Table Of Content6.125” .611
ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES / PUBLIC POLICY / SOCIOLOGY
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“Has It Come to This? provides insight into the rise of geoengineering onto the world SK HAS IT COME TO THIS?
stage, painting a picture of societal power in a global system.” I,
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—Rachael Shwom, associate professor, Rutgers University U
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Geoengineering is the deliberate and large-scale intervention in the Earth’s climate A
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system to mitigate the effects of global warming. Now that a climate emergency D
is upon us, claims that geoengineering is inevitable are proliferating. How did we M The Promises and Perils of
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get into this situation where the most extreme path now seems plausible? Is it an L
M Geoengineering on the Brink
accurate representation of where we are? Who is this “we”? What options make it
onto the table? Which are left out? Whom does geoengineering serve? These are
some of the questions that the thinkers contributing to this volume explore from
perspectives ranging from sociology and geography to ethics and indigenous studies.
The editors offer this diverse collection of voices as a place where creative thinkers, H
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students, and environmental and social justice advocates can explore nuanced ideas S Edited by J. P. Sapinski, Holly Jean Buck, and Andreas Malm
in more than 280 characters. I
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9.25 J. P. SAPINSKI is an assistant professor of environmental studies and public policy at
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Université de Moncton in Canada. His work draws from the critical political economy and
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power structure research traditions to map out the constellations of corporate interests O
involved in the politics of climate change and energy, including geoengineering politics. T
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He is the coauthor of Organizing the 1%: How Corporate Power Works.
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HOLLY JEAN BUCK is an assistant professor of environment and sustainability at the Uni-
versity at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY. She is the author of After Geoengineering: Climate Tragedy,
Repair, and Restoration. She has written on climate engineering, including policies for scaling
up carbon removal.
ANDREAS MALM teaches human ecology at Lund University in Sweden. He is the author of
Fossil Capital: The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming and The Progress of
This Storm: Nature and Society in a Warming World.
A volume in the Nature, Society, and Culture series, edited by Scott Frickel
Cover art: Goldilocks Project / stock.adobe.com
Cover design: Dave Kessler Design
www.rutgersuniversitypress.org
v2 9.11.20 - kessler
Has It Come to This?
Nature, Society, and Culture
Scott Frickel, Series Editor
A sophisticated and wide- ranging sociological literature analyzing nature-s ociety-
culture interactions has blossomed in recent decades. This book series provides a
platform for showcasing the best of that scholarship: carefully crafted empirical
studies of socioenvironmental change and the effects such change has on ecosys-
tems, social institutions, historical processes, and cultural practices.
The series aims for topical and theoretical breadth. Anchored in sociological
analyses of the environment, Nature, Society, and Culture is home to studies
employing a range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives and inves-
tigating the pressing socioenvironmental questions of our time—f rom environ-
mental inequality and risk, to the science and politics of climate change and
serial disaster, to the environmental causes and consequences of urbanization
and war making, and beyond.
Available titles in the Nature, Society, and Culture series:
Diane C. Bates, Superstorm Sandy: The Inevitable Destruction and Reconstruction
of the Jersey Shore
Elizabeth Cherry, For the Birds: Protecting Wildlife through the Naturalist Gaze
Cody Ferguson, This Is Our Land: Grassroots Environmentalism in the Late
Twentieth Century
Aya H. Kimura and Abby Kinchy, Science by the People: Participation, Power,
and the Politics of Environmental Knowledge
Anthony B. Ladd, ed., Fractured Communities: Risk, Impacts, and Protest against
Hydraulic Fracking in U.S. Shale Regions
Stefano B. Longo, Rebecca Clausen, and Brett Clark, The Tragedy of the Com-
modity: Oceans, Fisheries, and Aquaculture
Stephanie A. Malin, The Price of Nuclear Power: Uranium Communities and
Environmental Justice
Kari Marie Norgaard, Salmon and Acorns Feed Our People: Colonialism, Nature,
and Social Action
J. P. Sapinski, Holly Jean Buck, and Andreas Malm, eds., Has It Come to This?
The Promises and Perils of Geoengineering on the Brink
Chelsea Schelly, Dwelling in Resistance: Living with Alternative Technologies in
America
Diane Sicotte, From Workshop to Waste Magnet: Environmental Inequality in
the Philadelphia Region
Sainath Suryanarayanan and Daniel Lee Kleinman, Vanishing Bees: Science,
Politics, and Honeybee Health
Has It Come to This?
The Promises and Perils of
Geoengineering on the Brink
EDITED BY J. P. SAPINSKI, HOLLY JEAN BUCK,
AND ANDREAS MALM
Rutgers University Press
New Brunswick, Camden, and Newark, New Jersey, and London
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Sapinski, J. P., editor. | Buck, Holly Jean, 1981– editor. | Malm, Andreas, 1977– editor.
Title: Has it come to this? : the promises and perils of geoengineering on the brink / edited by J. P.
Sapinski, Holly Jean Buck, and Andreas Malm.
Description: New Brunswick : Rutgers University Press, [2020] | Series: Nature, society, and culture |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020005630 (print) | LCCN 2020005631 (ebook) | ISBN 9781978809352
(paperback) | ISBN 9781978809369 (cloth) | ISBN 9781978809376 (epub) | ISBN 9781978809383
(mobi) | ISBN 9781978809390 (pdf)
Subjects: LCSH: Environmental geotechnology. | Climate change mitigation.
Classification: LCC TD171.9 .H37 2020 (print) | LCC TD171.9 (ebook) | DDC 628.5/32— dc23
LC record available at https:// lccn .loc .gov/ 2020005630
LC ebook record available at https:// lccn .loc .gov/ 2020005631
A British Cataloging- in- Publication record for this book is available from the British Library.
This collection copyright © 2021 by Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Individual chapters copyright © 2021 in the names of their authors
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from
the publisher. Please contact Rutgers University Press, 106 Somerset Street, New Brunswick, NJ
08901. The only exception to this prohibition is “fair use” as defined by U.S. copyright law.
♾ The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard
for Information Sciences— Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1 992.
www .rutgersuniversitypress .org
Manufactured in the United States of America
Contents
Part I Introduction
1 Critical Perspectives on Geoengineering: A Dialogue 3
HOLLY JEAN BUCK, J. P. SAPINSKI, AND ANDREAS MALM
Part II Contesting Geoengineering: Power, Justice,
and Civil Society
2 Winning Hearts and Minds? Explaining the Rise
of the Geoengineering Idea 21
INA MÖLLER
3 Carbon Unicorns and Fossil Futures: Whose Emission
Reduction Pathways Is the IPCC Performing? 34
WIM CARTON
4 Defending a Failed Status Quo: The Case against
Geoengineering from a Civil Society Perspective 50
LINDA SCHNEIDER AND LILI FUHR
5 Geoengineering and Indigenous Climate Justice:
A Conversation with Kyle Powys Whyte 69
KYLE POWYS WHYTE, INTERVIEWED BY HOLLY JEAN BUCK
6 Recognizing the Injustice in Geoengineering:
Negotiating a Path to Restorative Climate Justice through
a Political Account of Justice as Recognition 82
DUNCAN MCLAREN
v
vi • Contents
7 An Intersectional Analysis of Geoengineering: Overlapping
Oppressions and the Demand for Ecological Citizenship 99
TINA SIKKA
Part III State Power, Economic Planning,
and Geoengineering
8 Mobilizing in a Climate Shock: Geoengineering
or Accelerated Energy Transition? 121
LAURENCE L. DELINA
9 A Left Defense of Carbon Dioxide Removal: The State
Must Be Forced to Deploy Civilization- Saving Technology 130
CHRISTIAN PARENTI
10 Planning the Planet: Geoengineering Our Way Out of
and Back into a Planned Economy 143
ANDREAS MALM
11 Provisioning Climate: An Infrastructural Approach
to Geoengineering 163
ANNE PASEK
Part IV Geoengineering: A Class Project
in the Face of Systemic Crisis?
12 Geoengineering and Imperialism 179
RICHARD YORK
13 Gramsci in the Stratosphere: Solar Geoengineering
and Capitalist Hegemony 189
KEVIN SURPRISE
14 Promises of Climate Engineering after Neoliberalism 207
NILS MARKUSSON, DAVID TYFIELD, JENNIE C. STEPHENS,
AND MADS DAHL GJEFSEN
15 Prospects of Climate Engineering in a Post- truth Era 231
HOLLY JEAN BUCK
Acknowledgments 241
Notes on Contributors 243
Index 247
Has It Come to This?
Part I
Introduction
