Abstract
As alarm over global warming spreads, a radical idea is taking hold. An emerging breed of so-called climate engineers is promoting invasive techniques to cool the planet through albedo modification and so-called “negative carbon emissions” will be necessary. Shoot sulphates or reflective nanoparticles into the upper atmosphere, turning the blue sky milky white. Make the clouds thicker and brighter. Fertilise the oceans to stimulate massive algae blooms that turn the blue seas soupy green. Suck CO2 out of the air with hundreds of thousands of giant artificial trees. Store the captured CO2 safely underground for millennia. While these proposals seem edgy and exciting, they often test the limits of scientific, technological, and institutional possibility and overlook the political, ethical, and social consequences of managing the world’s climate. Advocates of climate engineering, with vanishingly few exceptions, are Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) males with superman complexes. Their views are short-sighted, dangerous, and “barking mad.” This chapter provides historical perspectives, social context, and a gendered analysis of these dangerous proposals.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Albrecht, G. (2006). Solastalgia. Alternatives Journal,32, 34–36.
Bacon, F. (1620/1872). The Works of Francis Bacon (Collected and Edited by James Spedding, Robert Leslie Ellis, and Douglas Denon Heath, Volume X). New York, NY: Hurd and Houghton.
B.R.M. (1934). Review of Pagan Tribes of the Nilotic Sudan by C. G. Seligman and Brenda Z. Seligman (London: Routledge, 1932). Journal of the Royal African Society, 33, 314–315.
Budyko, M. I. (1974). Climate Changes. Translated from the Russian. Washington, DC: American Geophysical Union.
Buesseler, K. O., Doney, S. C., Karl, D. M., Boyd, P. W., Caldeira, K., Chai, F.,... Watson, A. J. (2008). Ocean Iron Fertilization: Moving Forward in a Sea of Uncertainty. Science,319, 162.
Butler, J. (2006). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York, NY: Routledge.
Campbell, J. (1949). The Hero with a Thousand Faces. New York, NY: Pantheon.
Cohn, C. (1987). Sex and death in the rational world of defense intellectuals. Signs,12, 687–718.
Crutzen, P. J. (2006). Albedo enhancement by stratospheric sulfur injections: A contribution to resolve a policy dilemma? An editorial essay. Climatic Change,77, 211–220.
Fleming, J. R. (2010). Fixing the Sky: The Checkered History of Weather and Climate Control. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
Fleming, J. R. (2014). Carbon “Die”-Oxide: The personal and the planetary. In J. R. Fleming & A. Johnson (Eds.), Toxic Airs: Body, Place, Planet in Historical Perspective (pp. 251–270). Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.
Fleming, J. R. (2016). Inventing Atmospheric Science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Fleming, J. R. (2017). Excuse us, while we fix the sky: WEIRD supermen and climate engineering. In S. MacGregor & N. Seymour (Eds.), Men and Nature: Hegemonic Masculinities and Environmental Change (pp. 23–28). Munich: RCC Perspectives.
Fleming, J. R. (2020). FIRST WOMAN: Joanne Simpson and the Tropical Atmosphere. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Fox-Keller, E. (1985). Reflections on Gender and Science (pp. 48–54). New Haven: Yale University Press.
Gaard, G. (2014). Toward new ecomasculinities, ecogenders, and ecosexualities. In C. J. Adams & L. Gruen (Eds.), Ecofeminism: Feminist Intersections with Other Animals and the Earth (pp. 225–239). London, England: Bloomsbury.
Gaard, G. (2015). Ecofeminism and climate change. Women’s Studies International Forum,49, 20–33.
Garrard, G. (2020). Never too soon, always too late: Reflections on climate temporality. WIREs Climate Change, 11: e605. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.605.
Hamilton, C. (2010). Requiem for a Species: Why We Resist the Truth About Climate Change. Washington, DC: Earthscan.
Henrich, J., Heine, S. J., & Norenzayan, A. (2010). The Weirdest People in the World? (Working Paper Series of the German Data Forum [RatSWD], No. 139).
Hoffert, M. (2006). In United States of America. Climate Change Technology Research: Do We Need a “Manhattan Project” for the Environment? Hearing Before the Committee on Government Reform, House of Representatives, September 21, 2006. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
Hultman, M., & Pulé, P. M. (2018). Ecological Masculinities: Theoretical Foundations and Practical Guidance. Abingdon, Oxon, England: Routledge.
Hultman, M., & Pulé, P. M. (2019). Ecological masculinities: A response to the manthropocene question? In L. Gottzén, U. Mellström, & T. Shefer (Eds.), Routledge International Handbook of Masculinity Studies. London, England: Routledge.
Iwu, M. M. (1993). Handbook of African Medicinal Plants. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.
Klein, D., Pía Carazo, M., Doelle, M., Bulmer, J., & Higham, A. (Eds.). (2017). Paris Agreement on Climate Change: Analysis and Commentary. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Klein, N. (2014). This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.
Marvel, K. (2018, March 1). We need courage, not hope, to face climate change. Retrieved from https://onbeing.org/blog/kate-marvel-we-need-courage-not-hope-to-face-climate-change/.
Mbiti, J. S. (1970). African Religions and Philosophy. New York, NY: Praeger.
Meade, T. A., & Wiesner-Hanks, M. E. (2004). A Companion to Gender History. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Merchant, C. (1980). The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology and the Scientific Revolution. New York, NY: HarperCollins.
Moneva, M.-A. R. (2010). A Modest Proposal in the Context of Swift’s Irish Tracts: A Relevance-Theoretic Study. Newcastle upon Tyne, England: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Moniz, E. J. (2019). Innovating a green real deal. Science, 364(6445), 1013.
Morton, O. (2007). Climate change: Is this what it takes to save the world? Nature,447, 132–136.
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2015). Climate Intervention, 2 vols. Reflecting Sunlight to Cool Earth and Carbon Dioxide Removal and Reliable Sequestration. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2019). Negative Emissions Technologies and Reliable Sequestration: A Research Agenda. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
Nicholas, G. (2018, February 21). When scientists “discover” what indigenous people have known for centuries. The Conversation. Retrieved from https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/why-science-takes-so-long-catch-up-traditional-knowledge-180968216/.
Noble, D. F. (1992). A World Without Women: The Christian Clerical Culture of Western Science. New York, NY: Knopf.
Pierrehumbert, R. T. (2015, February 10). Climate hacking is barking mad. Slate. http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2015/02/nrc_geoengineering_report_climate_hacking_is_dangerous_and_barking_mad.single.html.
Sanders, T. (2003). (En)Gendering the weather: Rainmaking and reproduction in Tanzania. In S. Strauss & B. Orlove (Eds.), Weather, Climate, Culture (pp. 83–102). New York, NY: Berg.
Soentgen, J. (2010). On the history and prehistory of CO2. Foundations of Chemistry,12, 137–148.
Toth, F. L. (Ed.). (2011). Geological disposal of carbon dioxide and radioactive waste: A comparative assessment. In Advances in Global Change Research (p. 44). Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Springer.
Wood, L. (2006). Stabilizing changing climate via stratosphere-based albedo modulation. PowerPoint presentation at NASA-Ames–CIW Workshop on Managing Solar Radiation.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Fleming, J.R. (2021). Excuse Us, While We Fix the Sky: WEIRD Supermen and Climate Intervention. In: Pulé, P.M., Hultman, M. (eds) Men, Masculinities, and Earth. Palgrave Studies in the History of Science and Technology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54486-7_24
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54486-7_24
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-54485-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-54486-7
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)