Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book traces the existential and ontological threads of current thinking about catastrophic upheavals back to the Lisbon earthquake of 1755. It looks at the history of test sites for warfare and civil defence in the nuclear age, and the roles of military-scientific strategies and technological infrastructures in rehearsing the mass destruction of cities. The book explores the ways in which planet Earth has been conceived of as a spaceship, conveying our species through the cosmos and providing a 'life support' system subject to strict boundaries and limits – including, perhaps, a limited carrying capacity. It addresses geoengineering: the range of ambitious and often disturbing schemes currently under consideration for global-scale, technology-driven interventions into Earth's complex systems. The book discusses the precarious contemporary condition of human unsettlement.