ABSTRACT
As I noted in Chapter 1, it is often said that there’s nothing new under the sun. Geoengineering is. For the first time since the planet’s formation some 13 billion years ago, one species is contemplating intervening at a global scale in the physical processes that determine the surface and atmospheric environment for all species. The advent of the Anthropocene recognises that humans increasingly have the power to shape the planet but hitherto this shaping has arisen from the accumulation over millennia of multiple local interventions, some intentional, others not (Lewis and Maslin 2015). But the intentional intervention at a global scale is novel. Some regard this as a bad idea in principle (Hulme 2014); others regard it as regrettable but potentially necessary to avert the worst ravages of climate change (Keith 2013). I regard it as a challenge for which evolution has not prepared us.
