The fifth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report stated with 95% confidence that humans are the cause of the global warming that has been observed over the past 60 years [1]. This seems to settle the question definitively that climate change is anthropogenic, something we have suspected since the early 20th century [2]. The cause of climate change is greenhouse gas emissions from transportation, industry, electricity generation, and agriculture—engineering responses to human needs that emerged from a techno-scientific framing of the problems they address. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that a proposed climate change intervention is geoengineering—the deliberate manipulation of the Earth’s climate in an effort to halt the effects of global warming.

It has been suggested that the geoengineering promise of turning an intractable social, economic, and political problem into a solvable technical one has been met with a “giddy sense of relief in some quarters and a dark sense of foreboding in others” [3]. Presumably referring to lifestyle changes, one prominent American politician commented that geoengineering offers a cheap alternative to “penalizing ordinary Americans” [4]. Such an attitude belongs to what eco-feminist philosopher Val Plumwood has called “a cult of reason” [5]. Indeed, the feminist critique suggests deficiencies in the types of question that are being asked about the geoengineering proposal, suggesting potential problems in our approach to the environmental crisis generally.

Hamilton has pointed out that supporters of geoengineering must make an “implicit judgment that social change is not on the table” [6], thus making it easy to resort to our “preoccupation with techno-fixes.” Techno-fixes are ultimately about trying to achieve control. But nature is inherently uncontrollable, so geoengineering is considered by some to demonstrate the same hubristic attitude that has caused numerous environmental problems over the past two centuries [7].

Given this track record, why are we still seduced by the prospect of engineering nature?

The answer may lie in persistent patriarchal narratives within our dominant society. The male ideology of domination and mastery has been linked with colonialism, the subjugation of women, and the subjugation of nature [8]. To such an ideology, the prospect of planetary climate control must be appealing. It seems that a white male scientific “geo-clique” [9] has emerged to dominate the geoengineering conversation with little input from women [10]. One commentator wrote that geoengineering “consists of the simultaneous play and display of technical prowess in the masculine ritual of tinkering” [11], with an inclination towards “advanced, bold, and risky” interventions that require “quick action” and a “steely nerve.” By this account, geoengineering is portrayed as an opportunity to boldly validate our ability to match any human challenge with increasingly sleek technological solutions. Techno-fixes assume that human culture is unchangeable, but by reducing climate change to a problem searching for an engineering solution, we flatten out and diminish its other dimensions, thereby masking its underlying conditions and any injustices that persist.

The feminist consideration of climate change also highlights the problem of the generalized other [12]. Climate science focuses on mean temperatures as though they reflect the experience of every nation and all people. But targets set against mean temperatures abstract the victims of climate change and obfuscate local effects. Geoengineering must not fall victim to similar oversimplification.

One commentator notes that “different types of regional effects on concrete others are at least as morally significant as global effects on generalized others” [13]. Aggregation feeds into a tendency to delineate groups—rich and poor, developed and developing, global north and global south. The feminist contribution speaks to the importance of the concrete other’s particular needs; “feminist objectivity” is described as being based on “limited location and situated knowledge” [14]. But how could large-scale climate interventions attend to local needs when their effect is perhaps impossible to model accurately? We need an alternative imaginary in thinking about the climate challenge. Whereas climate change justice portrays generalized victims through international agreements, the ethics of care [15] attend to concrete individuals, relationships, and specific needs. Some argue that women’s moral judgment is more contextual and attentive to the details of relationships and narratives [16].

If geoengineering follows past human intervention with nature, it could prove to be a highly destructive response. Ethical and social considerations must be closely partnered with technical progress. Plumwood wrote:

“We have reason to suspect that the west’s sado-dispassionate cultural drama of reason and nature may unfold to a conclusion where the Hero of Reason chokes the life from his planetary partner in his final sadistic act of mastery” [17].

For some, the prospect of geoengineering conjures up images of just such an act. Some forms of geoengineering may prove to be beneficial as climate remediation strategies but only if they incorporate in equal measure masculine technical prowess and feminine attention to care and context. Although our dominant cultural paradigm provides an atmosphere conducive to engineering solutions, we must earnestly consider all responses to the climate challenge. Ultimately, the geoengineering example highlights the inherent contradiction of trying to engineer our way out of the environmental crisis.

References

1. IPCC (2013). Climate change 2013: The physical science basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the fifth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Stocker, T.F., D. Qin, G.-K. Plattner, M. Tignor, S.K. Allen, J. Boschung, A. Nauels, Y. Xia, V. Bex & P.M. Midgley (eds.)]. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

2. Keith, D. (2000). Geoengineering the climate: History and prospect. Annual Review of Energy and the Environment 25, 245-284. Available from: http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.energy.25.1.245

3. Buck, H., Gammon, A., & Preston, C. (2014). Gender and geoengineering, Hypatia, 29(3), 651-669. Available from: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/hypa.12083/full

4. Hamilton, C. (2015). The risks of climate engineering. The New York Times [Online]. 12 February. Available from: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/12/opinion/the-risks-of-climate-engineering.html

5. Plumwood, V. (2002). Environmental culture [Online]. London, UK: Taylor & Francis. Available from: https://www.dawsonera.com/abstract/9780203996430

6. Hamilton, C. (2011). Ethical anxieties about geoengineering: Moral hazard, slippery slope and playing god. Paper presented to a conference of the Australian Academy of Science Canberra, 27 September. Available from: http://clivehamilton.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/ethical_anxieties_about_ geoengineering.pdf

7. Buck, H., Gammon, A., & Preston, C. (2014). Gender and geoengineering, Hypatia, 29(3), 651-669. Available from: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/hypa.12083/full

8. Plumwood, V. (2002). Environmental culture [Online]. London, UK: Taylor & Francis. Available from: https://www.dawsonera.com/abstract/9780203996430

9. Hamilton, C. (2011). The clique that is trying to frame the global geoengineering debate. The Guardian [Online], December 5. Available from: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/dec/05/clique-geoengineering-debate

10. Buck, H., Gammon, A., & Preston, C. (2014). Gender and geoengineering, Hypatia, 29(3), 651-669. Available from: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/hypa.12083/full

11. Ibid.

12. Ibid.

13. Ibid.

14. Haraway, D. (1988). Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective. Feminist Studies 14(3), 575–599.

15. Benhabib, S. (1985). The generalized and the concrete other: The Kohlberg Gilligan controversy and feminist theory, PRAXIS International 4 [Online], 402-424. Available from: http://www.ceeol.com/aspx/getdocument.aspx?logid=5&id=134e44f4c64c438a98184f914ece24f4

16. Ibid.

17. Plumwood, V. (2002). Environmental culture [Online]. London, UK: Taylor & Francis. Available from: https://www.dawsonera.com/abstract/9780203996430