Page 245 - James Rodger Fleming - Fixing the sky

What is Geoengineering?

In 1996 Thomas Schelling wrote, “‘Geoengineering’ is a new term, still seeking
a definition. It seems to imply something global, intentional, and unnatural.”
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More than a decade later, the word remains largely undefined and unpracticed. It
is not in the Oxford English Dictionary, but it did find its way into the Urban Dic-
tionary, where it is loosely defined as “the intentional large-scale manipulation
of the global environment; planetary tinkering; a subset of terraforming or plan-
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etary engineering . . . the last gasp of a dying civilization.” Lovelock subscribes to
this definition, at least the first part, and further claims that “we became geoengi-
neers soon after our species started using fire for cooking,” or perhaps, as geosci-
entist William Ruddiman has proposed, millennia ago through the practices of
extensive deforestation and agriculture. 10
In the OED, an “engineer” is one who contrives, designs, or invents, “a layer of
snares”; a constructor of military engines; one whose profession is the designing
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and constructing of works of public utility. So engineering, by definition, has
both military and civilian aspects, elements potentially both nefarious and altru-
istic (figure 8.1). By analogy, the neologism “geoengineer” refers to one who con-
trives, designs, or invents at the largest planetary scale possible for either military
or civilian purposes—a layer of snares at the global level. Today geoengineering,
as an unpracticed art, is still largely “geo-scientific speculation.”
“Ecohacking,” another term for geoengineering, made the short list for the
oxford Word of the Year 2008. It is loosely defined as “the use of science in
very large-scale [planetary scale] projects to change the environment for the
better/stop global warming (e.g., by using mirrors in space to deflect sunlight
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away from Earth).” A recent report issued by the Royal Society of London
defines geoengineering as “the deliberate large-scale manipulation of the plane-
tary environment to counteract anthropogenic climate change.” But there are
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significant problems with such definitions. First of all, an engineering practice
defined by its scale (geo) need not be constrained by its stated purpose (envi-
ronmental improvement), by one of its currently proposed techniques (space
mirrors), or by one of perhaps many stated goals (to counteract anthropogenic
climate change). Nuclear engineers, for example, are capable of building both
power plants and bombs; mechanical engineers can design components for
both ambulances and tanks; my father, a precision machinist during World
War II, milled both aluminum ice cream scoops and one-of-a-kind compo-
nents for top-secret military projects. So to constrain the essence of something
that does not exist by its stated purpose, techniques, or goals is misleading
at best.

228 | tHe Climate enGineerS