change mitigation in agriculture. Since completing her PhD in biology and society at Arizona State University in 2015, Baranski has worked on climate change mitigation policy, research, and implementation in the private and public sectors. She currently works and lives in Bangkok.

learn more

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Globalization of Wheat - University of Pittsburgh Press

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
9780822947349|A Critical History of the Green Revolution|In The Globalization of Wheat, Marci R. Baranski explores Norman Borlaug's complicated legacy as godfather of the Green Revolution. Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for his role in fighting global hunger, Borlaug, an American agricultural scientist and plant breeder who worked for the Rockefeller Foundation, left a legacy that divides opinions even today.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A history of scientific ideas about extinction that explains why we learned to value diversity as a precious resource at the same time as we learned to "think catastrophically" about extinction.

We live in an age in which we are repeatedly reminded-by scientists, by the media, by popular culture-of the looming threat of mass extinction. We're told that human activity is currently producing a sixth mass extinction, perhaps of even greater magnitude than the five previous geological catastrophes that drastically altered life on Earth. Indeed, there is a very real concern that the human species may itself be poised to go the way of the dinosaurs, victims of the most recent mass extinction some 65 million years ago.

How we interpret the causes and consequences of extinction and their ensuing moral imperatives is deeply embedded in the cultural values of any given historical moment. And, as David Sepkoski reveals, the history of scientific ideas about extinction over the past two hundred years-as both a past and a current process-is implicated in major changes in the way Western society has approached biological and cultural diversity. It seems self-evident to most of us that diverse ecosystems and societies are intrinsically valuable, but the current fascination with diversity is a relatively recent phenomenon. In fact, the way we value diversity depends crucially on our sense that it is precarious-that it is something actively threatened, and that its loss could have profound consequences. In Catastrophic Thinking, Sepkoski uncovers how and why we learned to value diversity as a precious resource at the same time as we learned to think catastrophically about extinction.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A history of scientific ideas about extinction that explains why we learned to value diversity as a precious resource at the same time as we learned to "think catastrophically" about extinction. We live in an age in which we are repeatedly reminded-by scientists, by the media, by popular culture-of the looming threat of mass extinction.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Humanity is by many measures the biggest success story in the animal kingdom; but what are the costs of this triumph? Over its three million years of existence, the human species has continuously modified nature and drained its resources. In Cataclysms, Laurent Testot provides the full tally, offering a comprehensive environmental history of humanity's unmatched and perhaps irreversible influence on the world.

Testot explores the interconnected histories of human evolution and planetary deterioration, arguing that our development from naked apes to Homo sapiens has entailed wide-scale environmental harm. Testot makes the case that humans have usually been catastrophic for the planet, "hyperpredators" responsible for mass extinctions, deforestation, global warming, ocean acidification, and unchecked pollution, as well as the slaughter of our own species. Organized chronologically around seven technological revolutions, Cataclysms unspools the intertwined saga of humanity and our environment, from our shy beginnings in Africa to today's domination of the planet, revealing how we have blown past any limits along the way-whether by exploding our own population numbers, domesticating countless other species, or harnessing energy from fossils. Testot's book, while sweeping, is light and approachable, telling the stories-sometimes rambunctious, sometimes appalling-of how a glorified monkey transformed its own environment beyond all recognition.

In order to begin reversing our environmental disaster, we must have a better understanding of our own past and the incalculable environmental costs incurred at every stage of human innovation. Cataclysms offers that understanding and the hope that we can now begin to reform our relationship to the Earth.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Humanity is by many measures the biggest success story in the animal kingdom; but what are the costs of this triumph? Over its three million years of existence, the human species has continuously modified nature and drained its resources.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
SMOG FREE TOWER is the world's first smog vacuum cleaner which creates clean air parks.

From the captured smog particles the SMOG FREE RING is designed as a tangible souvenir. By sharing a SMOG FREE RING you donate 1000 m3 of clean air to the city.

SMOG FREE PROJECT is a campaign for clean air led by Daan Roosegaarde to reduce air pollution and provide an inspirational experience of a clean future. The project includes a series of urban innovations, such as, the SMOG FREE TOWER which provides a local solution of clean air in public spaces. It is combined with workshops with governments, students and the clean-tech industry to work together and make a whole city smog free. SMOG FREE PROJECT campaigns launched in South Korea, China, the Netherlands, Mexico, and Poland.

In 2024 the new SMOG FREE TOWER is opened at Hudayriyat Island in Abu Dhabi in collaboration with Environment Agency Abu Dhabi and Modon to enhance air quality in the Emirates.

Daan Roosegaarde: "We are on a mission for clean air".

Winner of the Successful Design Award China, Ethics Ethical Award, Grand Award for Sustainability, BUILD Architecture Awards 2020, Europe 40 Under 40 Awards, Design That Educates Award, Gold Award Design For Asia, Platinum A'Design Award, and German Design Award Excellent Product Design.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Smog Free Tower | Smog Free Project | Studio Roosegaarde

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
SMOG FREE TOWER by Daan Roosegaarde is the world's first smog vacuum cleaner which creates clean air parks.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
De vergeten groene geschiedenis van 1972

Betogingen tegen het gebruik van plastic. Paniek over dramatisch dalende biodiversiteit. Zorgen om de leefbaarheid van de oceanen. Onrust over klimaatverandering. Vandaag? Nee, in 1972. De milieucrisis is ouder dan veel mensen denken, en de wetenschappelijke en politieke strijd erover is dat evenzeer. De planeet gaat eraan, riepen onheilsprofeten destijds. Nee, susten vooruitgangsgelovigen: wetenschap en techniek zullen ons redden. Aanleiding voor het maatschappelijke debat was het rapport van de Club van Rome. Van Grenzen aan de groei werden alleen al in onze gewesten een kwart miljoen exemplaren verkocht.

Vijftig jaar nadat de Club van Rome de alarmbel luidde, duiken we met Geert Buelens de geschiedenis in. We zien hoe een begin wordt gemaakt met de ontbossing van het Amazonewoud, we reizen met Jacques Cousteau naar de bedreigde Zuidpool, we ontdekken met biologen al plastic deeltjes in de ingewanden van vissen en maken met de bemanning van de Apollo 17 de eerste kleurenfoto van de hele aarde. Aan de hand van films, televisieseries, romans, stripverhalen, nieuwsberichten en officiële rapporten uit het jaar 1972 laat Buelens zien wat we toen al wisten over het uitwonen van de wereld, wat we ervan geleerd hebben ook - en wat niet.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Wat we toen al wisten - Singel Uitgeverijen

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Betogingen tegen het gebruik van plastic. Paniek over dramatisch dalende biodiversiteit. Zorgen om de leefbaarheid van de oceanen. Onrust over klimaatverandering. Vandaag? Nee, in 1972. De milieucrisis is ouder dan veel mensen denken, en de wetenschappelijke en politieke strijd erover is dat evenzeer. De planeet gaat eraan, riepen onheilsprofeten destijds.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Science and Nature: Past, Present, and Future

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Science and Nature brings together the work and insights of historian Carolyn Merchant on the history of science, environmental history, and ethics. The book explores her ideas about the interconnections among science, women, nature, and history as they have emerged over her academic lifetime. Focus…

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Olie-industrie en wetenschap: een innige relatie

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
“Als we een overgang willen maken naar een meer duurzame wereld, waarin we nieuwe technieken en alternatieve energiebronnen willen ontwikkelen zodat we minder afhankelijk zijn van olie, moeten we ons realiseren dat juist de olie-industrie diep verweven is met wetenschappelijk onderzoek en innovatie”…

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In de internationale academische literatuur wordt Nederland vaak bestempeld als een petrostaat. Het wordt vaak in het rijtje geplaatst met Rusland, Noorwegen en de Golfstaten door de nauwe vervlechting tussen politiek, cultuur en economie en de fossiele brandstof sector. Ondanks de dominante rol van steenkool, olie en gasontginning sinds het begin van de 20ste eeuw, ziet Nederland zichzelf echter niet als een petrostaat. Binnen het onderzoeksplatform Carbon Cultures herschrijven historici van de Universiteit Utrecht de "koolstof geschiedenis" van Nederland.

Lees meer "Carbon Cultures"

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In de internationale academische literatuur wordt Nederland vaak bestempeld als een petrostaat. Het wordt vaak in het rijtje geplaatst met Rusland, Noorwegen en de Golfstaten door de nauwe vervlechting tussen politiek, cultuur en economie en de fossiele brandstof sector.

# data[].attributes.headline
Birgit Schneider, Thomas Nocke | Image politics of climate change

# data[].attributes.subject
Birgit Schneider, Thomas Nocke | Image politics of climate change

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
ISBN: 9783837626100

388 Pages

Format: Paperback

List Price: $55.00

Scientific research on climate change has given rise to a variety of images picturing climate change. These range from colorful expert graphics, model visualizations, photographs of extreme weather events like floods, droughts or melting ice, symbols like polar bears, to animated and interactive visualizations. Climate change graphics have not only increased knowledge about the subject, they have begun to influence popular awareness of global weather events. The status of climate pictures today is particularly crucial, as global climate change as a long-term process cannot be seen.
When images are widely distributed, they are able to shape how the world is thought about and seen. It is this implicit basic assumption of the power of images to influence reality that this book addresses: today's images might become the blueprint for tomorrow's realities.
"Image Politics of Climate Change" combines a wide interdisciplinary range of perspectives and questions, treated here in sixteen interdisciplinary case studies. The author's specializations include both visual practice and theory: in the fields of climate sciences, computer graphics, art, curating, art history and visual studies, communication and cultural science, environmental and science & technology studies. The close interlinking of these viewpoints promotes in-depth insights into issues of production and analysis of climate visualization.

1
Table of Contents 5
Image Politics of Climate Change: Introduction 9
The Creation of Global Imaginaries: The Antarctic Ozone Hole and the Isoline Tradition in the Atmospheric Sciences 29
Images for Data Analysis: The Role of Visualization in Climate Research Processes 55
"Tricks," Hockey Sticks, and the Myth of Natural Inscription: How the Visual Rhetoric of Climate gate Conflated Climate with Character 81
The Color of Risk: Expert Judgment and Diagrammatic Reasoning in the IPCC's 'Burning Embers' 105
Between Risk, Beauty and the Sublime: The Visualization of Climate Change in Media Coverage during COP 15 in Copenhagen 2009 127
Twist and Shout: Images and Graphs in Skeptical Climate Media 153
Towards an Interactive Visual Understanding of Climate Change Findings on the Net: Promises and Challenges 187
Color Plates 211
Picturing the Clima(c)tic: Greenpeace and the Representational Politics of Climate Change Communication 225
The Uncanny Polar Bear: Activists Visually Attack an Overly Emotionalized Image Clone 249
How Photography Matters: On Producing Meaning in Photobooks on Climate Change 273
The Pensive Photograph as Agent: What Can Non-Illustrative Images Do to Galvanize Public Support for Climate Change Action? 299
Picturing the State of the Nation's Environment: Early Aerial Photography in the United States from the 1930s to the late 1960s 325
Picturing Climate Control: Visualizing the Unimaginable 345
Images of Feasibility: On the Viscourse of Climate Engineering 363
Contributing Authors 383

About the Author

Birgit Schneider (Edited by)
Birgit Schneider is a professor for knowledge cultures and media environments at the Department of European Media Studies at Universität Potsdam, Germany. She studied art and media studies as well as media art and philosophy in Karlsruhe, London and Berlin.

Thomas Nocke (Edited by)
Thomas Nocke (PhD in computer science) investigates visualization methods for climate data and visual climate knowledge communication at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Image Politics of Climate Change | Columbia University Press

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
ISBN: 9783837626100 388 Pages Format: Paperback List Price: $55.00 Scientific research on climate change has given rise to a variety of images picturing climate change. These range from colorful expert graphics, model visualizations, photographs of extreme weather events like floods, droughts or melting ice, symbols like polar bears, to animated and interactive visualizations.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
What is climate engineering?

There are many ideas for deliberately modifying the climate (known as Solar Geoengineering, Climate Intervention, or Climate Engineering). Our team focuses on stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), which would reflect a small amount of sunlight, cooling the climate and reducing many impacts of climate change. Reflecting sunlight would affect the climate system differently from greenhouse gases, leading to concerns about novel or unknown climate responses. It also raises numerous sociopolitical issues.
Why consider it?
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is an essential part of any response to climate change, but is not enough to prevent severe climate impacts, even under the most optimistic decarbonization scenarios. Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is also an essential part of a long-term solution, but will take time and is untested at scale. Climate Engineering, in addition to emission-reductions and CDR, may be the only available pathway to limit many climate impacts over the coming decades. However, current knowledge is insufficient to understand its risks.
Key Questions
What are the impacts? How do those depend on the scenario and the deployment strategy? How uncertain are model projections? Climate model simulations conducted to date are inadequate to address these questions. It is essential that nascent governance and policy conversations are informed by strong scientific evidence.

How do we define and prioritize an overall research agenda? Which uncertainties are most important for determining outcomes, and what is the best way to resolve these? There is currently no structured federal research program, and scoping one will require a more systematic assessment of uncertainty.
Our Perspective
Our team focuses on understanding geoengineering as not just a science problem, but as a Mission-driven, engineering-design challenge that is inseparable from its societal context.

First, research needs to be directed and prioritized, to address critical knowledge gaps and illuminate new ones, develop research capacity, and assess technical and political feasibility.

Second, SAI isn't just a science problem, but an engineering challenge to be designed: impacts depend on choices such as latitude, altitude, and season of injection, as well as the type of aerosol itself; we also need a systematic approach to manage uncertainty.

Third, integrating research with ongoing governance efforts ensures policy relevance and impact. Physical science research needs to inform, and also be informed by the sociopolitical dimensions.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
What is climate engineering? There are many ideas for deliberately modifying the climate (known as Solar Geoengineering, Climate Intervention, or Climate Engineering). Our team focuses on stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), which would reflect a small amount of sunlight, cooling the climate and reducing many impacts of climate change.

# data[].attributes.headline
Natural History Museum | Our broken planet

# data[].attributes.subject
Natural History Museum | Our broken planet

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The natural world is in crisis. As our demand for food, materials and energy soars, forests are becoming farmland, plastic is filling our oceans and the climate is heating fast.

The global UN conferences of COP15 on biodiversity and COP26 on climate change may have ended, but you can still join us as we continue debate why and how our relationship with the natural world needs to change.

The programme includes a free display at the Museum, online events and articles which delve into the issues we all face.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Our Broken Planet: How We Got Here and Ways to Fix It | Natural History Museum

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The natural world is in crisis. As our demand for food, materials and energy soars, forests are becoming farmland, plastic is filling our oceans and the climate is heating fast. The global UN conferences of COP15 on biodiversity and COP26 on climate change may have ended, but you can still join us as we continue debate why and how our relationship with the natural world needs to change.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
From the 1870s to the mid-twentieth century, European explorers, climatologists, colonial officials, and planners were avidly interested in large-scale projects that might actively alter the climate. Uncovering this history, Desert Edens looks at how arid environments and an increasing anxiety about climate in the colonial world shaped this upsurge in ideas about climate engineering. From notions about the transformation of deserts into forests to Nazi plans to influence the climates of war-torn areas, Philipp Lehmann puts the early climate change debate in its environmental, intellectual, and political context, and considers the ways this legacy reverberates in the present climate crisis.

Lehmann examines some of the most ambitious climate-engineering projects to emerge in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Confronted with the Sahara in the 1870s, the French developed concepts for a flooding project that would lead to the creation of a man-made Sahara Sea. In the 1920s, German architect Herman Sörgel proposed damming the Mediterranean in order to geoengineer an Afro-European continent called "Atlantropa," which would fit the needs of European settlers. Nazi designs were formulated to counteract the desertification of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Despite ideological and technical differences, these projects all incorporated and developed climate change theories and vocabulary. They also combined expressions of an extreme environmental pessimism with a powerful technological optimism that continue to shape the contemporary moment.

Focusing on the intellectual roots, intended effects, and impact of early measures to modify the climate, Desert Edens investigates how the technological imagination can be inspired by pressing fears about the environment and civilization.

"An excellent guide to historical plans to remake specific landscapes and influence the world's climate."-B. Lieberman, Choice

"This impressively conceived and researched study is timely in several senses. Lehmann's insightful historical analysis of European, especially German, responses to the challenges posed by what were perceived as expanding deserts provides illuminating context for current issues surrounding technology, development, and climate change, as well as those surrounding colonialism and decolonization. And it offers a sobering reminder of the hazards of political and intellectual hubris."-Harriet Ritvo, author of The Dawn of Green: Manchester, Thirlmere, and Modern Environmentalism

"Lehmann explores the wilder shores of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century techno-optimism, following the fevered dreams of French and German engineers, planners, and ideologues who proposed to geoengineer Africa and Asia to make them climatically appealing to European settlers. An incisive and revealing book at the intersection of intellectual, colonial, and environmental history."-J. R. McNeill, author of Mosquito Empires

"Using an extraordinarily wide array of sources, Desert Edens narrates a fascinating tale that deserves to be told. Containing a tapestry of individuals, institutions, master plans, and future imaginaries, this book will resonate with historians of environmental science and environmental history."-Vladimir Janković, author of Confronting the Climate

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
From the 1870s to the mid-twentieth century, European explorers, climatologists, colonial officials, and planners were avidly interested in large-scale projects that might actively alter the climate. Uncovering this history, Desert Edens looks at how arid environments and an increasing anxiety about climate in the colonial world shaped this upsurge in ideas about climate engineering.

# data[].attributes.headline
Wikipedia | List of climate engeering methods 

# data[].attributes.subject
Wikipedia | List of climate engeering methods 

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
List of climate engineering topics - Wikipedia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Language links are at the top of the page across from the title.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Global climate diplomacy-from the Kyoto Protocol to the Paris Agreement-is not working. Despite decades of sustained negotiations by world leaders, the climate crisis continues to worsen. The solution is within our grasp-but we will not achieve it through top-down global treaties or grand bargains among nations.

Charles Sabel and David Victor explain why the profound transformations needed for deep cuts in emissions must arise locally, with government and business working together to experiment with new technologies, quickly learn the best solutions, and spread that information globally. Sabel and Victor show how some of the most iconic successes in environmental policy were products of this experimentalist approach to problem solving, such as the Montreal Protocol on the ozone layer, the rise of electric vehicles, and Europe's success in controlling water pollution. They argue that the Paris Agreement is at best an umbrella under which local experimentation can push the technological frontier and help societies around the world learn how to deploy the technologies and policies needed to tackle this daunting global problem.

A visionary book that fundamentally reorients our thinking about the climate crisis, Fixing the Climate is a road map to institutional design that can finally lead to self-sustaining reductions in emissions that years of global diplomacy have failed to deliver.

"If you read just one book this year about how we can best solve climate change, read this one. It is beautifully written, fundamentally pragmatic, and-best of all-deeply hopeful."-Rebecca Henderson, author of Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire

"To get big cuts in carbon emissions, we've got to push the technological frontier. Charles Sabel and David Victor's compelling new book shows persuasively how we can do this by government and business partnering together to test new technologies and learn quickly what works. This is vital reading for everyone who truly cares about climate action."-Jay Inslee, Governor of the State of Washington, former US presidential candidate, and coauthor of Apollo's Fire: Igniting America's Clean Energy Economy

"In this excellent book, Sabel and Victor offer nothing less than a new paradigm for addressing climate change, building on decentralized problem-solving practices that are already widely deployed but have been hidden in plain sight due to our focus on outdated models."-Dani Rodrik, Harvard University

" Fixing the Climate will transform the way we think about globalization and climate policy. In reenvisioning the problem of global climate action as one of collective experimentation and innovation rather than zero-sum distributional struggle, Sabel and Victor offer a perspective that combines realism, pragmatism, and optimism. An eye-opening and urgently needed book."-Adam Tooze, author of Shutdown: How Covid Shook the World's Economy

"We are making progress in cutting emissions. There is already overwhelming willingness by political, business, and civil-society leaders to move even faster, and this book shows how these actors must work together in the right ways to make that happen."-Nigel Topping, UN COP26 High Level Climate Action Champion

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Global climate diplomacy-from the Kyoto Protocol to the Paris Agreement-is not working. Despite decades of sustained negotiations by world leaders, the climate crisis continues to worsen. The solution is within our grasp-but we will not achieve it through top-down global treaties or grand bargains among nations.

# data[].attributes.headline
Jeroen Oomen | Dreaming the designer climate

# data[].attributes.subject
Jeroen Oomen | Dreaming the designer climate

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The field of 'climate engineering', 'geoengineering', or 'climate intervention', as these technologies are typically referred to, is a highly diverse research field that looks for technological interventions into the climate systems that might help stave off the worst of climate change. Ranging from ecosystem adaptations that aim to capture and store carbon, to industrial facilities aiming to capture carbon at the source or directly from the air, and from infrastructure adaptations to make the Earth more reflective of sunlight to large-scale modifications of cloud cover or aerosol injections in the stratosphere, these interventions coalesce and rally around shared conceptions of climate and climate change.

In Imagining Climate Engineering, Jeroen Oomen asks how different conceptions of the climate, of climate politics and economics, and the role of the human in a larger biosphere lead to divergent views on the feasibility and desirability of these speculative technologies. Imagining Climate Engineering is the outflow of Jeroen's PhD research, which was funded by a European Union Horizon 2020 Marie Curie project (ENHANCE). By combining methods from science & technology studies, history, sociology, and the environmental humanities, Jeroen attempts to understand why climate engineering researchers imagine these speculative climate-fixing technologies as possible approaches to climate change and how their views on this topic emerge.

Imagining Climate Engineering as a research project revolves around political and cultural questions about climate engineering. Specifically, the project asks how values connect to climate epistemology and ontologies about human-nature relationships. How, for example, is climate engineering a manifestation of an older history of human-nature relationships and technological dreams? What type of knowledge do climate engineering researchers think they need to consider manipulating the global climate? On what basis do these researchers see particular interventions as feasible or desirable? This all ties together in the question of how climate engineering becomes a scientific dream for some or a promethean nightmare for others-depending on how they view the climate, how they view politics and human relations, how much they think we can know about the climate, and whether or not humans even should engineer the climate.

The project will culminate in a book, Imagining Climate Engineering: Dreaming the Designer Climate, to be published by Routledge late 2020.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Imagining Climate Engineering: Dreaming the Designer Climate

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The field of 'climate engineering', 'geoengineering', or 'climate intervention', as these technologies are typically referred to, is a highly diverse research field that looks for technological interventions into the climate systems that might help stave off the worst of climate change.

# data[].attributes.headline
Nature | Estimating global agricultural effects of geoengineering using volcanic eruptions

# data[].attributes.subject
Nature | Estimating global agricultural effects of geoengineering using volcanic eruptions

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Estimating global agricultural effects of geoengineering using volcanic eruptions - Nature

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Solar radiation management is increasingly considered to be an option for managing global temperatures1,2, yet the economic effects of ameliorating climatic changes by scattering sunlight back to space remain largely unknown3. Although solar radiation management may increase crop yields by reducing heat stress4, the effects of concomitant changes in available sunlight have never been empirically estimated.

# data[].attributes.headline
WUR | Anticipatory governance of climate engineering 

# data[].attributes.subject
WUR | Anticipatory governance of climate engineering 

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Anticipatory Governance of Climate Engineering: Whether, What, How, Why?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Climate engineering (CE) is a quintessential anticipatory governance challenge, where the very need for governance and the contours of a potential governance field remain uncertain and politically contested. ENP research in this area has thus explored the nature of this anticipatory governance chal…

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The world is changing. Due to urbanisation most of the rapidly growing world population lives in or around cities. The need for water and other resources increases, while climate change asks for engineering solutions to keep cities liveable.

The task of environmental engineers is to develop solutions to cope with the effects of environmental change; to protect citizens against environmental hazards such as air, soil and water pollution, heatwaves, floods and droughts, and to safeguard water supply and sanitation. The challenge for humanity is to ensure a sustainable and healthy urban and natural environment, based on the principles of a circular economy.

Coping with this challenge requires a new kind of engineers: engineers focusing on the interaction between humans and their living environment and protecting the public from the risk of environmental hazards.

In the master programme Environmental Engineering you learn how to cope with shortage and abundance of resources such as water and waste, the effects of climate change on liveability in cities, air pollution and the depletion of natural resources, such as groundwater. These challenges are of utmost relevance in a world under change that is experiencing population growth and demanding more clean resources than ever.

As an Environmental Engineer you will study these challenges and develop engineering solutions in the fields of air quality, hydrology and water resources management, water technology and urban water infrastructure, fields in which TU Delft has a long-standing history. Future challenges in recycling, long-term storage of waste, urban heat islands, air pollution and noise will be part of this programme.

During the master Environmental Engineering you will choose between three master tracks, that offer you more specialised knowledge into specific fields of environmental engineering.

MSc Environmental Engineering Tracks

During the master Environmental Engineering you will choose between three master tracks, that offer you more specialised knowledge into specific fields of environmental engineering.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The world is changing. Due to urbanisation most of the rapidly growing world population lives in or around cities. The need for water and other resources increases, while climate change asks for engineering solutions to keep cities liveable.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Geoengineering is conventionally split into two broad categories:

The first is carbon geoengineering, often also called carbon dioxide removal (CDR). The other is solar geoengineering, often also called solar radiation management (SRM), albedo modification, or sunlight reflection. There are large differences.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Geoengineering is conventionally split into two broad categories: The first is carbon geoengineering, often also called carbon dioxide removal (CDR). The other is solar geoengineering, often also called solar radiation management (SRM), albedo modification, or sunlight reflection. There are large differences.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Oxford Geoengineering Programme was founded in 2010 as an initiative of the Oxford Martin School at the University of Oxford.

Geoengineering - the deliberate large-scale intervention in the Earth's natural systems to counteract climate change - is a contentious subject and rightly so.

The Oxford Geoengineering Programme seeks to engage with society about the issues associated with geoengineering and conduct research into some of the proposed techniques. The programme does not advocate implementing geoengineering, but it does advocate conducting research into the social, ethical and technical aspects of geoengineering. This research must be conducted in a transparent and socially informed manner.
The University of Oxford is currently involved in four projects on geoengineering - two projects funded by the UK Research Councils and two projects funded by philanthropic foundations.
They are: the Greenhouse Gas Removal by Enhanced Weathering (GGREW) project in partnership with the University of Southampton, Cardiff University and the University of Cambridge; the Comparative Assessment and Region-Specific Optimisation of GGR project with Imperial College London, University College London, the University of East Anglia and the University of Cambridge; the Geoengineering Research Governance Project (GRGP) in partnership with the University of Calgary and the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies - Potsdam; and the Greenhouse Gas Removals Instruments and Policies (GRIP) project with the University of Manchester.
The University of Oxford has previously been involved in three major projects on geoengineering funded by the UK Research Councils.
They are: the Integrated Assessment of Geoengineering Proposals (IAGP) in partnership with the University of Leeds, Cardiff University, Lancaster University, University of Bristol, University of East Anglia, the Tyndall Centre and the UK Met Office; the Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate Engineering (SPICE) in partnership with the University of Bristol and the University of Cambridge; and the Climate Geoengineering Governance (CGG), an Oxford-led project in partnership with the University of Sussex and University College London examined the governance and ethics of geoengineering.
About the banner image: This image depicts an area of temperate rainforest on Vancouver Island, Canada. Ecosystems like this rely on delicate balances in climate variables which are increasingly threatened by greenhouse gas-driven climate change. The deployment of geoengineering technologies may present the only chance for some especially vulnerable ecosystems to maintain their integrity in the face of irreversible damage. It may also present significant risks to these natural systems due to unintentional or unforeseeable side-effects. Image credit: Tim Moore (2006).

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Oxford Geoengineering Programme seeks to engage with society about the issues associated with geoengineering and conduct research into some of the proposed techniques. The programme does not advocate implementing geoengineering, but it does advocate conducting research into the social, ethical and technical aspects of geoengineering.

# data[].attributes.headline
Europese Commissie | Climate engineering might be too risky

# data[].attributes.subject
Europese Commissie | Climate engineering might be too risky

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
It's not that floating giant mirrors in space or boosting cloud growth in terrestrial skies to reflect heat from the Sun away from the Earth would fail to reduce temperatures. Both could do so, and by several degrees.

But, space mirrors could reduce rainfall considerably in certain regions, while cloud seeding might, in the worst case, actually add to the warming it is meant to mitigate.

The globe has already warmed by about 0.8 degrees Celsius in the years since the Industrial Revolution, and a rise of 2 degrees Celsius is widely viewed as a threshold to dangerous changes such as more floods, heatwaves and rising sea levels.

Some scientists believe humans might be able to intervene to turn the temperature down, but there are significant risks attached.

'Geoengineering raises vital questions about global governance: is any nation or group of nations allowed to intentionally modify climate on a global scale?' said the steering committee of IMPLICC, an EU-funded project bringing together researchers from France, Germany and Norway in a report. 'Many of the side effects of such modifications cannot be predicted with any degree of certainty.'

"
'The effectiveness of these techniques are unclear, and they might have undesirable side effects for crucial parts of the Earth system and humankind.'&nbsp;

Hauke Schmidt, Hamburg's Max Planck Institute for Meteorology

Over the past five years, the IMPLICC team examined the effects, and side-effects, of dimming the sunlight reaching the Earth so as to tinker with its heat balance, and they have concluded that it's a high-risk business.

Their message to policy-makers is simple: be very, very careful before you try any of this.

'When climate change becomes more evident than today, and geoengineering is more seriously considered, it must be remembered that the effectiveness of these techniques are unclear, and they might have undesirable side effects for crucial parts of the Earth system and humankind,' said Hauke Schmidt, deputy director of the department 'Atmosphere in the Earth System' at Hamburg's Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, one of the institutions in IMPLICC.
Cloud land, but not cuckoo
Not that the science or the technologies behind 'solar radiation management' (SRM) are simple. They exist in the same realm as towing icebergs to supply drinking water, or lassoing asteroids to mine their precious minerals - amazing, yet in the realm of science-fact rather than purely science-fiction.

Of the three techniques scientists judge most suitable for turning down the Earth's thermostat, the easiest one, in economic terms, is to manipulate marine clouds. Spraying sea water into the atmosphere above the ocean can spur the formation of numerous small, bright clouds at 1 km elevation that readily reflect sunlight back into space.

The idea relies on the so-called Twomey effect, which says that hiking water-droplet concentration within a cloud raises the overall surface area of the droplets, thereby boosting the cloud's reflectivity.

So, the idea is to have an entire fleet of unmanned ships, driven by the wind, sailing around spraying sea water up in the air. Salt particles in the water act as nuclei when they reach the clouds above, making them bigger and more reflective.

The immediate effect of this seeding would be a local cooling of the sea surface. So the technique could be targeted at vulnerable regions, such as coral reefs or diminishing ice sheets. Especially in the tropics, and off the west coasts of continents, climate impacts can be significant.

If done at sufficient magnitude, says the IMPLICC team, the method could limit temperature increases to 0.7-1.2 degrees Celsius during the 2020-2070 period, instead of the several-degree jump projected under one of the main scenarios of global warming postulated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

But, there is a problem. The size and amount of water droplets have to be just so. If too much is sprayed, the clouds become supersaturated and less reflective. If particles are too large or too small the cooling effect can fail to happen or even be reversed into warming.

The IPCC will present key findings from its latest report into climate change as part of a climate conference at the European Commission in Brussels in November.
When a volcano is not available
The second approach to shading the Earth is to promote clouds 15-50 km above ground in the stratosphere. It is much higher than conventional cloud seeding that typically happens in the lower atmosphere and uses silver iodide or dry ice. For stratospheric seeding, sulphate particles - 'aerosol' - are injected into the upper atmosphere where they remain for months or even years.

The eruption of Philippine volcano Mount Pinatubo in 1991 showed that the technique works: Earth's surface temperatures fell in its ash-strewn wake by up to 0.5 degrees Celsius. But, of course there are no push-button volcanoes, so a man-made programme would involve launching sulphate from high-altitude airplanes or balloons, or firing it into the sky from modified artillery cannons.

Impact of climate engineering on precipitation in mm/yr as averaged from results of four different earth system models. The impact is calculated as difference between a climate under quadrupled CO2 concentration compensated for by a reduction of solar insolation and a preindustrial control climate. In regions with filled color shading all models agree in the sign of the response, i.e. the response may be considered as robust. © Schmidt, H., K. Alterskjær, D. Bou Karam, O. Boucher, A. Jones, J. E. Kristjánsson, U. Niemeier et al. 'Solar irradiance reduction to counteract radiative forcing from a quadrupling of CO2: climate responses simulated by four earth system models.' Earth System Dynamics 3 (2012): 63-78. Impact of climate engineering on precipitation (in mm/yr), as averaged from the results of four different Earth system models. The impact is calculated as the difference between a climate under quadrupled CO₂ concentration, compensated for by a reduction of solar radiation and a preindustrial control climate. © Schmidt, H., K. Alterskjær, D. Bou Karam, O. Boucher, A. Jones, J. E. Kristjánsson, U. Niemeier et al. 'Solar irradiance reduction to counteract radiative forcing from a quadrupling of CO₂: climate responses simulated by four Earth system models.' Earth System Dynamics 3 (2012): 63-78. The overall thermal impact of the exercise, says IMPLICC, is about the same as that of salt seeding, but again, there are problems. First is a quandary about whether the sulphate should be sulphuric acid or sulphur dioxide. Studies by the University of Potsdam suggest that the two would create significantly different cloud effects - precise differences still need to be clarified experimentally. Then there is the ozone layer that protects us from harmful UV-radiation. IMPLICC estimates that the amount of sulphate injections required to block carbon-driven warming could diminish stratospheric ozone by 5-10 %.

The IMPLICC team did not want to be drawn into speculation of how ozone depletion might cause cancer or even blindness, but they note that the depletion would be 'large enough to be of concern, especially over populated regions near the poles'.
Unjust deserts
The final geoengineering method is most fantastic - and most expensive. At a cost running into trillions of Euros, giant mirrors could be flown into stationary orbit (at a Lagrangian point between Earth and the Sun) that would bounce the most direct light rays somewhere other than into the Earth's atmosphere. Like cloud seeding, IMPLICC says, mirrors would work, keeping Earth's temperatures several degrees lower than if no action were taken.

But, the project team warns, using the man-made reflectors would 'create an entirely new climate'. Unfortunately, that would be one much drier, with rainfall cut by more than 10 % in northern Eurasia as well as parts of North and South America. Also, more of the cooling would be directed at the tropics, while temperature reductions would be less pronounced in higher latitudes.

So, the risks of geoengineering might outweigh its rewards. And even those might be distributed very unevenly.

'The "techno fix" of geoengineering can bring greater dangers of unintended or unadvertised consequences that we cannot afford to suffer,' says executive director Pat Mooney of the environmental-activist ETC Group, who reviewed the IMPLICC study.

Instead of learning the hard way, it might be better to keep geoengineering in the closet.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
It's not that floating giant mirrors in space or boosting cloud growth in terrestrial skies to reflect heat from the Sun away from the Earth would fail to reduce temperatures. Both could do so, and by several degrees.But, space mirrors could reduce rainfall considerably in certain regions, while cloud seeding might, in the worst case, actually add to the warming it is meant to mitigate.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Group shares eerie photos of disastrous man-made reef off coast of Florida: ’500,000 tires left sitting at the bottom of the ocean’

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Osborne Tire Reef was one of many attempts in the 1970s and 80s to mimic the environmental benefits of coral reefs using old tires, but it has become an environmental disaster.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.authors[].name
Our annual Grist 50 list spotlights the people who are pushing fresh solutions to our planet’s biggest problems.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A nonprofit media organization telling stories of climate solutions and a just future.

# data[].attributes.headline
Euractiv | Switzerland puts geoengineering governance on UN agenda

# data[].attributes.subject
Euractiv | Switzerland puts geoengineering governance on UN agenda

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
No longer the preserve of science fiction, climate-hacking technologies may need international oversight, say backers of draft resolution. EURACTIV's media partner Climate Home News reports.

Switzerland wants the world to talk about if and how to use untested technology that tampers with nature to slow climate change - and will ask the UN's environment arm to take the lead.

Geoengineering techniques that reflect away sun rays and suck carbon from the atmosphere have long been talked about as last-resort solutions to stem the worst effects of climate change.

But as greenhouse gas emissions remain stubbornly high and geoengineering research gets underway, there is growing concern these technologies could be deployed without protections against their serious risks - and that the prospect of a technofix will be taken as a licence to keep on polluting.

To kickstart the conversation, Switzerland will introduce a resolution at the UN Environment Assembly in Kenya in mid-March, calling for an assessment of the potential methods and governance frameworks for each one by August 2020. It would be an early step towards an international system for regulating the suite of technologies.

"There is a risk that geoengineering could be applied by someone without any international control, and we are very concerned about that," Franz Perrez, head of the international affairs division at Switzerland's Federal Office for the Environment, told Climate Home News. "Some are already testing solar radiation management, scientific research is already going on. We cannot close our eyes anymore and say 'This is only science fiction'."

The resolution is backed by Burkina Faso, Micronesia, Georgia, Lichtenstein, Mali, Mexico, Montenegro, Niger, South Korea and Senegal, according to the latest version dated 25 February.

Geoengineering refers to a wide range of techniques for modifying the climate system, from planting trees to fiddling with clouds.

Untested technologies to manage solar radiation - essentially, dim the sun - pose the biggest concerns. Ideas include releasing aerosol particles from airplanes to reflect sunlight away (mimicking the effects of volcanic eruptions) and spraying seawater drops into clouds to make them more reflective. But they could also change weather patterns, disrupting agriculture and exacerbating geopolitical tensions.

And if this is not accompanied by emissions reductions, more will be needed to sustain the temperature effect - "practically forever", Douglas MacMartin, a leading geoengineering scientist working at Cornell University and Caltech, told a Chatham House conference in London last week.

Yet with government oversight, it may be preferable to runaway global warming. "You would not take chemotherapy drugs just for fun, you would not sit in your car and set off your airbags just for fun," MacMartin said. "There are clearly serious challenges to solar geoengineering, but they only make sense to face in context with the challenges of climate change itself."

Better-known options, which remove CO2 from the air, include afforestation and combining biomass power plants with technology to catch and store their emissions (known as BECCS). But even simple interventions like tree-planting may call for international rules to ensure that emissions cuts in one place aren't cancelled out somewhere else.

Attention to geoengineering is growing as the global temperature remains on course to rise by at least 3C compared to pre-industrial levels. The UN's panel of climate scientists suggested last October it would be difficult to meet the Paris Agreement's stretch limit of 1.5C without some of these more radical techniques.

"The reality is that [carbon dioxide removal] is no longer a question of whether or not [according to the UN science report]. It's which one, which technology, how much, when do you start, who pays for it," said Janos Pasztor, executive director of the Carnegie Climate Geoengineering Governance Initiative and the former UN assistant secretary-general on climate change.

"But there has been very little debate [about solar radiation management] in the circles beyond scientists... it's still looked at as esoteric, science fiction, crazy, difficult, challenging - and all of those things apply," he told CHN at the Chatham House conference.

For some, however, geoengineering is so dangerous that it should be banned altogether.

It could worsen the climate, be weaponised and exacerbate geopolitical imbalances, said Silvia Ribeiro, Latin America director at ETC Group, an organisation that looks at socioeconomic and ecological issues around new technologies. "Investments in geoengineering are already providing justifications for high greenhouse gas emitters to continue emitting and postpone real reductions."

The UN has so far taken a cautious, piecemeal approach. Th 190-plus parties to its Convention on Biological Diversity extended a moratorium on all climate-related technologies in 2016, while a 2013 convention on marine pollution prohibited geoengineering of the oceans. The UN's climate change secretariat regulates global emissions accounting, including from forestry and bioenergy.

ETC Group worries the Swiss resolution implicitly assumes that geoengineering is acceptable and just needs international governance.

Perrez countered that the country wants the UN Environment Programme to assess the state of the science and the research gaps, the risks, benefits and uncertainties, the actors working on research and deployment, and how it could all be governed. Then, he said, countries can start talking about what to allow and how.

But the way emissions are going now, "it's hard to say that it will not be needed", Pasztor said, referring to CO2 removal. "The reality is that emissions reductions alone are no longer enough, because we have already put so much carbon into the atmosphere that even if we stop today we're still going to keep this climate change for hundreds of years."

Read more with EURACTIV

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Switzerland puts geoengineering governance on UN agenda

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
No longer the preserve of science fiction, climate-hacking technologies may need international oversight, say backers of draft resolution. EURACTIV's media partner Climate Home News reports. Switzerland wants the world to talk about if and how to use untested technology that tampers with nature to slow climate change - and will ask the UN's environment arm to take the lead.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Right now, scientists are racing to develop different technologies to remove and store excess carbon dioxide – the most significant cause of climate change.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Carbon Capture Storage | CCS Technology & Methods | Shell Global

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Carbon capture and storage, or CCS, is a combination of technologies that capture and store carbon dioxide deep underground, preventing its release into the atmosphere.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Can Nigeria's 'rainmakers' really control the weather? - BBC News

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Solarpunk

Key motifs

Stained glass solar panels, plant life, art noveau, African and Asian patterns.

Key values

Inclusion, community, environmental awareness, local businesses over corporations, renewable energy.

Solarpunk is a genre of speculative fiction that is also its own distinguished aesthetic, focusing mainly on renewable energy, living in harmony with nature, and the better future envisioned through both. Solarpunk also emphasizes handcrafted wares (as opposed to mass-produced products) and community. The 'punk' in Solarpunk comes from the genre's anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist nature, as well as its strong focus on community and prefigurative politics, which separates it from aesthetics like Cyberprep.
Solarpunk futurism is not nihilistic like cyberpunk and it avoids steampunk's potentially quasi-reactionary tendencies: it is about ingenuity, generativity, independence, and community. At its core, Solarpunk is a vision of a future that embodies the best of what humanity can achieve: a post-scarcity, post-hierarchy, post-capitalistic world where humanity sees itself as part of nature and clean energy replaces fossil fuels.

The Solarpunk Manifesto may be found here. A reference guide for all things Solarpunk may be found at this link, and more content may also be found at r/solarpunk and on solarpunks.net.

Elements of Solarpunk

Everything from a positive imagining of our collective futures to actually creating it: 3D printing, afrofuturism, art, cooperatives, DIY, ecological restoration, engineering, fiction, futurism, gardening, geodesic domes, green architecture, green design, green energy, ingenuous indigenous practices, intentional community, maker spaces, materials science, music, permaculture, repair cafes, solar, solar power, sustainability, tree planting, urban planning, and volunteering (amongst other things).

Visual Aesthetics

The visual aesthetics of Solarpunk are open and evolving. They include a mash-up of the following:

1800s age-of-sail/frontier living (but with more bicycles)

Creative reuse of existing infrastructure (sometimes post-apocalyptic, sometimes present-weird)

Art Nouveau

Hayao Miyazaki

Jugaad-style innovation from the non-Western world

High-tech backends with simple, elegant outputs

While Solarpunk is a relatively young literary sub-genre, there are stories that take place in a solarpunk world or contain solarpunk elements, as well as older novels that helped inspire the genre. There are also numerous non-fiction works that relate to Solarpunk culture and applications in real life.

List originally compiled by u/dwarrowly on r/solarpunk

Octavia Butler

Xenogenesis Series (Dawn, Adulthood Rites, Imago)

Earthseed Series (Parable of the Sower, Parable of the Talents)

Films and TV Shows

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

Princess Mononoke

Earthlock

Obduction

Botworld adventure

Atelier series

Legend of Zelda series

Terra Nil

Bastion

Oiligarchy

Flower(Thatgamecompany game)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Solarpunk is a genre of speculative fiction that is also its own distinguished aesthetic, focusing mainly on renewable energy, living in harmony with nature, and the better future envisioned through both. Solarpunk also emphasizes handcrafted wares (as opposed to mass-produced products) and community.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Forest fires, floods and hurricanes ... for some, all the natural disasters we saw last summer are linked to the same thing: A secret, climate-controlling weapon supposedly belonging to the US army named HAARP. The Truth or Fake team took a closer look at this conspiracy theory.

From deadly floods in China to massive forest fires in Turkey, people online have been talking about the natural disasters we saw in the summer of 2021. But some, especially on TikTok and Twitter, are saying weather events like these are caused by something called HAARP, a so-called climate-control device used by the US government.

Floods in Germany. I don't ever recall anything like this in the summer in my life. Is it just me? Or is it weather warfare with HAARP? pic.twitter.com/7D0u6bjRLq
- Deplorable Richie (@DeplorableRich5) July 17, 2021

HAARP stands for High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, a project based in an observatory in Alaska that studies the upper atmosphere using radio transmitters. These devices heat up small parts of the air above the site.

But the science behind the program is complex, and has given rise to numerous far-fetched theories. The Truth or Fake team spoke to Mick West, a science writer who specialises in this type of conspiracy theory.

The way to debunk the HAARP conspiracy theory is trying to explain to people exactly what it does. Explain to them that it's just a radio transmitter that is in one location in Alaska and it only can affect a small amount of the air above it. Explain that the actual power used by this radio transmitter is very very small compared to what you would actually need if you actually wanted to do some of the things that are being suggested.

Still, some supporters of the theory believe there are HAARP devices hidden all over the world. They've even taken some videos out of context to convince others of the existence of this secret weapon. That's what happened with a video of an electrical installation in Brazil being torn down in 2017. Some said the installation was actually HAARP antennae.
>> Read more on The Observers: No, this video does not show Brazilians tearing down an American weather-control weapon
The teams working on HAARP know about the many rumours and theories swirling around the project, and therefore try to answer as many questions as possible about their work. On the FAQ on their website, they answer questions such as "Is HAARP creating chemtrails?" and they even open their doors once a year to show people the work they're really doing in Alaska.

But, as Mick West explains, the idea that humans can control aspects of the weather is not completely far-fetched. Some countries, such as China and Russia, have been working on projects to control weather for several years. But, for the moment, we only have the technology to do things like creating rain or dispersing fog on a small scale.

But "geoengineering", or the process of modifying the climate on a much larger scale, is an avenue that is being studied more and more. For example, some scientists are working on ideas such as spraying particles into the sky to block sunlight to combat global warming, or modifying the trajectory of hurricanes, but they haven't had very convincing results to date.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Truth or Fake - 'Controlling the weather'?: The limitations of the HAARP conspiracy theory

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Forest fires, floods and hurricanes ... for some, all the natural disasters we saw last summer are linked to the same thing: A secret, climate-controlling weapon supposedly belonging to the US army named...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
On November 13, 1946 pilot Curtis Talbot, working for the General Electric Research Laboratory, climbed to an altitude of 14,000 feet about 30 miles east of Schenectady, New York. Talbot, along with scientist Dr. Vincent J. Schaefer, released three pounds of dry ice (frozen carbon dioxide) into the clouds. As they turned south, Dr. Schaefer noted, "I looked toward the rear and was thrilled to see long streamers of snow falling from the base of the cloud through which we had just passed. I shouted to Curt to swing around, and as we did so we passed through a mass of glistening snow crystals! Needless to say, we were quite excited." They had created the world's first human-made snowstorm.

After the experiments of G.E.'s Research Laboratory, there was a feeling that humanity might finally be able to control one of the greatest variables of life on earth. And, as Cold War tensions heightened, weather control was seen by the United States as a potential weapon that could be even more devastating than nuclear warfare.

In August of 1953 the United States formed the President's Advisory Committee on Weather Control. Its stated purpose was to determine the effectiveness of weather modification procedures and the extent to which the government should engage in such activities. Methods that were envisioned by both American and Soviet scientists-and openly discussed in the media during the mid-1950s- included using colored pigments on the polar ice caps to melt them and unleash devastating floods, releasing large quantities of dust into the stratosphere creating precipitation on demand, and even building a dam fitted with thousands of nuclear powered pumps across the Bering Straits. This dam, envisioned by a Russian engineer named Arkady Borisovich Markin would redirect the waters of the Pacific Ocean, which would theoretically raise temperatures in cities like New York and London. Markin's stated purpose was to "relieve the severe cold of the northern hemisphere" but American scientists worried about such weather control as a means to cause flooding.

The December 11, 1950 Charleston Daily Mail (Charleston, WV) ran a short article quoting Dr. Irving Langmuir, who had worked with Dr. Vincent J. Schaefer during those early experiments conducted for the G.E. Research Laboratory:

"Rainmaking" or weather control can be as powerful a war weapon as the atom bomb, a Nobel prize winning physicist said today.

Dr. Irving Langmuir, pioneer in "rainmaking," said the government should seize on the phenomenon of weather control as it did on atomic energy when Albert Einstein told the late President Roosevelt in 1939 of the potential power of an atom-splitting weapon.

"In the amount of energy liberated, the effect of 30 milligrams of silver iodide under optimum conditions equals that of one atomic bomb," Langmuir said.

In 1953 Captain Howard T. Orville was chairman of the President's Advisory Committee on Weather Control. Captain Orville was quoted widely in American newspapers and popular magazines about how the United States might use this control of the skies to its advantage. The May 28, 1954 cover of Collier's magazine showed a man quite literally changing the seasons by a system of levers and push buttons. As the article noted, in an age of atomic weapons and supersonic flight, anything seemed possible for the latter half of the 20th century. The cover story was written by Captain Orville.

A weather station in southeast Texas spots a threatening cloud formation moving toward Waco on its radar screen; the shape of the cloud indicates a tornado may be building up. An urgent warning is sent to Weather Control Headquarters. Back comes an order for aircraft to dissipate the cloud. And less than an hour after the incipient tornado was first sighted, the aircraft radios back: Mission accomplished. The storm was broken up; there was no loss of life, no property damage.

This hypothetical destruction of a tornado in its infancy may sound fantastic today, but it could well become a reality within 40 years. In this age of the H-bomb and supersonic flight, it is quite possible that science will find ways not only to dissipate incipient tornadoes and hurricanes, but to influence all our weather to a degree that staggers the imagination.

Indeed, if investigation of weather control receives the public support and funds for research which its importance merits, we may be able eventually to make weather almost to order.

An Associated Press article by science reporter Frank Carey, which ran in the July 6, 1954 edition of Minnesota's Brainerd Daily Dispatch, sought to explain why weather control would offer a unique strategic advantage to the United States:

It may someday be possible to cause torrents of rain over Russia by seeding clouds moving toward the Soviet Union.

Or it may be possible - if an opposite effect is desired - to cause destructive droughts which dry up food crops by "overseeding" those same clouds.

And fortunately for the United States, Russia could do little to retaliate because most weather moves from west to east.

Dr. Edward Teller, the "father of the H-bomb" testified in 1958 in front of the Senate Military Preparedness Subcommittee that he was "more confident of getting to the moon than changing the weather, but the latter is a possibility. I would not be surprised if accomplished it in five years or failed to do it in the next 50." In a January 1, 1958, article in the Pasadena Star-News Captain Orville warned that "if an unfriendly nation solves the problem of weather control and gets into the position to control the large-scale weather patterns before we can, the results could be even more disastrous than nuclear warfare."

The May 25, 1958, issue of The American Weekly ran an article by Frances Leighton using information from Captain Howard T. Orville. The article, in no uncertain terms, described a race to see who would control the earth's thermometers. The illustration that ran with the piece pictured an ominous looking satellite which could "focus sunlight to melt the ice in frozen harbors or thaw frosted crops - or scorch enemy cities."

Behind the scenes, while statesmen argue policies and engineers build space satellites, other men are working day and night. They are quiet men, so little known to the public that the magnitude of their job, when you first hear of it, staggers the imagination. Their object is to control the weather and change the face of the world.

Some of these men are Americans. Others are Russians. The first skirmishes of an undeclared cold war between them already have been fought. Unless a peace is achieved the war's end will determine whether Russia or the United States rules the earth's thermometers.

Efforts to control the weather, however, would find skeptics in the U.S. National Research Council, which published a 1964 report:

We conclude that the initiation of large-scale operational weather modification programs would be premature. Many fundamental problems must be answered first....We believe that the patient investigation of atmospheric processes coupled with an exploration of the technical applications may eventually lead to useful weather modification, but we emphasize that the time-scale required for success may be measured in decades.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
On November 13, 1946 pilot Curtis Talbot, working for the General Electric Research Laboratory, climbed to an altitude of 14,000 feet about 30 miles east of Schenectady, New York. Talbot, along with scientist Dr. Vincent J. Schaefer, released three pounds of dry ice (frozen carbon dioxide) into the clouds.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
EXHIBITIONS

Read about SHROUD by @simonnorfolkstudio and @klausthymann in the LA Times... https://tinyurl.com/y5lcj54f⁣
⁣⁣
⁣On the Furka Pass in Southern Switzerland, there is a small shop that carves an ice grotto into the nearby Rhône glacier and charges tourists to experience inside the blue ice. It has therefore been worth their money attempting to slow the glacier's retreat. They have invested heavily in a special thermal blanket that has kept about 25m (82ft, in depth) of ice from disappearing, and has kept the ice grotto intact. However, after a few harsh winters on the mountain, the blanket is starting to disintegrate. And unfortunately the method is not scaleable: we cannot do this to all the world's ice; the gesture is as forlorn and doomed as the glacier itself. There is something insane about trying to reverse the inevitable, it is as if the glacier has wrapped itself in preparation for its own funeral.⁣
⁣⁣
⁣SHROUD by @simonnorfolkstudio and @klausthymann at Gallery Luisotti until 31 May 2019.

2525 Michigan Avenue Number A2 Santa Monica, CA 90404.

Gallery Hours: Tuesday-Friday: 10:30am-6pm; Saturday: 11am-6pm.

Tel: 1.310.453.0043

info@galleryluisotti.com
www.galleryluisotti.com⁣
⁣Follow me @simonnorfolkstudio for updates, outtakes, unpublished and archive material on this and future projects⁣
⁣⁣
⁣⁣

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Read about SHROUD by @simonnorfolkstudio and @klausthymann in the LA Times... https://tinyurl.com/y5lcj54f⁣ ⁣⁣⁣On the Furka Pass in Southern Switzerland, there is a small shop that carves an ice grotto into the nearby Rhône glacier and charges tourists to experience inside the blue ice. It has therefore been worth their money attempting to slow the glacier's retreat.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
"Riveting . . . Under a White Sky expertly mixes travelogue, science reporting and explanatory journalism.""To be a well-informed citizen of Planet Earth, you need to read Elizabeth Kolbert. . . . It's a tribute to Kolbert's skills as a storyteller that she transforms the quest to deal with the climate crisis into a darkly comic tale of human hubris and imagination that could either end in flames or in a new vision of Paradise." -Jeff Goodell, Rolling Stone

"A superb and honest reflection of our extraordinary time."

"[ Under a White Sky] exhibits Kolbert's sculptor-like skill for making climate change feel tangible, happening before our eyes and beneath our fingers."

"What makes Under A White Sky so valuable and such a compelling read is Kolbert tells by showing. Without beating the reader over the head, she makes it clear how far we already are from a world of undisturbed, perfectly balanced nature-and how far we must still go to find a new balance for the planet's future that still has us humans in it."

"From the Mojave to lava fields in Iceland, Kolbert takes readers on a globe-spanning journey to explore these projects while weighing their pros, cons, and ethical implications."-The Nation

"Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Kolbert's beat is examining the impact of humans on the environment and she does it better than basically everyone."

"An eye-opening-and at times terrifying-examination of just how far scientists have already gone in their attempts to re-engineer the planet."

"If you like your apocalit with a side of humor, she will have you laughing while Rome burns." -MIT Technology Review

"Brilliantly executed and urgently necessary." -Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"A master elucidator, Kolbert is gratifyingly direct as she assesses our predicament between a rock and a hard place, creating a clarion and invaluable 'book about people trying to solve problems created by people trying to solve problems.'" -Booklist (starred review)

"Every paragraph of Kolbert's books has a mountain of reading and reporting behind it . . . Urgent, absolutely necessary reading as a portrait of our devastated planet." -Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"A tale not of magic-bullet remedies where maybe this time things will be different when we intervene in nature, but rather of deploying a panoply of strategies big and small in hopes that there is still time to make a difference and atone for our past. A sobering and realistic look at humankind's perhaps misplaced faith that technology can work with nature to produce a more livable planet." -Library Journal (starred review)

Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction LONGLIST 2022

James Cropper Wainwright Prize for Writing on Conservation SHORTLIST 2021

The Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize LONGLIST 2021

Get the latest updates about Elizabeth Kolbert

And go from well-read to best read with book recs, deals and more in your inbox every week.

And go from well-read to best read with book recs, deals and more in your inbox every week.

Become a Member

Start earning points for buying books! Just for joining you'll get personalized recommendations on your dashboard daily and features only for members.

Success!

Your account has been created. Upload book purchases, access your personalized book recommendations, and more from here. GOT IT

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Under a White Sky by Elizabeth Kolbert: 9780593136287 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
"Riveting . . . Under a White Sky expertly mixes travelogue, science reporting and explanatory journalism.""To be a well-informed citizen of Planet Earth, you need to read Elizabeth Kolbert. . . .

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
AIR COMPANY | Carbon Technology Leader for a Decarbonized Future

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
We are a carbon utilization company working with industries to create planetary change, taking Earth’s excess CO2 and converting it into carbon-negative alcohols and fuels.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
De uitspraak dat de Aarde een menselijke planeet is, wordt elke dag een beetje meer waar. Mensen zijn gemaakt van de Aarde en de Aarde is herschapen door mensenhanden. Wetenschappers stellen dat de Aarde een nieuw geologisch tijdvak heeft betreden: het Antropoceen, het Tijdperk van de Mens.

Wij academici, wetenschappers, campagnevoerders en burgers schrijven dit manifest in de overtuiging dat verstandig toegepaste kennis en technologie kunnen zorgen voor een goed en zelfs een groots Antropoceen. In een goed Antropoceen gebruikt de mens zijn groeiende sociale, economische en technologische vaardigheden om het leven beter te maken, het klimaat te stabiliseren en de natuur te beschermen.

Hierbij onderschrijven wij een oud ideaal, namelijk het idee dat de mensheid haar impact op het milieu moet verkleinen om plaats te maken voor natuur. Maar tegelijk verwerpen we het idee dat menselijke samenlevingen in harmonie moeten leven met de natuur om zo een economische en ecologische ineenstorting te vermijden.

Deze twee idealen zijn niet langer verzoenbaar. Natuurlijke systemen kunnen niet beschermd of verbeterd worden wanneer de mens er voor zijn levensonderhoud en welzijn in toenemende mate van afhangt.

Het intensiveren van tal van menselijke activiteiten (zoals landbouw, energiewinning, bosbouw en stadsontwikkeling) met als doel minder land te gebruiken en de impact op het milieu te verminderen, is de sleutel tot het loskoppelen van menselijke ontwikkeling en natuur. Deze socio-economische en technologische processen staan centraal in de economische modernisering en de milieubescherming. Samen zullen zij ons in staat stellen om de klimaatverandering binnen de perken te houden en armoede te verlichten.

Hoewel wij in het verleden onafhankelijk van elkaar schreven, worden onze visies en ideeën steeds meer als een geheel bediscussieerd. We noemen onszelf ecopragmatici en ecomodernisten. Wij schreven dit manifest om onze ideeën te verduidelijken en om toe te lichten hoe we de buitengewone krachten van de mensheid in dienst van een goed Antropoceen kunnen stellen.

1.

De laatste twee eeuwen floreert de mensheid. De gemiddelde levensverwachting steeg van 30 tot 70 jaar. Dat resulteerde in een grote en groeiende bevolking die kan overleven in zeer verschillende omgevingen. De mensheid heeft een buitengewone vooruitgang geboekt in het terugdringen van besmettelijke ziekten en hun gevolgen. Mensen zijn ook weerbaarder geworden tegenover extreme weersomstandigheden en natuurrampen.

Geweld nam in al haar vormen aanzienlijk af en is waarschijnlijk op haar laagste punt ooit, ondanks de verschrikkingen van de 20ste eeuw en het huidige terrorisme. Globaal gezien schoven mensen op van autocratische regeervormen naar de liberale democratie, gekenmerkt door de rechtsstaat en een groeiende vrijheid.

Persoonlijke, economische en politieke vrijheden verspreidden zich wereldwijd en worden vandaag ruim geaccepteerd als universele waarden. Modernisering bevrijdt vrouwen van traditionele rolpatronen, terwijl zij zelf steeds meer zeggenschap krijgen over de eigen vruchtbaarheid. Een historisch hoog aantal mensen - zowel in percentage als in absolute cijfers - is bevrijd van onzekerheid, schaarste en uitbuiting.

Tegelijkertijd heeft het menselijk succes een ernstige tol geëist van de natuurlijke, nietmenselijke omgeving en van de wilde dieren. Mensen hebben ongeveer de helft van het ijsvrije land in gebruik genomen. Vooral voor begrazing, het telen van gewassen en de productie van hout. 20 percent van het land dat ooit bebost was, is nu omgezet voor menselijk gebruik. Alleen al de laatste 40 jaar namen de populaties van vele zoogdieren, amfibieën en vogels met de helft af. Meer dan 100 soorten van deze klassen zijn uitgestorven in de 20ste eeuw en ongeveer 785 soorten sinds 1500. Terwijl we dit schrijven blijven nog maar vier noordelijke witte neushoorns over.

Omdat mensen volledig afhankelijk zijn van de levende biosfeer, moeten we ons afvragen hoe het mogelijk is dat ze zo veel schade aanrichten aan natuursystemen zonder zichzelf schade toe te brengen.

De rol van technologie in het reduceren van de menselijke afhankelijkheid van de natuur verklaart deze paradox. Menselijke technologieën - van degene die landbouw in staat stelden het jagen en verzamelen te vervangen tot de technologieën die de huidige geglobaliseerde economie voortstuwen - hebben ervoor gezorgd dat mensen minder afhankelijk zijn van de vele ecosystemen die hen ooit helemaal onderhielden, zelfs wanneer diezelfde ecosystemen daardoor zwaar beschadigd werden.

Ondanks de vaak gehoorde bewering sinds de jaren 1970 dat er fundamentele "grenzen aan de groei" zouden zijn, zijn er tot nu toe opvallend weinig bewijzen dat in de nabije toekomst de menselijke bevolking en de economische expansie de capaciteit om voedsel te verbouwen of om levensnoodzakelijke materialen te produceren zou overvleugelen.

Als er al fysieke grenzen aan menselijke consumptie zijn, dan zijn deze zo theoretisch dat ze functioneel irrelevant worden. De hoeveelheid zonnestralen die op de aarde botst bijvoorbeeld, is uiteindelijk wel eindig, maar op zich legt dit geen beperking op aan menselijke ondernemingen. De menselijke beschaving kan gedurende eeuwen en zelfs millennia draaien op energie die opgewekt wordt door kernsplitsing in uranium- of thoriumreactoren of door kernfusie (waterstof deuteriumfusie). Een goed beleid kan ervoor zorgen dat mensen niet het risico lopen op een gebrek aan landbouwgrond. Met genoeg land en ongelimiteerde energie is het mogelijk om alternatieven te zoeken voor andere materialen die nodig zijn voor het menselijk welzijn en die schaars en duur dreigen te worden.

Er zijn echter ernstige milieudreigingen die op de lange termijn het menselijk welzijn kunnen schaden, zoals antropogene klimaatverandering, de verarming van de ozonlaag in de stratosfeer en oceaanverzuring. Hoewel het moeilijk is om deze risico's te becijferen, is er genoeg bewijs dat ze een wezenlijk risico op een globale catastrofale impact op leefgemeenschappen en ecosystemen inhouden. Zelfs graduele, niet-catastrofale gevolgen die geassocieerd kunnen worden met deze bedreigingen, zullen waarschijnlijk uitmonden in aanzienlijke menselijke en economische kosten en in stijgende ecologische verliezen.

Grote delen van de wereldbevolking lijden echter onder meer directe lokale milieu- en gezondheidsrisico's. Luchtverontreiniging, zowel binnenshuis als buitenshuis, veroorzaakt jaarlijks nog steeds heel wat ziekte en de voortijdige dood van miljoenen mensen. Watervervuiling en ziekten die ontstaan in verontreinigde en gedegradeerde stroomgebieden veroorzaken gelijkaardig lijden.

2.

Hoewel de menselijke impact op het milieu in zijn totaal blijft stijgen, is er een waaier aan trends die op lange termijn voor een substantiële ontkoppeling van menselijk welzijn en milieu-impact kunnen zorgen.

Ontkoppeling manifesteert zich zowel in relatieve als in absolute termen. Relatieve ontkoppeling houdt in dat de menselijke impact op het milieu trager stijgt dan de gehele economische groei. Met andere woorden, voor elke eenheid van economische output is er minder impact op het milieu (bijvoorbeeld ontbossing, vervuiling of verlies aan dieren). De globale impact kan nog wel groter worden, maar verloopt trager dan anders het geval zou zijn. We spreken over absolute ontkoppeling wanneer de totale geaccumuleerde milieuimpact piekt en daarna afneemt, zelfs wanneer de economie verder blijft groeien.

Ontkoppeling kan gestimuleerd worden door technologische en demografische trends. Meestal is het een resultaat van een combinatie van beide.

De groeisnelheid van de menselijke bevolking heeft zijn hoogtepunt al bereikt. De huidige groei bedraagt één percent per jaar, lager dan de 2,1 percent in de jaren 1970. De vruchtbaarheidscijfers in landen die samen meer dan de helft van de wereldbevolking uitmaken, liggen lager dan het vervangingsniveau. De huidige bevolkingsgroei kan voornamelijk toegeschreven worden aan een langere levensduur en een daling van de kindersterfte; niet aan stijgende vruchtbaarheidscijfers. Gezien de huidige trends is het best mogelijk dat de omvang van de menselijke bevolking deze eeuw een hoogtepunt bereikt en dan begint af te nemen.

Trends in bevolkingsaantallen zijn onlosmakelijk verbonden met andere demografische en economische dynamieken. Het is de eerste keer in de geschiedenis van de mensheid dat meer dan de helft van de wereldbevolking in steden woont. Men verwacht dat tegen 2050 70 percent in steden zal wonen, een aantal dat waarschijnlijk stijgt tot 80 percent of meer tegen het einde van de eeuw. Steden kennen zowel een hoge bevolkingsdichtheid als lage vruchtbaarheidscijfers.

Steden beslaan slechts 1 à 3 percent van het aardoppervlak en toch bieden zij plaats aan bijna 4 miljard mensen. Zo stimuleren en symboliseren ze de menselijke loskoppeling van de natuur. Steden voorzien ook veel efficiënter dan plattelandseconomieën in onze materiële behoeften en ze verminderen onze impact op het milieu.

De groei van steden en de economische en ecologische voordelen die daar het gevolg van zijn, zijn onlosmakelijk verbonden aan verbeteringen in de landbouwproductiviteit. Omdat in de landbouw efficiënter gebruik wordt maakt van land en arbeid, ruilde landelijke bevolking het platteland in voor de stad. In 1880 werkte ruw genomen de helft van de bevolking van de Verenigde Staten op het land, vandaag is dat minder dan twee percent.

Verlost van hard labeur in de landbouw kwam een enorm menselijk potentieel vrij voor andere ondernemingen. De steden van vandaag zouden niet bestaan zonder de radicale vernieuwingen in delandbouw. Modernisering daarentegen, is niet mogelijk in een op zelfvoorziening gebaseerde landbouw.

Deze verbeteringen in de landbouwsector zorgden niet alleen voor een vermindering van de vereiste arbeid per eenheid geproduceerde output, maar ook voor een vermindering van het nodige land. Dit is geen nieuwe trend: stijgende opbrengsten zorgen al duizenden jaren voor een reductie van het land dat nodig is om de mens te voeden. Het gemiddelde landgebruik per hoofd ligt een pak lager dan 5000 jaar geleden, ondanks het feit dat de moderne mens een veel rijker dieet heeft. Dankzij technologische verbeteringen in de landbouw sinds 1960 halveerde de gemiddelde hoeveelheid land dat nodig is om gewassen te telen en om dieren te voederen.

Intensivering van de landbouw en het afnemend gebruik van hout als brandstof, heft gezorgd voor een netto herbebossing in vele delen van de wereld. Ongeveer 80 percent van New England is vandaag bebost, tegenover ongeveer 50 percent aan het einde van de 19de eeuw. Gedurende de laatste 20 jaar is de hoeveelheid land voor bosbouw en houtproductie met 50 miljoen hectare afgenomen, een gebied zo groot als Frankrijk. De "bostransitie" - van netto ontbossing tot netto bebossing - lijkt even kenmerkend voor ontwikkeling als de demografische transitie (waarbij het geboortecijfer vermindert) kenmerkend is voor de afname van armoede.

Ons gebruik van andere hulpbronnen kwam op een gelijkaardige manier tot een hoogtepunt. De hoeveelheid water nodig voor een gemiddeld dieet nam met bijna 25 percent af gedurende de laatste halve eeuw. Stikstofvervuiling blijft verantwoordelijk voor eutrofiëring en grote dode zones in bijvoorbeeld de Golf van Mexico. Terwijl de totale hoeveelheid vervuiling door stikstof toeneemt, neemt het gebruik per productie-eenheid aantoonbaar af in de ontwikkelde landen.

In tegenstelling tot de vaak geuite angst dat een eindeloze groei zal botsen met een eindige planeet, kan de vraag naar tal van goederen verzadigd geraken wanneer gemeenschappen rijker worden. Vleesconsumptie bijvoorbeeld, is over haar hoogtepunt heen in vele rijke landen en verschuift van rundvlees naar proteïnebronnen waarvoor minder land nodig is.

Eens aan de vraag naar goederen voldaan is, dan zien we in ontwikkelde economieën hogere uitgaven voor diensten en kennissectoren. Die vereisen minder materiaalgebruik en staan in voor een groeiend aandeel in de economische activiteit. Deze dynamiek is mogelijk nog sterker in de opkomende economieën. Zij kunnen hun voordeel doen bij het feit dat ze meteen kunnen gebruikmaken van grondstof-efficiënte technologieën.

Neemt men al deze trends samen, dan betekent dit dat de totale menselijke impact op de omgeving, inclusief het landgebruik, overexploitatie en vervuiling, deze eeuw kan pieken en vervolgens afnemen. Door deze opkomende processen te begrijpen en te bevorderen kunnen we de Aarde vergroenen en tal van wilde dieren herintroduceren. Zelfs wanneer de ontwikkelingslanden moderne levensstandaarden bereiken en wanneer er wereldwijd een einde komt aan materiële armoede.

3.

Het proces van ontkoppeling zoals we het hierboven beschreven, vecht het idee aan dat vroegere menselijke leefgemeenschappen minder wogen op het land dan moderne samenlevingen. Als oudere gemeenschappen al minder impact hadden op hun omgeving, dan was dat louter en alleen omdat deze gemeenschappen beduidend kleinere populaties moesten onderhouden.

Populaties met minder geavanceerde technologieën hadden zelfs een veel grotere individuele ecologische voetafdruk dan gemeenschappen nu. Laat ons niet vergeten dat een bevolking van niet meer dan een à twee miljoen Noord-Amerikanen in het late Pleistoceen de grote zoogdieren bejaagden en uitroeiden. Tegelijk kapten ze over heel het continent bossen of brandden deze plat. De mens bleef de omgeving ingrijpend veranderen doorheen het Holoceen, in die mate dat drie vierde van de ontbossing wereldwijd plaatsvond vóór de Industriële Revolutie.

De technologie die onze voorouders gebruikten om aan hun behoeften te voldoen, ondersteunde veel lagere levensstandaarden met een veel hogere impact op het milieu per hoofd. Wars van massale menselijk sterfte zou elke poging om menselijke gemeenschappen met behulp van deze technologieën terug te koppelen aan de natuur een regelrechte ecologische en menselijke catastrofe tot gevolg hebben.

Over heel de wereld worden ecosystemen bedreigd omdat mensen er overdreven veel op steunen. Mensen die afhangen van brandhout en houtskool als brandstof, kappen envernielen bossen. Mensen die bushmeat eten, bejagen zoogdieren tot op de rand van uitsterven. Of het nu de inheemse bevolking is die ervan profiteert of een buitenlands bedrijf, de nog steeds voortdurende menselijke afhankelijkheid van de natuurlijke omgeving vormt het hoofdprobleem voor de natuurbescherming.

Anderzijds bieden moderne technologieën die efficiënter gebruik maken van natuurlijke ecosysteemdiensten een echte kans om onze impact op de biosfeer te reduceren. Het omarmen van deze technologieën is een weg die kan leiden naar een goed Antropoceen.

Uiteraard hebben de moderniseringsprocessen die de mensheid steeds meer losmaakten van de natuur een negatieve kant aangezien ze ook de natuurlijke omgeving aantastten. Fossiele brandstoffen, mechanisatie en fabricage, kunstmeststoffen en pesticiden, elektrificatie, modern transport en communicatietechnologieën hebben in de eerste plaats een grotere bevolkingsgroei en meer consumptie mogelijk gemaakt. Als de technologieënsinds de Donkere Middeleeuwen niet verbeterd waren, dan was de menselijke bevolking zonder twijfel ook niet sterk gegroeid.

Het is ook waar dat grote aantallen van steeds welvarender stedelingen een groter beroep doen op ver afgelegen ecosystemen. De ontginning van natuurlijke hulpbronnen is immers geglobaliseerd. Anderzijds kregen mensen toegang tot voedsel, beschutting, warmte, licht en mobiliteit via technologieën die veel efficiënter zijn qua bron- en landgebruik dan eender wanneer in de menselijke geschiedenis.

Het menselijk welzijn loskoppelen van de vernieling van de natuur vereist een bewuste versnelling van opkomende ontkoppelingsprocessen. In sommige gevallen is het doel de ontwikkeling van technologische substituten. Bijvoorbeeld: om de ontbossing en luchtvervuiling binnenshuis tegen te gaan is er een substitutie (vervanging) nodig van hout en houtskool door moderne energiebronnen.

In andere gevallen zou de mensheid hulpbronnen productiever moeten gebruiken. Zo kan verhoging van de oogst de omzetting van bos tot grasland en landbouwgrond tegengaan. Mensen moeten manieren vinden om de natuur los te maken van de economie.

Verstedelijking, intensivering van de landbouw, kernenergie, aquacultuur en ontzilting zijn allemaal processen met een aangetoond potentieel om de menselijke druk op het milieu te verkleinen en zo meer ruimte te creëren voor niet-menselijke soorten. De ontwikkeling van voorsteden, landbouw met een lage opbrengst en vele vormen van hernieuwbare energie vragen daarentegen over het algemeen meer land en hulpbronnen en laten minder ruimte over voor natuur.

Deze patronen suggereren dat mensen even geneigd zijn natuur te sparen omdat ze niet nodig is om hun noden te vervullen, als dat ze natuur willen sparen om esthetische en spirituele redenen. De delen van de planeet die mensen nog niet ingrijpend veranderden, bleven meestal gespaard omdat mensen er nog geen economisch nuttig gebruik voor vonden - namelijk bergen, woestijnen, boreale wouden en andere "marginale" regio's.

Ontkoppeling verhoogt de mogelijkheid dat de impact van de mens een piek bereikt zonder dat hij nog meer relatief ongerepte gebieden binnendringt. Ongebruikte natuur is gespaarde natuur.

4.

Een ruime toegang tot moderne energiebronnen is een essentiële vereiste voor menselijke ontwikkeling en voor de loskoppeling van menselijke ontwikkeling en natuur. De beschikbaarheid van goedkope energie laat arme mensen in de hele wereld toe om te stoppen met bossen te gebruiken als energiebron. Het stelt mensen in staat om meer voedsel te verbouwen op minder land, dankzij energie-intensieve input van meststoffen en tractoren. Energie laat mensen toe afvalwater te recycleren en zeewater te ontzilten om zo rivieren en bronnen te sparen. Het laat mensen toe om metaal en plastic op een goedkopere manier te recycleren in plaats van nieuwe minerale bronnen te ontginnen, verwerken en raffineren. Als we vooruit kijken, dan kan moderne energie stikstof uit de atmosfeer capteren om zo de hoeveelheid geaccumuleerde stikstof (die de klimaatverandering aandrijft), te verminderen.

De laatste drie eeuwen loopt de groeiende energieproductie wereldwijd gelijk met stijgende CO2-concentraties in de atmosfeer. In diezelfde periode werkten verschillende landen aan het koolstofarmer maken van hun economieën. Maar het tempo waarop ze dat gedaan hebben, lag niet hoog genoeg om ervoor te zorgen dat de cumulatieve koolstofemissies laag genoeg blijven om onder het internationaal vastgestelde doel van minder dan 2°C opwarming uit te komen. Een noodzakelijke beperking van de gevolgen van de klimaatverandering vereist dan ook dat mensen de bestaande processen voor het koolstofarmer maken sterk moeten versnellen.

Er heerst echter nog veel verwarring over hoe we dit kunnen verwezenlijken. In ontwikkelingslanden is de stijgende energieconsumptie nauw verbonden aan stijgende inkomens en hogere levensstandaarden. Hoewel het gebruik van vele andere materialen zoals stikstof, hout en land naar een hoogtepunt groeit, suggereert het centrale belang van energie in de menselijke ontwikkeling en haar vele toepassingen als een substituut voor materiële en menselijke middelen dat de energieconsumptie zal blijven stijgen doorheen een groot stuk van de 21ste eeuw en waarschijnlijk zelfs tot het einde ervan.

Vandaar dat elk conflict tussen klimaatmitigatie en de ontwikkelingsprocessen (via dewelke miljarden mensen wereldwijd moderne levensstandaarden bereiken) zal beslecht worden in voordeel van die ontwikkeling.

Klimaatverandering en andere ecologische uitdagingen zijn niet de meest belangrijke of meest onmiddellijke zorg voor het merendeel van de wereldbevolking. Dat zouden ze ook niet mogen zijn. Een nieuwe kolencentrale in Bangladesh kan dan wel luchtvervuiling en stijgende co2-emissies met zich meebrengen, ze zal ook mensenlevens redden. Voor miljoenen mensen die leven zonder licht en die niet anders kunnen dan mest te verbranden om hun voedsel te bereiden, bieden elektriciteit en moderne brandstoffen een weg naar een beter leven. Wat de precieze oorsprong ervan ook moge zijn en zelfs als die energiebronnen tegelijkertijd nieuwe ecologische uitdagingen met zich meebrengen.

Een betekenisvolle beperking van de klimaatverandering is in de grond een technologische uitdaging. Hiermee bedoelen we dat zelfs drastische, wereldwijde consumptiebeperking onvoldoende zou zijn om tot een aanzienlijke klimaatmitigatie te komen. Zonder fundamentele technologische veranderingen is er geen geloofwaardige weg naar een klimaatmitigatie van betekenis. Men is het niet eens over welke technologiemix de beste is en wij hebben alleen weet van gekwantificeerde klimaatmitigatiescenario's waarbij technologische veranderingen verantwoordelijk zijn voor het overgrote deel van de uitstootreducties.

De specifieke technologische keuzes die we kunnen maken met het oog op klimaatmitigatie, blijven het onderwerp van verhitte discussies. Theoretische scenario's reflecteren gewoonlijk de technologische voorkeur en analytische aannames van hun bedenkers. Al te vaak vergeten deze om de kosten, de tijd en de schaal in te calculeren die nodig zijn om koolstofarme energietechnologieën te implementeren.

De geschiedenis van energietransities suggereert dat er altijd al consistente patronen waren in de wegen die samenlevingen namen richting schonere energiebronnen. Zowat alle gemeenschappen die hun koolstofuitstoot verminderden deden dat door brandstoffen van lagere kwaliteit (i.e. meer koolstofintensief en met een lagere energiedichtheid) te vervangen door brandstoffen met een hogere kwaliteit (i.e. minder koolstofintensief en met een hogere energiedichtheid). Dit toont de weg naar een versnelde vermindering in de toekomst. De transitie naar een wereld die aangedreven wordt door koolstofvrije energiebronnen vereist technologieën met een hoge energiedichtheid die opgeschaald kunnen worden tot in de tientallen terawatt om de groeiende economie te doen draaien.

Met de meeste vormen van hernieuwbare energie is dit helaas niet haalbaar. Biobrandstoffen en vele andere hernieuwbare energiebronnen zouden te veel land nodig hebben en een dusdanige milieu-impact dat wij betwijfelen of ze wel een weg kunnen vormen naar een koolstofvrije toekomst met een kleine voetafdruk.

Efficiënte zonnecellen gemaakt van veelvoorkomende materialen zijn hierop een uitzondering. Ze hebben de mogelijkheid om vele tientallen terawatts te produceren op een paar procent van het aardoppervlak. Hedendaagse technieken op het gebied van zonneenergie vereisen fundamentele innovaties om aan deze standaard te voldoen en vereisen de ontwikkeling van goedkope opslagtechnologieën die in staat zijn om op grote schaal een erg variabele energieproductie te ondervangen.

Kernsplijting is vandaag de dag de enige koolstofvrije technologie die effectief beantwoordt aan de meeste of zelfs aan alle energievereisten die een moderne economie stelt. En toch maakt een waaier aan sociale, economische en institutionele uitdagingen de inzet van hedendaagse nucleaire technologieën - op een schaal die nodig is om een significante beperking van de gevolgen van de klimaatverandering te verwezenlijken - onwaarschijnlijk. Een nieuwe generatie van nucleaire technologieën die veiliger en goedkoper zijn, blijkt nodig om kernenergie te brengen tot een punt waarop het zijn potentieel vervult als klimaatmatigende technologie.

Op lange termijn vertegenwoordigen zonne-energie (van de volgende generatie), geavanceerde kernsplijting en kernfusie de meest plausibele manieren om aan de gezamenlijke doelstellingen van klimaatstabilisatie en de radicale loskoppeling van mens en natuur te voldoen. Als de geschiedenis van energietransities een leidraad is, dan zal de overgang evenwel tijd vragen. Tijdens die transitie kunnen andere energiebronnen belangrijke sociale en ecologische voordelen bieden. Zo kunnen bijvoorbeeld waterkrachtcentrales een goedkope bron zijn van koolstofarme energie voor arme landen, zelfs als hun ecologische voetafdruk qua land- en watergebruik relatief groot is. Fossiele brandstoffen in combinatie met koolstofafvang en -opslag kunnen op een gelijkaardige manier voordelen bieden ten opzichte van fossiele brandstoffen of energie gewonnen uit biomassa.

Het ethische en pragmatische pad naar een eerlijke en duurzame globale energie-economie vraagt dat mensen zo snel mogelijk overschakelen op bronnen die goedkoop, proper, energiedicht en overvloedig aanwezig zijn. Zo'n weg heeft blijvende publieke steun nodig voor de ontwikkeling en toepassing van propere energietechnologieën. In een breder kader is deze publieke steun nodig voor wereldwijde modernisering en ontwikkeling.

5.

We schrijven dit document vanuit een warme liefde voor natuur en vanuit een nauwe emotionele band met de natuur. De natuur waarderen, ontdekken, proberen te begrijpen en te cultiveren is voor velen overweldigd. Zo leggen ze contact met hun diepere evolutionaire geschiedenis. Zelfs wanneer mensen de wilde natuur nooit direct ervaren, noemen ze het bestaan ervan belangrijk voor hun psychologisch en spiritueel welzijn.

Mensen zullen tot op zekere hoogte altijd materieel afhankelijk zijn van de natuur. Zelfs als een volledig synthetische wereld mogelijk zou blijken, dan nog zouden velen onder ons verkiezen om meer gekoppeld aan de natuur te leven dan dit technologich en voor hun levensonderhoud strikt noodzakelijk zou zijn. Ontkoppeling maakt echter wel mogelijk dat de menselijke materiële afhankelijkheid van de natuur minder destructief wordt.

Het pleidooi voor een actievere, bewustere en versnelde ontkoppeling is daarom meer gebaseerd op spirituele en esthetische motieven dan op materialistische of utilitaire. Huidige en toekomstige generaties zouden voorspoedig kunnen overleven met veel minder biodiversiteit en minder wilde natuur. Maar dat is niet een wereld die we willen, of een wereld die we moeten accepteren als mensen het ontkoppelingsproces omarmen.

Wat we hier natuur noemen, of zelfs wilde natuur, omvat landschappen, zeegezichten, biomen en ecosystemen die gedurende eeuwen en millennia regelmatig (en eerder wel dan niet) door menselijke invloeden veranderd werden. Wetenschappen gericht op natuurbehoud en de concepten van natuurbehoud, complexiteit en oorspronkelijkheid zijn nuttig, maar kunnen op zich niet bepalen welke landschappen te bewaren en hoe dit te doen.

In de meeste gevallen is er geen een enkel beginpunt van voor de periode van de menselijke veranderingen naar waar de natuur zou kunnen terugkeren. Pogingen om landschappen te herstellen naar een vroegere staat (van "oorspronkelijkheid") kunnen de verwijdering inhouden van recent gearriveerde soorten ("invasieven"). Dat kan een netto reductie van de lokale biodiversiteit betekenen. In andere gevallen kunnen gemeenschappen beslissen om de oorspronkelijkheid op te offeren voor iets nieuws en voor biodiversiteit.

Uitdrukkelijke pogingen om landschappen te bewaren voor hun niet-utilitaire waarde zijn onvermijdelijk antropogene keuzes. En daarom zijn alle inspanningen tot instandhouding fundamenteel antropogeen. Het beschermen van de natuur is niet meer of minder een menselijke keuze in dienst van menselijke voorkeuren dan het platwalsen van die natuur. Mensen zullen wilde streken en landschappen beschermen door hun medeburgers ervan te overtuigen dat die plaatsen en de wezens die er rondwaren die bescherming waard zijn. Mensen kunnen kiezen voor enkele ecodiensten (zoals waterzuivering en bescherming tegen overstromingen) die voorzien worden door natuurlijke systemen (zoals bosrijke waterscheidingen, riffen, moerassen en watergebieden), zelfs wanneer die natuurlijke systemen duurder zijn dan de bouw van waterzuiveringsstations, zeeweringen en dijken. Maar eenvormige pasklare oplossingen zijn er niet.

Verschillende lokale, historische en culturele voorkeuren zullen de omgeving vormgeven. Terwijl we geloven dat het intensiveren van landbouw om land uit te sparen belangrijk is voor de natuurbescherming, erkennen we dat tal van gemeenschapen zullen blijven kiezen voor een "gedeeld" landgebruik om zo fauna en flora te beschermen binnen de landbouw eerder dan de gronden terug te geven aan de wilde natuur in de vorm van grasland, struikgewas of bos. Waar ontkoppeling de druk op landschappen en ecosystemen doet afnemen om tegemoet te komen aan menselijke basisbehoeften, moeten landeigenaars, gemeenschappen en regeringen nog steeds beslissen voor welke esthetisch of economisch doel ze het land willen gebruiken.

Versnelde ontkoppeling op zich zal niet genoeg zijn om voor meer wilde natuur te zorgen. Er moet nog steeds een beleid zijn voor de bescherming ervan en een natuurbeweging die meer wilde natuur eist om esthetische en spirituele redenen. Tegelijk met het ontkoppelen van de menselijke materiële behoeften vraagt een blijvend engagement om de wildernis, de biodiversiteit en een mozaïek aan mooie landschappen te beschermen de ontwikkeling van een diepere emotionele band ermee.

6.

Er is nood aan en een menselijke capaciteit voor een versnelde, actieve en bewuste ontkoppeling. Technologische vooruitgang is niet onvermijdelijk. De ontkoppeling van milieuimpact en economische output komt niet vanzelf tot stand uit marktgestuurde vernieuwing of een efficiënt antwoord op schaarste. De lange reeks menselijke aanpassingen aan de natuurlijke omgeving met behulp van technologie begon lang voor er iets bestond dat enige gelijkenis vertoonde met een markt of een prijssignaal. Door stijgende vraag, schaarste, inspiratie en serendipiteit zijn mensen de wereld al millennia lang aan het herschapen.

Technologische oplossingen voor milieuproblemen moeten ook binnen een bredere sociale, economische en politieke context beschouwd worden. We denken dat het onproductief is dat landen zoals Duitsland en Japan en staten zoals Californië installaties voor kernenergie sluiten. Zo maken ze hun energiesectoren terug koolstofrijker en koppelen ze hun economie opnieuw aan fossiele brandstoffen en biomassa. Anderzijds tonen deze voorbeelden duidelijk aan dat technologische keuzes niet bepaald worden door verre internationale organen, maar eerder door nationale en lokale instituten en cultuur.

Al te vaak wordt modernisering vereenzelvigd met kapitalisme, machtige bedrijven en laissez-faire-economie, zowel door de verdedigers als door de critici ervan. Wij verwerpen zulke vereenvoudigingen. Wat wij bedoelen met modernisering is de lange-termijnevolutie van sociale, economische, politieke en technologische maatregelen in menselijke gemeenschappen die het materiële welzijn, de volksgezondheid, de productiviteit van hulpbronnen, economische integratie, gedeelde infrastructuur en persoonlijke vrijheid fundamenteel verbeteren.

Modernisering bevrijdde steeds meer mensen van een leven vol armoede en harde labeur in de landbouw, bevrijdde vrouwen van een onderworpen positie, kinderen en etnische minderheden van onderdrukking en gemeenschappen van een grillig en willekeurig bestuur. Grotere productiviteit van hulpbronnen geassocieerd met moderne socio-technologische systemen bood leefgemeenschappen de mogelijkheid om aan menselijke noden tegemoet te komen met minder input van hulpbronnen en met minder impact op de natuur. Productievere economieën zijn rijkere economieën die beter in staat zijn om menselijke noden te ledigen. Grotere delen van hun economische surplus kunnen besteed worden aan niet-economische voorzieningen, zoals een betere menselijke gezondheid, grotere menselijke vrijheden en kansen, kunsten, cultuur en de bescherming van de natuur.

Moderniseringsprocessen zijn verre van volledig, zelfs in geavanceerde en hoogontwikkelde economieën. De consumptie van materiaal heeft nog maar net een hoogtepunt bereikt in de rijkste samenlevingen. Het ontkoppelen van menselijk welzijn en milieu-impact vereist een doorgedreven engagement voor technologische vooruitgang en de voortdurende evolutie van sociale, economische en politieke instituten.

Versnelde technologische vooruitgang vergt een actieve, assertieve en agressieve deelname van privéondernemers, de markten, de civiele samenleving en de staat. We verwerpen de misvatting van de planeconomie van de jaren 1950 maar geloven in een sterke rol voor de overheid voor de aanpak van milieuproblemen en voor de versnelling van technologische innovatie. Ook zien we een sterke overheidsrol bij onderzoek naar betere technologieën, subsidies en andere maatregelen om deze innovaties op de markt te krijgen en voor de ontwikkeling van regelgeving om gevaren voor het milieu te beperken. Verder is een internationale samenwerking bij technologische innovatie en technologieoverdracht essentieel in de landbouw- en energiesector.

7.

Wij bieden dit manifest aan in de overtuiging dat menselijke voorspoed én een ecologisch bruisende planeet niet alleen mogelijk zijn, maar dat ze ook onlosmakelijk met elkaar verbonden zijn. Wij geloven dat zo'n toekomst mogelijk is door ons te verbinden aan reële processen die al gestart zijn met het loskoppelen van menselijk welzijn en de vernieling van het milieu. Wij omarmen dan ook een optimistische visie op het menselijk kunnen en de toekomst.

Wij hopen dat dit document zal bijdragen aan een verbetering van de kwaliteit en de teneur van de dialoog over milieubescherming in de 21ste eeuw. Al te vaak worden discussies over het milieu gedomineerd door extremen en geplaagd door dogmatisme. Zij werken onverdraagzaamheid in de hand. Wij hechten een grote waarde aan de liberale principes van democratie, verdraagzaamheid en pluralisme en beschouwen deze principes als sleutelelementen in het bereiken van een groots Antropoceen. We hopen dat deze verklaring een stap vooruit is in de dialoog over hoe we universele menselijke waardigheid kunnen bereiken op een biodiverse en bruisende planeet.
Vertaald door Frank Verhoft and Bart Coenen.
***

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
De uitspraak dat de Aarde een menselijke planeet is, wordt elke dag een beetje meer waar. Mensen zijn gemaakt van de Aarde en de Aarde is herschapen door mensenhanden. Wetenschappers stellen dat de Aarde een nieuw geologisch tijdvak heeft betreden: het Antropoceen, het Tijdperk van de Mens.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A team of designers led by Faris Rajak Kotahatuhaha proposes re-freezing sea water in the Arctic to create miniature modular icebergs using a submarine-like vessel, in a bid to combat climate change.

The Indonesian designer worked on the prototype with collaborators Denny Lesmana Budi and Fiera Alifa for an international competition organised by the Association of Siamese Architects.

The team was awarded second prize in the contest for its geoengineering proposal to re-freeze the Arctic and transform sea water into new ice fields.

Kotahatuhaha's team set out to create a prototype for the "re-iceberg-isation" of parts of the Arctic by freezing seawater into hexagonal blocks of ice that nest together to form new ice floes.

"The main goal of this idea is to restore the polar ecosystem, which has a direct effect on the balance of the global climate," said the designer, adding that in this scenario "it is better to prevent than cure".

MIT's Self-Assembly Lab proposes new way of growing islands and coastlines

The concept is a proactive response to issues related to the melting of the earth's polar ice. The designers felt that too much emphasis is currently being placed on protecting cities from rising sea-levels rather than tackling the problem at its source.

In New York City, architecture firm BIG is working on a large-scale flood defence system to protect Lower Manhattan from tidal surges, while Hassell and MVRDV have proposed a series of measures designed to protect San Francisco and the surrounding Bay Area from the encroaching ocean.

The submarine-like vessel would submerge to collect sea water in a central hexagonal tank. Turbines would then be used to blast the tank with cold air and accelerate the freezing process.

During this process, the vessel would return to the surface of the sea and the tank would be covered to protect it from sunlight. A system of reverse osmosis would be used to filter some of the salt from the water in order to speed up the process.

Once the water is frozen, the vessel would submerge again, leaving behind an "ice baby" with a volume of 2,027 cubic-metres. These miniature icebergs would then cluster together in a honeycomb pattern to form a larger ice floe.

Multiple vessels could be used to continuously repeat the process and gradually rebuild the ice caps.

The submarines would be large enough to accommodate additional functions like polar research centres and underwater hotels that Kotahatuhaha suggested could help to fund the project.

Other radical proposals developed in response to rising sea levels include a series of giant floating umbrellas that could also help to replenish Arctic ice shelves, and a method for aiding the growth of beaches and islands in vulnerable coastal regions.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Iceberg-making submarine aims to tackle global warming by re-freezing the Arctic

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A team of designers led by Faris Rajak Kotahatuhaha proposes re-freezing sea water in the Arctic to create miniature modular icebergs using a submarine-like vessel, in a bid to combat climate change. The Indonesian designer worked on the prototype with collaborators Denny Lesmana Budi and Fiera Alifa for an international competition organised by the Association of Siamese Architects.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Two centuries of burning fossil fuels have put more carbon dioxide, a powerful greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere than nature can remove.

As that CO2 builds up, it traps excess heat near Earth's surface, causing global warming. There is so much CO2 in the atmosphere now that most scenarios show ending emissions alone won't be enough to stabilize the climate - humanity will also have to remove CO2 from the air.

The U.S. Department of Energy has a new goal to scale up direct air capture, a technology that uses chemical reactions to capture CO2 from the air. While federal funding for carbon capture often draws criticism because some people see it as an excuse for fossil fuel use to continue, carbon removal in some form will likely still be necessary, IPCC reports show.

Technology to remove carbon mechanically is in development and operating at a very small scale, in part because current methods are prohibitively expensive and energy-intensive. But new techniques are being tested this year that could help lower the energy demand and cost.

We asked Arizona State University professor Klaus Lackner, a pioneer in direct air capture and carbon storage, about the state of the technology and where it's headed.
What is direct carbon removal, and why is it considered necessary?
When I got interested in carbon management in the early 1990s, what drove me was the observation that carbon piles up in the environment. It takes nature thousands of years to remove that CO2, and we're on a trajectory toward much higher CO2 concentrations, well beyond anything humans have experienced.

Humanity can't afford to have increasing amounts of excess carbon floating around in the environment, so we have to get it back out.

Not all emissions are from large sources, like power plants or factories, where we can capture CO2 as it comes out. So we need to deal with the other half of emissions - from cars, planes, taking a hot shower while your gas furnace is putting out CO2. That means pulling CO2 out of the air.

Since CO2 mixes quickly in the air, it doesn't matter where in the world the CO2 is removed - the removal has the same impact. So we can place direct air capture technology right where we plan to use or store the CO2.

The method of storage is also important. Storing CO2 for just 60 years or 100 years isn't good enough. If 100 years from now all that carbon is back in the environment, all we did was take care of ourselves, and our grandkids have to figure it out again. In the meantime, the world's energy consumption is growing at about two percent per year.
One of the complaints about direct air capture, in addition to the cost, is that it's energy-intensive. Can that energy use be reduced?
Two large energy uses in direct air capture are running fans to draw in air and then heating to extract the CO2. There are ways to reduce energy demand for both.

For example, we stumbled into a material that attracts CO2 when it's dry and releases it when wet. We realized we could expose that material to wind, and it would load up with CO2. Then we could make it wet, and it would release the CO2 in a way that requires far less energy than other systems. Adding heat created from renewable energy raises the CO2 pressure even higher, so we have a CO2 gas mixed with water vapor from which we can collect pure CO2.

Climeworks, a Swiss company, has 15 plants removing carbon dioxide from the air.

Climeworks

We can save even more energy if the capture is passive - it isn't necessary to have fans blowing the air around; the air moves on its own.

My lab is creating a method to do this, called mechanical trees. They're tall vertical columns of discs coated with a chemical resin, about five feet in diameter, with the discs about two inches apart, like a stack of records.

As the air blows through, the surfaces of the discs absorb CO2. After 20 minutes or so, the discs are full, and they sink into a barrel below. We send in water and steam to release the CO2 into a closed environment, and now we have a low-pressure mixture of water vapor and CO2.

We can recover most of the heat that went into heating up the box, so the amount of energy needed for heating is quite small.

By using moisture, we can avoid about half the energy consumption and use renewable energy for the rest. This does require water and dry air, so it won't be ideal everywhere, but there are also other methods.
Can CO2 be safely stored long-term, and is there enough of that type of storage?
I started working on the concept of mineral sequestration in the 1990s, leading a group at Los Alamos. The world can actually put CO2 away permanently by taking advantage of the fact that it's an acid and certain rocks are base.

When CO2 reacts with minerals that are rich in calcium, it forms solid carbonates. By mineralizing the CO2 like this, we can store a nearly unlimited amount of carbon permanently.

For example, there's lots of basalt - volcanic rock - in Iceland that reacts with CO2 and turns it into solid carbonates within a few months. Iceland could sell certificates of carbon sequestration to the rest of the world because it puts CO2 away for the rest of the world.

There are also huge underground reservoirs from oil production in the Permian Basin in Texas. There are large saline aquifers. In the North Sea, a kilometer below the ocean floor, the energy company Equinor has been capturing CO2 from a gas processing plant and storing a million tons of CO2 a year since 1996, avoiding Norway's tax on CO2 releases. The amount of underground storage where we can do mineral sequestration is far larger than we will ever need for CO2. The question is how much can be converted into a proven reserve.

We can also use direct air capture to close the carbon loop - meaning CO2 is reused, captured, and reused again to avoid producing more.

Right now, people use carbon from fossil fuels to extract energy. You can convert CO2 to synthetic fuels - gasoline, diesel, or kerosene - that have no carbon in them by mixing the CO2 with green hydrogen created with renewable energy.

That fuel can easily ship through existing pipelines and be stored for years, so you can produce heat and electricity in Boston on a winter night using energy that was collected as sunshine in West Texas last summer. A tankful of "synfuel" doesn't cost much, and it's more cost-effective than a battery.
The Department of Energy set a new goal to slash the costs of carbon dioxide removal to US$100 per ton and quickly scale it up within a decade. What has to happen to make that a reality?
DOE is scaring me because they make it sound like the technology is already ready. After neglecting the technology for 30 years, we can't just say there are companies who know how to do it and all we have to do is push it along. We have to assume this is a nascent technology.

Climeworks is the largest company doing direct capture commercially, and it sells CO2 at around $500 to $1,000 per ton. That's too expensive. On the other hand, at $50 per ton, the world could do it. I think we can get there.

The U.S. consumes about seven million tons of CO2 a year in merchant CO2 - think fizzy drinks, fire extinguishers, grain silos use it to control grain powder, which is an explosion hazard. The average price is $60-$150. So below $100, you have a market.

What you really need is a regulatory framework that says we demand CO2 is put away, and then the market will move from capturing kilotons of CO2 today to capturing gigatons of CO2.
Where do you see this technology going in 10 years?
I see a world that abandons fossil fuels, probably gradually but has the mandate to capture and store all the CO2 long term.

Our recommendation is when carbon comes out of the ground, it should be matched with an equal removal. If you produce one ton of carbon associated with coal, oil, or gas, you need to put one ton away. It doesn't have to be the same ton, but there has to be a certificate of sequestration that assures it has been put away, and it has to last more than 100 years. If all carbon is certified from the moment it comes out of the ground, it's harder to cheat the system.

A big unknown is how hard industry and society will push to become carbon-neutral. It's encouraging to see companies like Microsoft and Stripe buying carbon credits and certificates to remove CO2 and willing to pay fairly high prices.

New technology can take a decade or two to penetrate, but if the economic pull is there, things can go fast. The first commercial jet was available in 1951. By 1965 they were ubiquitous.
This article was originally published on The Conversation by Klaus Lackner at Arizona State University. Read the original article here.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How "mechanical trees" could solve a huge climate change problem

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Two centuries of burning fossil fuels have put more carbon dioxide, a powerful greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere than nature can remove. As that CO2 builds up, it traps excess heat near Earth's surface, causing global warming.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
As California endures its worst drought in 1,200 years, residents of the Golden State are turning to extreme-and desperate-measures to quench their collective thirst. Sun-baked farmers are hiring "water witches" to divine underground water sources with forked branches, while a company called Rain on Request has pledged to end the drought by building electrical towers that would induce rainfall by ionizing the atmosphere. When California found itself in a similar parched position exactly 100 years ago, the city of San Diego did something that seems even more bizarre-it hired a rainmaker. The thing is, it might have worked. After Charles Mallory Hatfield began his work to wring water from the skies, San Diego experienced its wettest period in recorded history. So was the rain an act of God or an act of Hatfield?

"I do not make rain. That would be an absurd claim. I simply attract clouds, and they do the rest."

A century ago, in 1915, as today, San Diego thirsted for water. Dangerously low reservoir levels threatened the region's potential to grow. Promoters of the city's Panama-California Exposition, entering its second year, worried about the drought's impact on fair attendance. A civic organization, the San Diego Wide Awake Improvement Club, demanded action.

Onto the arid stage-and into San Diego's city council chamber on December 13, 1915-stepped a potential savior. A dapper, 40-year-old sewing machine salesman named Charles Mallory Hatfield vowed to make it rain. As Barbara Tuthill details in "Hatfield the Rainmaker," the self-professed "moisture accelerator" told the councilors that he could have the Morena Reservoir-only one-third full at the time-overflowing within a year for a fee of $10,000, to be paid only if he succeeded.

Hatfield's path to San Diego started more than a decade earlier in nearby Bonsall. There, on his father's ranch, Hatfield conducted his first rainmaking experiments from the top of a windmill tower.

By 1904, he was able to convince some of California's water-starved ranchers and farmers that he could milk the skies by releasing a secret 23-chemical cocktail into the air from tall wooden towers perched on stilts. "I do not make rain," Hatfield said. "That would be an absurd claim. I simply attract clouds, and they do the rest."

In December of 1904, he guaranteed Los Angeles business leaders that he could coax 18 inches of rain to fall over the ensuing five months in return for $1,000. When the target was eclipsed, the rainmaker became a star. " Hatfield immediately became the darling of excitement-hungry newspapers and popular magazines," wrote scholar Clark C. Spence.

Although a salesman by trade, Hatfield was no smooth-talking huckster. Born into a devout Quaker family, he had a polite, homespun manner. His piercing eyes were as blue as water, and his eerily pale skin suggested that he had little affinity for the sun.

Hatfield's Predecessors

As scholar James Rodger Fleming pointed out, Hatfield followed in the soggy footsteps of a line of scientists and pseudo-scientists who claimed they could make the skies weep. The founding father of American rainmaking was perhaps James Pollard Espy, "the leading meteorologist of his day" according to Fleming. In his 1841 book The Philosophy of Storms, Espy claimed that by moving humid air currents upward into the cooler layers of the atmosphere, condensation would occur and rain could be artificially induced. After being hired as the country's first federally funded meteorologist the following year, Espy tested his thermal theory of storms by intentionally setting forest fires to create massive updrafts, but the experiments fizzled along with his thesis.

Plutarch, noted that "extraordinary rains pretty generally fall after great battles."

Other "pluviculturists," the term for pseudo-scientists engaged in rainmaking, believed they could shoot the moisture out of the sky through shock and awe, a notion that dated back to Plutarch, who noted that "extraordinary rains pretty generally fall after great battles." In 1871's War and the Weather, Edward Powers itemized more than 200 instances of precipitation falling just after Civil War artillery engagements.

The concussive theory of rainmaking gained such traction that in the early 1890s Congress appropriated nearly $20,000 to test it in drought-stricken Texas. Civil War veteran Robert St. George Dyrenforth, who oversaw the experiments, deployed his assistants as if he was going to war with the great blue yonder. He assembled three battle lines that included 60 makeshift guns, kites bearing explosives, and balloons laden with a combustible mix of hydrogen and oxygen. When the experiments ultimately proved more successful in setting the prairie aflame than in making it rain, Dyrenforth earned the mocking nickname "Dry-Henceforth."

Hatfield, The Rain Man

Hatfield graduated from yet another school of rainmaking that emerged in the 1890s in which practitioners brewed secret chemical formulas that they burned in an attempt to produce fumes that would make clouds blossom into rain producers. By the time he made his offer to San Diego in 1915, Hatfield could point to 17 contracts he had signed with commercial entities ranging from cotton growers in Texas to mine operators in Alaska. He commanded as much as $4,000 in return for the delivery of the four-inch rainfall that he typically promised to municipalities across southern California as a result of his chemical concoctions.

San Diego's desperate city council was willing to give Hatfield the job, particularly because it would only have to pay out in the event that a deluge struck the city. "It's heads, the city wins; tails, Hatfield loses," said Councilman Walter Moore after his fellow members verbally agreed to hire the rainmaker. Only Councilman Herbert Fay objected to the deal, calling it "rank foolishness."

In the new year of 1916, Hatfield set off deep into the woods 60 miles east of the city and began construction of a 20-foot tower near the banks of the Morena Reservoir.

Even though he still lacked a signed contract as San Diego rang in the new year of 1916, Hatfield set off deep into the woods 60 miles east of the city and began construction of a 20-foot tower near the banks of the Morena Reservoir. He poured his rainmaking brew into shallow iron pans resting on a platform at the top of the wooden structure. Curiosity-seekers reported that Hatfield set the fluids on fire and let the smoke drift skyward. One witness noted that the noxious chemicals smelled as if "a Limburger cheese factory has broken loose."

When a light sprinkle christened the New Year, a newspaper headline cheered, "Rainmaker Hatfield Induces Clouds to Open." The rain grew steadier over the next couple of weeks. And then on January 15, a biblical rain started to descend from the heavens. As much as 17 inches of rain fell in the mountains outside San Diego over the ensuing five days as rejoicing quickly morphed into horror. The San Diego River leaped over its banks and ran a mile wide. Landslides oozed down saturated mountains. Floodwaters washed away nearly everything in the vicinity, including homes, roads, railroad tracks, telephone lines, and the entire community of Little Landers.

Although rain was simultaneously dousing cities up and down the Pacific coastline, even skeptical San Diegans wondered if Hatfield indeed possessed pluvian powers. "Let's pay Hatfield $10,000 to quit," quipped one property owner after he was rescued in a rowboat. The San Diego Union reported that Hatfield called city hall to say, "Within the next few days I expect to make it really rain." When asked if he was joking, he replied, "Never more serious in my life. Just hold your horses, and I'll show you a real rain."

By the time the epic rain stopped in San Diego County, nearly 30 inches had fallen in a month, making January 1916 the wettest period in the region's recorded history.

Indeed, the drenching rains quickly returned after a brief respite-with deadly consequences. On January 27, the mighty stone dam at the Lower Otay Reservoir gave way, sending a 40-foot wall of water thundering to the coastline. More than a dozen people died in the torrent that swept away all trees, livestock, and houses in its path.

By the time the epic rain stopped in San Diego County, nearly 30 inches had fallen in a month, making January 1916 the wettest period in the region's recorded history. The county coroner estimated that 50 people had died in what residents began to call "Hatfield's Flood." With communication and transportation lines severed, naval ships were required to ferry people and supplies in and out of San Diego. As promised by Hatfield, water lapped to the top of Morena Reservoir, yet no one was particularly happy about it.

Believing he had upheld his end of the bargain, the rainmaker walked the 60 flood-stricken miles back to San Diego to collect his money. With city officials flooded with not only rain but also lawsuits seeking compensation for the resulting damage, city attorney Terence Cosgrove refused to pay Hatfield-that would make San Diego liable for the deluge in the eyes of the courts. Cosgrove denied payment on the basis that a contract was never inked and that Hatfield could not furnish proof that the rain was of his own doing and not an act of God. The attorney did say he would be willing to pay the $10,000 if Hatfield took responsibility for the damages, but the rainmaker refused and sued the city. The litigation dragged on for two decades before it was finally dismissed in 1938. Hatfield never received a dime from the city.

San Diego didn't want to pay Hatfield, but others surely did. Over the next decade, he received offers from as far away as Cuba and Honduras, where he was hired to put out jungle fires to protect the country's banana crop. In 1921, he signed the biggest contract of his career-in excess of $25,000-to bring five inches of rain to Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada. The Great Depression, however, decimated his business. Spending dried up, and newly constructed dams improved civil water supplies. Not even the Dust Bowl could revive his rainmaking career.

Hatfield briefly returned to the public eye in 1956 to attend the premiere of The Rainmaker, a Hollywood production loosely based on his life that starred Burt Lancaster and Katharine Hepburn. Two years later, he died, taking his secret chemical formula to the grave. Hatfield was laid to rest under clear skies, just the type he would want to milk for rain.

***

Critics claimed Hatfield was a huckster who merely benefited from coincidence. As Spence pointed out, many so-called rainmakers "were little more than gamblers, betting their time and what reputation they may have had that rain would fall while or after they commenced their machinations." By working only in the midst of dry spells, Hatfield could improve his odds of timing an impending rainfall. Indeed, Hatfield likely profited from his keen knowledge of meteorology and close examination of weather records. Knowing when storm fronts were imminent, he could target cities in advance of the rain and claim success when moisture fell from the skies.

Others saw Hatfield as a forerunner of modern-day cloud-seeding, in which chemicals such as dry ice and silver iodide-perhaps among those used by Hatfield-are introduced into cloud banks to foster the formation of ice crystals and raindrops. These chemicals provide particles around which water vapor can condense and eventually fall as rain once the droplets reach a sufficient size. The condensation process generates its own heat, which causes air to rise and fosters the growth of additional rain clouds.

While Hatfield relied on the ascension of chemical vapors into the skies, rainmaking went airborne with the advent of the aircraft. The U.S. Army Air Service began experiments to determine if rain could be produced from electrified sand in 1921; however, the modern science of rainmaking truly began in 1947 with Project Cirrus, a joint venture of General Electric and the U.S. military under the direction of Nobel laureate Irving Langmuir that seeded clouds with dry ice. "The results of Project Cirrus gave scientific credence to the mystic works of such pioneer rainmakers as California's now famous Charles Hatfield," wrote Donald D. Stark in the California Law Review.

A century after Hatfield's exploits, the science of rainmaking and the effectiveness of cloud-seeding remain points of contention, as Virginia Simms wrote in a 2010 article in The International Lawyer. Even so, cloud-seeding is on the rise. A 2014 report from the World Meteorological Organization found that 52 countries had active cloud-seeding programs, up from 47 the previous year, and 39 weather-modification programs were in place west of the Mississippi River.

Even after its experience in 1915, San Diego continued to be seduced by the hope offered by rainmakers. Incredibly, in 1961, the city council considered hiring Edmond Jeffery, who promised he could make it rain 40 inches in 40 days for a fee of $8,000. This time, with memories of "Hatfield's Flood" still echoing in their minds, San Diego's councilors refused the offer.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
When San Diego Hired a Rainmaker a Century Ago, It Poured - JSTOR Daily

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
As California endures its worst drought in 1,200 years, residents of the Golden State are turning to extreme-and desperate-measures to quench their collective thirst. Sun-baked farmers are hiring "water witches" to divine underground water sources with forked branches, while a company called Rain on Request has pledged to end the drought by building electrical towers that would induce rainfall by ionizing the atmosphere.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Can the new Tumblr-grown aesthetic break through the smog to change the Twenty-First Century conversation?

I. Something Stirs

It is the nature of our era to stymie the exploration of political alternatives. We live in a fog that obscures our possibilities. We are moving very fast, but tumbling without sense of direction or progress. Our political imagination is limited to diagnosing our problems, which we can do endlessly. But talk of real solutions is lost amidst the clamor of global crisis, the drone of social media, and the hushing hiss of neoliberal domination over our institutions of discourse. This disorientation won't last forever, but for now we live in a rotten moment for manifestos.

And yet, the sun does cut through the smog. Something new, bright and promising stirs on Tumblr, a colorful fungus growing away from the gaze of the media or the big web stacks. I struggle to put my finger on just why solarpunk is so compelling, but it is. Perhaps it is the canny optimism, so out of place in a world of crisis. Perhaps because it is because solarpunk is a creature wholly of this decade - native to global network society. I know I'm not the only one to think this: something about solarpunk strikes a chord that stands out amidst the pandemonium.

What is solarpunk? I hesitate to define it, and therefore limit it, for the thousands now exploring its possibilities. Let's tentatively call it a speculative movement: a collaborative effort to imagine and design a world of prosperity, peace, sustainability and beauty, achievable with what we have from where we are. Only in the twenty-teens could a series of social media sketches spark such an ambitious activist agenda - not to mention a literary genre that has rabid fans but has yet to produce any literature.

Whatever solarpunk is, it is deeply political. Politics is the practice of determining the arrangements through which we distribute resources and otherwise relate to each other. In other words, who makes the stuff, who gets the stuff, and how we are expected to treat both people and stuff.

Nearly every piece of solarpunk content I've seen or read suggests that the solarpunk future is a result of nuanced choices about such arrangements, not wild technological advancements. The very name "solarpunk" implies that scientific breakthroughs alone won't fix our environmental, social and economic problems. After all, it posits a world of solar-energy abundance and then argues that we will still have need of punks. No magical tech fixes for us. We'll have to do it the hard way: with politics.

There has been some writing on this already, but, as I craft ideology instead of cosplay, I believe I can best contribute to solarpunk by expanding on some of these notions. In this essay I will explore what I believe to be the political dimensions of solarpunk: the world it finds itself in, the space it occupies, and the possibilities open to it.

Let me say from the outset: the world of solarpunk is this world. The here, the now and the very soon. Burdened with all that that's been slung across our backs. While you might set your solarpunk stories in far off futures or fantasy universes (I won't stop you), great speculative fiction always reflects the fears and aspirations of the time and place it was written. This is what I'm interested in: what solarpunk can tell us about the civilization we have right now, where it's going and what we'll be living through.

I'll also offer up my own ideas about what exactly we should be doing with this strange bloom we've found. Solarpunk feels like a cathartic uncorking of a pent up imagination, and that energy can be channeled in different directions. A genre explores ideas through motifs, variations on a theme. A movement provokes change through iterations of strategy and deed. I love the former, but we need the latter.

My hope is that this essay will inspire a discussion that will help move solarpunk from simple speculation towards meaningful action. This doesn't have to be solarpunk's path. Maybe being a solarpunk will be like another flavor of bohemian. Maybe such a collection of aesthetics can correlate to an ideology, but need not inspire one. The only way to find out is by taking up the question of solarpunk politics.

Area Destroyed by Wildfire Around Water Tower, Texas, 2011, Eric Gay, AP

II. The Rocks We Build On

First, some facts on the ground. Novelist Bruce Sterling, who helped create the original science fictional '-punk' - cyberpunk - says that the future is about " old people in big cities afraid of the sky." This is inexorable. Barring radical cataclysm, the reasonably inevitable trends of urbanization, an aging populace and climate change will set the stage for life in the coming five decades. If you are a human living in the middle of the 21st century, chances are you will be elderly - or surrounded by the elderly. Chances are you will live in a city. Chances are your community, country and supply chains will be plagued by some combination of extreme weather, rising sea levels and droughts.

These are the facts we must build on and around, whether we are making solarpunk fiction, solarpunk fashion, solarpunk infrastructure, or solarpunk political demands. If solarpunk is to back up its optimism with meaningful solutions, or even meaningful notions, we must consciously consider how to respond to each of these trends. Allow me to make some suggestions.

Old people. We only have to look at Japan to see the way an aging population can empty towns and leave both infrastructure and social structure untended. This is an extreme case, exacerbated by Japan's immigration policies, but even in places where the world's young are free move in to fill open jobs and depopulated communities, the elderly will often outnumber the youth. Caring for these elders will require a huge effort, particularly in the developed world. As will attending to their deaths.

Still, longevity is an incredible resource for a society that prizes long-term planning. I believe solarpunk can be an ideology of profound compassion for dealing with the elderly. Its aesthetics speak of a gentleness, and a recognition that color and beauty can bring joy and give life meaning even in the most painful of circumstances. I'm all for solarpunk symphony halls, libraries and city centers, but of all the spaces that have been made drab, brutal and soul-sucking by modern consumer architecture and decor, surely hospitals and nursing homes must top the list. Solarpunk is partly about building infrastructure that can be sustainable into the long term - and that can sustain many generations. What better way to begin than by creating assisted living facilities as stone-sturdy as cathedrals, with sun-streamed stained-glass and ivy-roofed walkways? Places where we ourselves would want to live out our own infirm years, decades later. To borrow a phrase, let us approach geriatrics as if people mattered.

Before we get too sappy, let's remember that living in a society with an aging population also means living under the political power of an elderly majority. The youth have the energy to mobilize, but in the developed world today (and tomorrow) they just don't have the numbers to stage revolutions, win electoral battles or pass radical reforms. Societies of the old are societies of political stagnation. Their politics produce de facto dynasties (Bush vs. Clinton) and decadent paranoiacs (Berlusconi, Putin, et al). The economic agenda of the old is about preserving costly entitlements, hording jobs and wages for workers with seniority, and fighting inflation. The old tend to live off capital assets that decline in value as the economy inflates, while the young today must work to pay off debts that shrink as inflation rises.

As a "punk" ideology, solarpunk must be opposed to the political domination of the old. But we may also have to live with it. We just aren't likely to win the numbers game. Solarpunk's strategy should be to create pockets of progress and imagination within a larger political landscape of decay, deadlock and long emergency. (More on this later.)

In cities. It is a dark truth of environmentalism that wind farms, solar arrays, hydroelectric dams and other triumphs of sustainability require completely engineered landscapes. Building them means ripping up the ground and installing massive amounts of metal and concrete.

Cities are the same. Urban density means transportation efficiency, shared infrastructure, more pooled resources to throw at common problems, and at times a greater sense of community than rural isolation or exurban sprawl. Solarpunk obviously applauds these advantages and puts them to use. But cities are built on great devastation of the natural world. They are structures that consume huge amounts of energy and materials and produce tremendous amounts of waste - even if the suburban alternative is worse per capita. When cities die they leave unwieldy ruins that take yet more resources to break down. Cities are a scar upon the earth.

More to the point, cities don't die. Cities happen where people gather, and people gather in cities. Because of this the cities we have today are largely going to be the cities we have for hundreds of years. They will grow and sprawl where they can. They will retreat from the rising seas where they must. We cannot start anew from scratch (see Naypyidaw below). We must reuse and refurbish the built environment. To paraphrase Sterling, the wreckage of the unsustainable is our frontier. What we build never goes away; often it must be lived in.

Cities also crystalize the social stressors modernity places on us. Solarpunk aesthetics look to loosen that vice with soothing visuals and textures that imply openness and pay homage to the living world. We can even build with materials that are themselves still living and growing with us. That is a beautiful vision, but one we must place in context. While it is useful to imagine comprehensively optimistic futures and fantasies, solar-punk can't be the same as solar-utopia. Punks are an essentially anti-social (or at least counter-cultural) force, rejecting and attacking the norm. In this case that means understanding that the beautiful clothes and buildings solarpunk envisions are likely to be surrounded by something very different - the cracked concrete of decaying infrastructure, the smudged plastic of cheaply made gadgets, the intimidating glass and steel of finance fortresses.

Our canny @Threadbare pointed out to me that too often bright-green design is rooted in the tradition of modernist real-estate development, which sells a vision of places made wholly new. Past mistakes are cleansed. The clean hallways are haunted by render ghosts. It's seductive, and easy to put in a magazine, but anyone who has sat through a planning board meeting knows how unrealistic it is. Solarpunk need not make this same mistake. We know what jugaad is. We know about water hacking, and guerilla gardening, and pressure-washer graffiti. Solarpunk can see the spots where trees have broken through the asphalt for what they are: great places to grow trees.

But on the other side, there is the false seduction of favela ingenuity as well, that charmingly rickety sweet spot where Swiss Family Robinson meets Nat Geo poverty porn. It should go without saying that we should not fetishize slums. Still, it's true that such places use resources more efficiently, that they successfully house millions with a relatively low carbon footprint. But I have two objections. First, a jugaad is a hack by an individual, not a plan by a community. Second, places that don't follow fire codes tend to burn down.

Somewhere between these two approaches solarpunks can pioneer into that 'wreckage of the unsustainable' to remake our cities greener and better. This is a messy task, and we will probably need to have some difficult discussions about just how solarpunk aspires to relate to "the natural world." Can cities ever exist in harmony with nature? Does such a thing as "nature" even exist anymore? Do we need to fundamentally change the way we relate to the natural world? Or can we find sustainability through piecemeal reforms? I don't know the answers, but I do believe that solarpunk shouldn't shy from its urban destiny. Solarpunk is a continuation of the anthropocene.

" Afraid of the sky" should be an easy one, right? Solar power turns climate disaster on its head by making the sky the source of energy abundance, not just superstorms, frozen winters and rains that never come. This is the high concept that drew me to this cause: what more elegant image of our salvation than a solar panel, turning the light that heats our planet beyond comfort into energy, the very commodity for which we set the world on fire? It's a powerful start to an ideology, and one we should rightly smile over. But the reckoning with the sky remains.

I suspect that at some point in the next decade or so, it will truly dawn on us that the increasingly inhospitable climate is of our own making, the result of policy decisions and political failures. That means the sky is no longer morally neutral. A storm on the horizon is not apart from us. A hurricane or tornado is not an act of God. We have no precedent for dealing with such a burden on a global scale. Our climate sins may grow to define us. If we aren't careful, the response of most will be: it's everyone else's fault. And, because blame is always about power, this debate will either turn violent or exacerbate existing inequalities. ( "Those who consume a lot are prepared to slash the consumption of those who already consume less.") That is a recipe for an even more dangerous world.

We wrecked the planet. Some individuals and organizations more than others, of course, but I doubt we will ever bring anyone to justice. The atmosphere, and with it our collective soul, will not heal on its own for a very long time. All we can do is begin repairs, and through that careful labor perhaps find some measure of redemption.

As you can tell, I take these heavy matters very seriously. Solarpunk doesn't need to get quite so dour - but keep it in mind. As you world-build, ponder the whys of wearing fashions of joy as a response to global sorrow. Remember that cathedral-time decisions are minute compared to climate-scale momentum. Understand that solarpunk's "dirt behind the ears" needs to come from planting something that will reclaim a bit of that carbon we burned. Hold your optimism up to the muggy, yellow light and make sure we are willing to work for it. For solarpunk to lead us towards a better future, it must look our climate sins in the eyes, acknowledge their gravity, and start fixing that carbon. There is no going back. Only slowly, steadily clawing our way through, to something better.

Who knows? Climate disasters could provide the impetus to build the radical communities we envision. Droughts may cause strife, but people can also be extraordinarily good to each other when fires and storms hit. Solarpunk needs a foot in the door; let's not be afraid to walk through it, if the wind blows that door open.

III. Rubble, Seed and Fog

Facts dispensed with, let me add a few suspicions and opinions.

I suspect that global capitalism is entering a contradictory period of both fierce domination and slow failure. When I say "capitalism," I am referring here both to the idea that resources and economic activity should be controlled by those who exert ownership over the means of production and other wealth and to the collection of wealthy individuals and families who do most of this owning and controlling. The power of these capitalists will widen and invade nearly every aspect of human life, pushing out most other kinds of power. But at the same time, the ways this system creates prosperity will narrow to a trickle. The sensation will be one of bloated malnourishment.

How many of us already experience this? On the one hand sickened by the decadence of consumption, with an urge to check out of alienating jobs. But on the other wondering why we work harder and longer but seem to earn less and less, struggling to sustain ourselves, unable to buy our way out. I suspect this feeling will pervade the near future, and I don't know how long it will stay that way.

I see solarpunk emerging as a reaction to this sensation of strangling decay. People want to feel the vibrancy of progress, not just the anxious giddiness of capitalist churn. We want to seek out and apply our true talents, not warp our lives around making money for other, richer people. We want our work to mean something more than survival.

In light of their power, overthrowing the mega-rich is a dicey project, and one perhaps left to a different kind of political aesthetic. Instead solarpunk can challenge the capitalist status quo by nurturing alternative economic arrangements at a community and network level. Encourage resiliency that insulates towns and neighborhoods from economic shocks. Forge mutal aid pacts that protect members from fiscal predation. If we can prove that we don't need them or their money, the chokehold of the plutocracy will loosen.

I also suspect the institution of the nation-state is being hollowed out. In part a consequence of globalization and the drive to "free markets," this isn't exactly a collapse. Instead we see government at every level losing its ability to act with authority, maintain order, mobilize emergency resources, build lasting infrastructure, provide public services, and otherwise be effective in the lives of its citizens.

At the same time these governments become less democratic, more corrupt, more bureaucratic and more beholden to special interests. Public services and utilities get sold off to private corporations. Municipalities become highwaymen that exploit the poor and passersby to enrich a small few (Ferguson). Infrastructure crumbles. A nation's states squabble among themselves. Cops become gangs as violence serves where authority fails, and gangs themselves take on new authority in their communities. Through all this, the nation-state doesn't go away - it just fades from relevance, overshadowed by global network society and outcompeted (or captured) by criminals, corporations and other non-state powers.

While this hollowing out is a challenge for civilization, for solarpunk it's an opportunity. Radical political upheaval is difficult and dangerous. "Revolution is not a tea party." For a great many reasons (not least of which is the aging population), I don't think we can count on mass movements taking to the streets to fix our problems. Instead we can build our solarpunk society in the places and moments that the state neglects - particularly in response to the climate disasters and black swan shocks that will punctuate the coming century. If we do this right, Solarpunk could be the philosophy of those who fill in the gaps, the aesthetic of the assemblies that coalesce where government fails to show up.

This isn't exactly a strategy, but a way to think about how solarpunk might emerge. Imagine a tree, growing amidst rubble, rooting around rocks into open spaces, occasionally pushing cracks wider. The tree can't remove the concrete, but the concrete is too poorly maintained to stop it. In the same way I think solarpunk should work to reinvent civilization from within. Through local free association and global networks, solarpunk can create connected pockets of vibrancy and resistance amidst a larger world of decline and oppression.

This is not a new idea. From the autonomous zones of anarchist theory, to the reincarnated American localism of the Resilient Communities and Strong Towns movements, to the mutual aid networks of Occupy Sandy, many have responded to the crises of recent decades by planning and practicing radical forms of organizing that require neither mass revolution nor democratic reform. Solarpunk can use these methods to rally people to build spaces and infrastructure out of place in a failing world. What I want to note here is that while we should think big and abstractly about what kind of ideal society we want to live in, I believe solarpunk will be most effective if it seizes the initiative where the state has dropped it.

You've heard of the hacker slogan "move fast and break things"? Solarpunk should move quietly and plant things. Don't ask permission from a state beholden to oligarchs, and definitely don't expect those oligarchs to do any of this for you. Guerilla gardening is the model, but look further. Guerilla solar panel installation. Guerilla water treatment facility restoration. Guerilla magnificent temple to the human spirit construction. Guerilla carbon sequestration megastructure creation.

Figure out what a community needs to be prosperous, peaceful and sustainable in as long a term as you can wrap your head around, and start building whatever piece is most in reach before the absent state notices. Doing so just might create pockets of more effective, horizontal politics. As the state wanes, these pockets can grow in size and influence, creating a better world even if some government claims the authority of law and holds a monopoly on violence.

Now, political choices got us into this mess, and political choices could get us out. I for one argue for a comprehensive set of reforms that were inspired by the discussions held around the world during Occupy: a global debt jubilee to free both countries and individuals from debts that impoverish and enslave them; a tax on extreme wealth to control inequality and rein in the power of oligarchs; a guaranteed basic income to provide for the poor, the infirm and those more useful as caregivers, artists and thinkers than employees of businesses; a dramatic reduction in the workweek to slow down unsustainable levels of economic expansion and to eliminate the countless "bullshit jobs" that serve no function but to bore those who hold them; the regulation or even abolition of usury (once considered as great a sin as slavery), so that investments in sustainable infrastructure that will pay off in cathedral time are not hampered by interest payments that will eventually exceed principal.

While these are rather radical prescriptions, all are workable, and with careful application could do much to eliminate the worst shocks, predations, and deprivations that define modern global capitalism for most people on the planet. I mention them here not because they need to be solarpunk's solutions, but to give you an idea of what solutions to the failure of a global economic system might looks like. Any movement that means to stake a claim to humanity's future needs to have something to say on this front.

The problem is that while the global economic system is obviously broken, it is still massively profitable to everyone with the direct power to change it. You may have heard the phrase "late-stage capitalism." This is an ironic euphemism, since capitalism has considered itself "late-stage" for nearly all of its history. Any cursory study of tycoons and robber barons and industrialists from the late renaissance through to the mid-20th century shows that most of these individuals believed violent revolution or political reform was just around the corner to ruin their party. As anthropologist David Graeber has pointed out, it is only recently that capitalists and economists have started to think of capitalism as a system that might not have an end.

This free-market fantasy has been both the genesis and the product of "neoliberalism," a movement to deregulate capitalism and apply its principles to other spheres of human life. To indulge in a completely biased definition: neoliberalism sees capitalist economics as akin to physics, with a system of logics beyond the choices of actual humans; and therefore neoliberalism believes it is capitalism that should reform people, not the other way around.

Though it once preached prosperity for all, the mask has fallen away in the brazen aftermath of the financial crisis. Neoliberalism demands a global oligarchy of the mega-rich, and to get there they must destroy the middle class and dismantle the nation-state. But they must also quash opposing ideas and imaginations. Where once capitalist democracy argued its worth against the legitimate failures of the communist projects, now neoliberalism acts as an ideological superpower. Its mission: to make capitalism appear not just unchallenged but unchallengeable, as though it were the only possible system. It does this at the expense of acknowledging reforms that actually make the system sustainable. Any questioning, any poking at the limits, is met with sustained scoffing or resigned shrugs from the cultured classes. I said in the beginning: this is a lousy time for manifestos.

'I don't understand why when we destroy something created by man we call it vandalism, but when we destroy something created by nature we call it progress.' Ed Begley, Jr. Photo: Overpopulation, overconsumption - in pictures - The Guardian

IV. If We Fail

Solarpunk, that's where you come in. When I scan solarpunk posts on Tumblr, I see constant defiance of the neoliberal attempts to stifle political imagination. More than just sketches and photos of vertical farms, I see solarpunk inspiring people to question the arrangements of modern life and, more importantly, propose alternatives. Much of this takes the form of science fictional 'world-building,' which partly explains why I like solarpunk so much: for me, science fiction has always been the best inroad to expanding political consciousness.

But good science fiction must be more than daydreaming. So perhaps, as solarpunk starts to limber up its speculative muscles, we can learn a bit about the dimensions of its political agenda by contrasting solarpunk with some of the fictions and realities that are distinctly not solarpunk. What I mean to ask is: what does failure look like for solarpunk?

It looks like the skies on a hot day over Beijing, and the commuters shuffling into pressure-sealed office towers wearing stylized gas masks. Smogpunk is the first defeat condition of solarpunk: a world where environmental protection fails and pollution and climate change outpace our ability to make sustainable choices. Taken to an extreme, haze blots out the sun making both urban solar power and urban farming an unproductive imitation of what it could be with clear skies. Smogpunk means resigning to terrible environmental conditions, and a perverse lifting up of that resignation as a banner of our place in the world. Smogpunk is what happens if solarpunk does not act fast enough.

Failure looks like Fukushima and Bhopal every week: a world defined by its anthropocenic disasters. Development trundles along, perhaps with a reluctant bent towards cutting carbon; but we never change the inertia of our degenerating relationship with nature, and we never take on big projects for fear of costs or consequences. The human experience of the environment becomes a long series of mishaps, spills, contaminations and outbreaks. Our best efforts go towards rescue, containment and cleanup, but we are so busy reeling from these shocks that we can't be proactive about preventing the development choices and infrastructure decay that caused them in the first place. Or else we respond to climate change with quick fixes that are themselves unsustainable. Call it hazmat-punk. This is what happens if solarpunk ideas are too reactive.

A weirder failure looks like Naypyidaw, the 'purpose-built' capital city of Burma, which features super-sized versions of suburban amenities unavailable in the rest of the country - but has next to no people there to enjoy them. 20-lane highways, empty at rush hour. Giant golf courses and parks, manicured by workers but played on only by a few elite civil servants. In this essay I've advocated for ambitious infrastructure projects, but the wrong project for the wrong reasons will devolve into Xanadu-esque self-parody, no matter how ambitious. A similar fate awaits us if we try to build a solarpunk community from scratch, and fill in the people later, instead of starting from what real people actually want and need. Let's call this failure state sprawlpunk: a reproduction of unsustainable development approaches in the name of radical ideals.

We can see more visions of solarpunk-gone-wrong in the fictions of Paolo Bacigalupi. In The Windup Girl the future is spring-powered and mammoth-driven, with genetic engineering providing organic solutions in a world after plastic and without enough rare earth elements to go around. But in a tragic twist, the energy abundance solarpunk relies on is missing. Instead, with only the muscles of humans and animals to power most tasks, energy scarcity is taken to the calorie level, and with this comes famine and disease. This is solarpunk sans solar.

Another wrong turn can be seen in Bacigalupi's latest book, The Water Knife. In the American southwest permanent drought is making refugees out of everyone who can't afford to buy a place in a verdant, self-sustaining arcology. This world is solarpunk for some. It is what happens if we allow capitalism to dictate the distribution of sustainable technologies.

This brings us to the last failure condition: the Jackpot. The high concept of William Gibson's novel The Peripheral, the Jackpot gives name and shape to the confluence of all the crises looming ahead of us: climate change, mass extinction, antibiotic resistance, economic instability, strife and terrorism, ecological collapse, singularity-style technology run rampant. No one of these explodes into a disaster that ends the world, leaving behind a Mad Max collapseland. But in Gibson's vision together they roil into an emergent event that chips away at the human population until eighty percent are dead in the course of a few decades. Why call it the Jackpot? Because for the twenty percent who remain - those who could afford it - this horror is a bullet dodged, and one that frees them from all the problems of sustaining a luxurious lifestyle in a world filled with ten billion people.

What the survivors of the Jackpot build after might very well correspond to many solarpunk principles. It may be beautiful, and may one day yield a world better than we could ever get to from here. That doesn't matter. I want no part of it. To yearn for the decimation of our people is an abomination. Solarpunk, as a political idea, must do everything to avert such a slow, multi-causal cataclysm. Otherwise it isn't worth caring about or fighting for.

V. The Ways Forward

The roots of the Jackpot are here, and they are already starting to tighten around us. Without some political intervention, the middle class may very well disappear, cleaving the world into two kinds of urban living: the gothic playgrounds of the rich, immaculate and decadent, and the vibrant, dangerous, untamed favelas of everyone else. From there a gentle nudge from the climate crisis, from tech gone amok, or from toxic political movements could easily send the world spiraling into the cascade of failure Gibson describes.

But saying we want to stop the Jackpot isn't the same has having an alternative. So: what does winning look like? Obviously fleshing out the look, feel, structure and technical details of a successful solarpunk future is precisely the project most solarpunks are currently engaged in. So instead, let's discuss some of the routes we might take to that world of sunny abundance.

As I argued in my discussion of cities, solarpunk should be careful not to idealize either the gothic high tech or the favela chic. No matter how many High Line-style parks or vertical farms they build, Manhattan will be useless if it is only filled with the luxury condos of absentee financiers. And favelas may be full of jugaad-innovation and dense with diverse entrepreneurialism, but they feature a fatal flaw: no fire codes. Slums are fascinating from a design perspective right up until they burn down or wash away. In a world of more extreme weather, disasters will strike down favelas before their recycling-centric, low-carbon lifestyles can save the climate.

Instead, I like the idea of focusing on large-scale infrastructure projects that will provide value for communities into the long term. A seed bank; a hyper-dense vertical permaculture farm engineered for carbon fixing; a massive, low-maintenance desalination system; a space elevator. These projects could themselves be the organizing principle around which unique solarpunk communities are organized.

Perhaps they need not even be infrastructure in the traditional, utilitarian sense, but efforts to create lasting human works that can provide keystones of cultural continuity for centuries to come - works I believe capitalism has proven nearly incapable of building, or in some cases even maintaining. Think of the Long Now Foundation's 10,000 year clock, or the deep, dark caves that look for flashes of neutrinos in the perfect dark. Maybe they have no function at all but beauty. Imagine a community that devotes its generations to the creation and care of some enormous work of art: a mountain carved into a wind instrument; a rainforest that records the whole of human history in tree carvings along walking paths; a crop circle big enough to be seen from space.

The problem with investing in long-term projects is that they are particularly susceptible to environmental disruption. If the rains never return to California, people will be forced to leave all sorts of sustainable infrastructure behind. I want to believe that we can make some sensible bets on good projects, but I worry that the coming decades will see millions displaced by climate and strife. Such upheavals might scatter the resources and the will required for megastructure investments.

While we don't want a future where the default mode of civilization is the refugee camp - the death toll in such places is too high - this may be the 21st century we get, and we should prepare now to succeed within that reality. If we are going to create solarpunk cities/societies from scratch, refugee camps may very well be the foundation we build on. This presents some interesting design challenges, as well as a few opportunities.

First, while many such camps linger for years, they often feel temporary. This is partly because fast-deploy structures are weak to storms and other environmental threats, and partly because migrant settlements are always on thin ice politically. I see great promise in designing our solutions to be modular and easy to both deploy and pack up. Living roofs are nice, but what if we focused on garden boxes for truck beds? Solar stained glass sounds awesome, but might we get more use out of photovoltaic tent canvas?

Just as important as the materials and the tech, refugee camps will need mindful, optimistic politics. The denizens of these places may be strangers to each other, thrown together without any clear lines of authority or organizing structures. This makes them fertile grounds for radical, horizontal, intentional community arrangements. Solarpunk could be such an organizing principle, and in doing so turn what could be a diaspora of strife into a network of peace and progress.

That, I believe, is the biggest difference solarpunk can make, for the real danger of our current path comes not from rising seas or the economic exploitation, but from violence and chaos, nations squabbling over scarce resources, countries and communities fracturing, xenophobia devolving into ethnic cleansing. Whether we cover every roof with solar panels or fill every skyscraper with vertical farms, we should always have our eyes on the more vital goal of peace.

Whether solarpunk ends up building megastructures or organizing climate migrants, the solarpunks of today can start, as many of you are doing, by connecting with each other to begin the fight for the optimistic, verdant, sun-powered world we are envisioning. I see solarpunk as the seeds of an open source movement, the primordial form of global network society.

This means anyone can join by claiming allegiance, anyone can contribute by offering up a contribution. Barriers to entry are low or non-existent, because such movements are based around controversial principles instead of acquiring specific benefits for participants. Leaders, where they exist, are spokespeople and media liaisons, not hierarchs or dictators. The hacker collective Anonymous is perhaps the best example: their very name is designed to allow anyone to take up their mantle. Nearly all the most successful and influential popular movements of the twenty-first century are of this type, from Tahir Square to Occupy, from ISIS to #BlackLivesMatter.

I'd like to close by suggesting some principles of composition and norms of action for the solarpunk movement. Many of these I already see flourishing! It is the act of taking them up collectively that would make us a movement.

First is a tautology: the product of the community is the movement, and the product of the movement is the community. Solarpunk's interest areas are such that meaningful change can only come from connections amongst individuals strong and deep enough to allow them to build real things that make their lives better - not just getting enough people to trend on Twitter. While political demands are vital, solarpunk is really about changing the ways people arrange themselves, not how we are arranged by the state.

Second, without excluding anyone, push the boundaries of what it means to be an open source movement with a norm of "teach one, try one." Only by taking on projects outside our individual wheelhouse will we keep from being niched. We must be both fictional and practical, aesthetic and political, of design and of action.

A lot can change very quickly when artists become activists and activists become planners. Encourage diverse participation from solarpunks, contributing what they can and learning about what they can't. This will also stop people from dipping in for a few ideas and then dipping out without adding their voice. Or worse, lobbing their suggestions in as they drive by, without stopping to listen to others. Think of this as the solarpunk equivalent of "if this is your first night at fight club, you have to fight."

I've seen many people describe solarpunk as optimistic. My last suggestion is this: don't be optimistic, be hopeful. As Vaclav Havel explained: "Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out." Havel, an artist turned activist turned statesman who led his nation out of a time of crisis, in many ways embodies the transformational power of ideas and aesthetics - and thus the potential of a movement like solarpunk to do real good in the world.

This essay has been long, and it has discussed many troubling situations and possibilities. I wrote these things because I think it is important for any cohesive body of political thought to contrast what it wants with what it opposes: for transparency and privacy, against surveillance and deception; for conservation and abundance, against hoarding and exploitation; for neighborhoods and collaboratives, against gangs and police.

I also wrote this because I believe the enormity of our problems doesn't have to paralyze us. Quite the opposite: seeing the world as it is is vital if you are going to figure out how it could be. Now is the moment to be galvanized, to know that we are on to something, and to make acting on these ideas a real part of our lives.

As I write this California smolders with wildfires. A harsh wind runs across the world, hot and dry. But it is at our backs, and if we let it, that wind will fill our sails.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
On the Political Dimensions of Solarpunk

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Can the new Tumblr-grown aesthetic break through the smog to change the Twenty-First Century conversation? It is the nature of our era to stymie the exploration of political alternatives. We live in a fog that obscures our possibilities. We are moving very fast, but tumbling without sense of direction or progress.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Use of environmental modification techniques for hostile purposes does not play a major role in military planning at the present time. Such techniques might be developed in the future, however, and would pose a threat of serious damage unless action was taken to prohibit their use. In July 1972 the U.S. Government renounced the use of climate modification techniques for hostile purposes, even if their development were proved to be feasible in the future.

Both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives held hearings, beginning in 1972, and the Senate adopted a resolution in 1973 calling for an international agreement "prohibiting the use of any environmental or geophysical modification activity as a weapon of war...." In response to this resolution, the President ordered the Department of Defense to undertake an in-depth review of the military aspects of weather and other environmental modification techniques. The results of this study and a subsequent interagency study led to the U.S. Governments decision to seek agreement with the Soviet Union to explore the possibilities of an international agreement.

During the summit meeting in Moscow in July 1974, President Nixon and General Secretary Brezhnev formally agreed to hold bilateral discussions on how to bring about "the most effective measures possible to overcome the dangers of the use of environmental modification techniques for military purposes." Three sets of discussions were held in 1974 and 1975, resulting in agreement on a common approach and common language.

In August 1975, the chief representatives of the U.S. and the Soviet delegations to the Conference of the Committee on Disarmament (CCD) tabled, in parallel, identical draft texts of a "Convention on the Prohibition of Military or any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques."

The Convention defines environmental modification techniques as changing -- through the deliberate manipulation of natural processes -- the dynamics, composition or structure of the earth, including its biota, lithosphere, hydro-sphere, and atmosphere, or of outer space. Changes in weather or climate patterns, in ocean currents, or in the state of the ozone layer or ionosphere, or an upset in the ecological balance of a region are some of the effects which might result from the use of environmental modification techniques.

Intensive negotiations held in the CCD during the spring and summer of 1976 resulted in a modified text and, in addition, to understandings regarding four of the Treaty articles. These were transmitted to the U.N. General Assembly for consideration during the fall session.

Article I sets forth the basic commitment: "Each State Party to this Convention undertakes not to engage in military or any other hostile use of environmental modification techniques having widespread, long-lasting or severe effects as the means of destruction, damage or injury to any other State Party." An understanding defines the terms "widespread, long-lasting or severe." "Widespread" is defined as "encompassing an area on the scale of several hundred square kilometers"; "long-lasting" is defined as "lasting for a period of months, or approximately a season"; and "severe" is defined as "involving serious or significant disruption or harm to human life, natural and economic resources or other assets."

With regard to peaceful uses of environmental modification techniques, the convention provides that the parties shall have the right to participate in the fullest possible exchange of scientific and technological information.

In addition to the provision for mutual consultation regarding complaints and for resource to the Security Council, the revised draft establishes the framework for a Consultative Committee of Experts, which would meet on an ad hoc basis when so requested by a party, in order to clarify the nature of activities suspected to be in violation of the convention. Responding to the suggestion of many delegations, the revised text incorporates a provision for periodic conferences to review the Conventions operation.

During the 1976 fall session, the U.N. General Assembly held extensive debate on the draft Convention, including several resolutions relating thereto. On December 10, the General Assembly adopted a resolution by a vote of 96 to 8, with 30 abstentions, which referred the Convention to all member nations for their consideration, signature, and ratification, and requested the U.N. Secretary-General to open the Convention for signature.

The U.N. Secretary-General officiated at the signing ceremony in Geneva on May 18. The United States joined 33 other nations in signing the Convention. The Convention entered into force on October 5, 1978, when the 20th state to sign the Convention deposited its instrument of ratification. President Carter transmitted the Convention to the Senate on September 22, 1978.

The Senate gave its advice and consent to ratification on November 28, 1979, by a vote of 98-0. The President ratified the Convention December 13, 1979. The Convention entered into force for the United States on January 17, 1980, when the U.S. instrument of ratification was deposited in New York.

Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques
Signed in Geneva May 18, 1977
Entered into force October 5, 1978
Ratification by U.S. President December 13, 1979
U.S. ratification deposited at New York January 17, 1980
The States Parties to this Convention,

Guided by the interest of consolidating peace, and wishing to contribute to the cause of halting the arms race, and of bringing about general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control, and of saving mankind from the danger of using new means of warfare,

Determined to continue negotiations with a view to achieving effective progress towards further measures in the field of disarmament,

Recognizing that scientific and technical advances may open new possibilities with respect to modification of the environment,

Recalling the Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment adopted at Stockholm on 16 June 1972,

Realizing that the use of environmental modification techniques for peaceful purposes could improve the interrelationship of man and nature and contribute to the preservation and improvement of the environment for the benefit of present and future generations,

Recognizing, however, that military or any other hostile use of such techniques could have effects extremely harmful to human welfare,

Desiring to prohibit effectively military or any other hostile use of environmental modification techniques in order to eliminate the dangers to mankind from such use, and affirming their willingness to work towards the achievement of this objective,

Desiring also to contribute to the strengthening of trust among nations and to the further improvement of the international situation in accordance with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations,

Have agreed as follows:

1. Each State Party to this Convention undertakes not to engage in military or any other hostile use of environmental modification techniques having widespread, long-lasting or severe effects as the means of destruction, damage or injury to any other State Party.

2. Each State Party to this Convention undertakes not to assist, encourage or induce any State, group of States or international organiza-tion to engage in activities contrary to the provisions of paragraph 1 of this article.

As used in Article I, the term "environmental modification techniques" refers to any technique for changing -- through the deliberate manipulation of natural processes -- the dynamics, composition or structure of the Earth, including its biota, lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere, or of outer space.

Article III

1. The provisions of this Convention shall not hinder the use of environmental modification techniques for peaceful purposes and shall be without prejudice to the generally recognized principles and applicable rules of international law concerning such use.

2. The States Parties to this Convention undertake to facilitate, and have the right to participate in, the fullest possible exchange of scientific and technological information on the use of environmental modification techniques for peaceful purposes. States Parties in a position to do so shall contribute, alone or together with other States or international organizations, to international economic and scientific co-operation in the preservation, improvement, and peaceful utilization of the environment, with due consideration for the needs of the developing areas of the world.

Each State Party to this Convention undertakes to take any measures it considers necessary in accordance with its constitutional processes to prohibit and prevent any activity in violation of the provisions of the Convention anywhere under its jurisdiction or control.

1. The States Parties to this Convention undertake to consult one another and to cooperate in solving any problems which may arise in relation to the objectives of, or in the application of the provisions of, the Convention. Consultation and cooperation pursuant to this article may also be undertaken through appropriate international procedures within the framework of the United Nations and in accordance with its Charter. These international procedures may include the services of appropriate international organizations, as well as of a Consultative Committee of Experts as provided for in paragraph 2 of this article.

2. For the purposes set forth in paragraph 1 of this article, the Depositary shall, within one month of the receipt of a request from any State Party to this Convention, convene a Consultative Committee of Experts. Any State Party may appoint an expert to the Committee whose functions and rules of procedure are set out in the annex, which constitutes an integral part of this Convention. The Committee shall transmit to the Depositary a summary of its findings of fact, incorporating all views and information presented to the Committee during its proceedings. The Depositary shall distribute the summary to all States Parties.

3. Any State Party to this Convention which has reason to believe that any other State Party is acting in breach of obligations deriving from the provisions of the Convention may lodge a complaint with the Security Council of the United Nations. Such a complaint should include all relevant information as well as all possible evidence supporting its validity.

4. Each State Party to this Convention undertakes to cooperate in carrying out any investigation which the Security Council may initiate, in accordance with the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations, on the basis of the complaint received by the Council. The Security Council shall inform the States Parties of the results of the investigation.

5. Each State Party to this Convention undertakes to provide or support assistance, in accordance with the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations, to any State Party which so requests, if the Security Council decides that such Party has been harmed or is likely to be harmed as a result of violation of the Convention.

1. Any State Party to this Convention may propose amendments to the Convention. The text of any proposed amendment shall be submitted to the Depositary who shall promptly circulate it to all States Parties.

2. An amendment shall enter into force for all States Parties to this Convention which have accepted it, upon the deposit with the Depositary of instruments of acceptance by a majority of States Parties. Thereafter it shall enter into force for any remaining State Party on the date of deposit of its instrument of acceptance.

Article VII

This Convention shall be of unlimited duration.

Article VIII

1. Five years after the entry into force of this Convention, a conference of the States Parties to the Convention shall be convened by the Depositary at Geneva, Switzerland. The conference shall review the operation of the Convention with a view to ensuring that its purposes and provisions are being realized, and shall in particular examine the effectiveness of the provisions of paragraph 1 of Article I in eliminating the dangers of military or any other hostile use of environmental modification techniques.

2. At intervals of not less than five years thereafter, a majority of the States Parties to the Convention may obtain, by submitting a proposal to this effect to the Depositary, the convening of a conference with the same objectives.

3. If no conference has been convened pursuant to paragraph 2 of this article within ten years following the conclusion of a previous conference, the Depositary shall solicit the views of all States Parties to the Convention, concerning the convening of such a conference. If one third or ten of the States Parties, whichever number is less, respond affirmatively, the Depositary shall take immediate steps to convene the conference.

1. This Convention shall be open to all States for signature. Any State which does not sign the Convention before its entry into force in accordance with paragraph 3 of this article may accede to it at any time.

2. This Convention shall be subject to ratification by signatory States. Instruments of ratification or accession shall be deposited with the Secretary-General of the United Nations.

3. This Convention shall enter into force upon the deposit of instruments of ratification by twenty Governments in accordance with paragraph 2 of this article.

4. For those States whose instruments of ratification or accession are deposited after the entry into force of this Convention, it shall enter into force on the date of the deposit of their instruments of ratification or accession.

5. The Depositary shall promptly inform all signatory and acceding States of the date of each signature, the date of deposit of each instrument of ratification or accession and the date of the entry into force of this Convention and of any amendments thereto, as well as of the receipt of other notices.

6. This Convention shall be registered by the Depositary in accordance with Article 102 of the Charter of the United Nations.

This Convention, of which the English, Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, and Spanish texts are equally authentic, shall be deposited with the Secretary-General of the United Nations, who shall send certified copies thereof to the Governments of the signatory and acceding States.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, the undersigned, being duly authorized thereto by their respective governments, have signed this Convention, opened for signature at Geneva on the eighteenth day of May, one thousand nine hundred and seventy-seven.

DONE at Geneva on May 18, 1977.

ANNEX TO THE CONVENTION
CONSULTATIVE COMMITTEE OF EXPERTS

1. The Consultative Committee of Experts shall undertake to make appropriate findings of fact and provide expert views relevant to any problem raised pursuant to paragraph 1 of Article V of this Convention by the State Party requesting the convening of the Committee.

2. The work of the Consultative Committee of Experts shall be organized in such a way as to permit it to perform the functions set forth in paragraph 1 of this annex. The Committee shall decide procedural questions relative to the organization of its work, where possible by consensus, but otherwise by a majority of those present and voting. There shall be no voting on matters of substance.

3. The Depositary or his representative shall serve as the Chairman of the Committee.

4. Each expert may be assisted at meetings by one or more advisers.

5. Each expert shall have the right, through the Chairman, to request from States, and from international organizations, such information and assistance as the expert considers desirable for the accomplishment of the Committees work.

UNDERSTANDINGS REGARDING THE CONVENTION

Understanding Relating to Article I

It is the understanding of the Committee that, for the purposes of this Convention, the terms, "widespread", "long-lasting" and "severe" shall be interpreted as follows:

(b) "long-lasting": lasting for a period of months, or approximately a season;

(c) "severe": involving serious or significant disruption or harm to human life, natural and economic resources or other assets.

(a) "widespread": encompassing an area on the scale of several hundred square kilometres;

It is further understood that the interpretation set forth above is intended exclusively for this Convention and is not intended to prejudice the interpretation of the same or similar terms if used in connexion with any other international agreement.

Understanding Relating to Article II

It is the understanding of the Committee that the following examples are illustrative of phenomena that could be caused by the use of environmental modification techniques as defined in Article II of the Convention: earthquakes, tsunamis; an upset in the ecological balance of a region; changes in weather patterns (clouds, precipitation, cyclones of various types and tornadic storms); changes in climate patterns; changes in ocean currents; changes in the state of the ozone layer; and changes in the state of the ionosphere.

It is further understood that all the phenomena listed above, when produced by military or any other hostile use of environmental modification techniques, would result, or could reasonably be expected to result, in widespread, long-lasting or severe destruction, damage or injury. Thus, military or any other hostile use of environmental modification techniques as defined in Article II, so as to cause those phenomena as a means of destruction, damage or injury to another State Party, would be prohibited.

It is recognized, moreover, that the list of examples set out above is not exhaustive. Other phenomena which could result from the use of environmental modification techniques as defined in Article II could also be appropriately included. The absence of such phenomena from the list does not in any way imply that the undertaking contained in Article I would not be applicable to those phenomena, provided the criteria set out in that article were met.

Understanding Relating to Article III

It is the understanding of the Committee that this Convention does not deal with the question whether or not a given use of environmental modification techniques for peaceful purposes is in accordance with generally recognized principles and applicable rules of international law.

Understanding Relating to Article VIII

It is the understanding of the Committee that a proposal to amend the Convention may also be considered at any conference of Parties held pursuant to Article VIII. It is further understood that any proposed amendment that is intended for such consideration should, if possible, be submitted to the Depositary no less than 90 days before the commencement of the conference.

__________________

1 These are not incorporated into the Convention but are part of the negotiating record and were included in the report transmitted by the CCD to the U.N. General Assembly in September 1976.

____________________________

¹ Dates given are the earliest dates on which countries signed the agreements or deposited their ratifications or accessions -- whether in Washington, London, Moscow, or New York. In the case of a country that was a dependent territory which became a party through succession, the date given is the date on which the country gave notice that it would continue to be bound by the terms of the agreement.

² The United States regards the signature and ratification by the Byelorussian S.S.R. and the Ukrainian S.S.R. as already included under the signature and ratification of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

³ This total does not include actions by the Byelorussian S.S.R. and the Ukrainian S.S.R. (See footnote 2.)

⁴ Effective January 1, 1979, the United States recognized the Government of the People's Republic of China as the sole government of China.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Use of environmental modification techniques for hostile purposes does not play a major role in military planning at the present time. Such techniques might be developed in the future, however, and would pose a threat of serious damage unless action was taken to prohibit their use. In July 1972 the U.S.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In an era of high-tech and climate extremes, we are drowning in information while starving for wisdom. Enter Lo-TEK, a design movement building on indigenous philosophy and vernacular infrastructure to generate sustainable, resilient, nature-based technol

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This is a solar-powered website, which means it sometimes goes offline

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Rainmaking Is Used As Weapon by U.S. (Published 1972)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
US civilian and mil sources, in series of ints, say USAF and CIA have been secretly seeding clouds over N and S Vietnam and Laos to increase and control rainfall for mil purposes; seeding program aimed most recently at hindering movement of N Vietnamese troops and supplies and suppressing enemy AA f…

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.chathamhouse.org/events/all/members-event/rethinking-governance-solar-geoengineering

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
We find an urgency to re-examine the way people understand and picture the environment, from the level of the planet as a conceptual whole.