Earthmasters: Playing God with the Climate

While Washington, London and Canberra fiddle, the planet burns. It has become painfully clear that the big democracies won't take the hard decisions to halt climate change. Climate scientists now expect the worst, and they're contemplating a response which sounds like science fiction: climate engineering. This means large scale manipulation of the Earth's climate using grand technological interventions, like spraying sulphur compounds into the upper atmosphere to reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the planet, or transforming the chemistry of the world's oceans so they soak up more carbon. The potential risks are enormous: disrupting the food chain, damaging the ozone layer, the loss of monsoon rains in Asia - the list goes on. It is messing with nature on a scale we've never before seen, and it's attracting a flood of interest from scientists, venture capitalists and oil companies. This is also the end of the climate stability which has allowed humans to flourish, and it is the end of the 'progress' which emerged with the scientific revolution of the Enlightenment. In his characteristically lucid and passionate style, Clive Hamilton spells out the implications for all of us.