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The Planet Remade: How Geoengineering Could Change the World

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A fascinating look at the perils and promise of geoengineering and our potential future on a warming planet

The risks of global warming are pressing and potentially vast. The difficulty of doing without fossil fuels is daunting, possibly even insurmountable. So there is an urgent need to rethink our responses to the crisis. To meet that need, a small but increasingly influential group of scientists is exploring proposals for planned human intervention in the climate system: a stratospheric veil against the sun, the cultivation of photosynthetic plankton, fleets of unmanned ships seeding the clouds. These are the technologies of geoengineering—and as Oliver Morton argues in this visionary book, it would be as irresponsible to ignore them as it would be foolish to see them as a simple solution to the problem.

The Planet Remade explores the history, politics, and cutting-edge science of geoengineering. Morton weighs both the promise and perils of these controversial strategies and puts them in the broadest possible context. The past century’s changes to the planet—to the clouds and the soils, to the winds and the seas, to the great cycles of nitrogen and carbon—have been far more profound than most of us realize. Appreciating those changes clarifies not just the scale of what needs to be done about global warming, but also our relationship to nature.

Climate change is not just one of the twenty-first century’s defining political challenges. Morton untangles the implications of our failure to meet the challenge of climate change and reintroduces the hope that we might. He addresses the deep fear that comes with seeing humans as a force of nature, and asks what it might mean—and what it might require of us—to try and use that force for good.

ISBN-13: 9780691175904

Media Type: Paperback

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Publication Date: 05-02-2017

Pages: 440

Product Dimensions: 5.70(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.10(d)

Oliver Morton is briefings editor at the Economist, and his writing has appeared in the New Yorker and other publications. He is the author of Eating the Sun: How Plants Power the Planet.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Oliver Morton displays here again the usual virtues of his writing, which include a sparkling clarity maintained even when conveying huge complex masses of information, often about topics new to all of us; and then, even more importantly, good judgment. He makes distinctions when evaluating gnarly problems, and explains the distinctions very persuasively, and with a generous dry wit. All these abilities are now devoted to perhaps the crucial question of our time, the climate, making this simply a Necessary Book, which is also a pleasure to read. Maybe that combination makes it sui generis, but in any case it's an important addition to current discourse, an excellent way to get oriented to our most pressing environmental problem, and I urge people to read it and ponder its news."—Kim Stanley Robinson, author of Red Mars and Aurora

"This is the first book to properly consider the dimensions of the new world we are living in. Morton's book is indispensable, highly readable, and incredibly timely."—Mark Lynas, author of The God Species

"A scholar and a fine literary stylist, Oliver Morton sets the geoengineering debate in a fascinating historical and social context. The Planet Remade is much the best book on the subject and deserves a wide readership."—Martin Rees, author of Our Final Century

"One of the most important and provocative books I've read in years. The Planet Remade is essential for policymakers, environmentalists, skeptics, and anyone else who prefers their views on climate change to be based on evidence rather than rhetoric."—Hari Kunzru, author of Gods without Men

"Written with the grace and clarity its subject demands, The Planet Remade offers just what the issue of climate change needs: fresh thinking about what can be done, based on deep respect for the planet, the science, and the concerns of people with differing points of view. It's an enriching addition to the literature of possible worlds."—Marek Kohn, author of A Reason for Everything and Turned Out Nice

"Deeply rooted in history and smartly optimistic about the future, this is—by far—the best book yet on geoengineering."—David Keith, Harvard University and author of A Case for Climate Engineering

"In Morton's new book, he takes on some of the most challenging issues of our age. It is a readable and thought-provoking look at humanity's dance with hubristic ideas and deeds regarding the manipulation of the environment on a planetary scale. He is clearly one of the best science writers of our day."—Steven Hamburg, Environmental Defense Fund

"Taking a sensible and low-key approach to a rather provocative subject, Morton shows why geoengineering is something that the mainstream will need to consider—it's not something just for the fringes."—Ken Caldeira, Carnegie Institution for Science

"Morton accessibly describes the potential and risks of geoengineering and puts them in the context of climate change and other large-scale interventions that humans have had on the earth system or might seek to have in the future."—Tim Kruger, University of Oxford

"Engaging, persuasive, and thought provoking. Morton discusses the potential role and consequences of geoengineering and puts forward his own carefully considered views on the subject. The Planet Remade is a tour de force of wide-ranging scholarship as well as a soundly argued polemic."—John Shepherd, University of Southampton

Table of Contents

Introduction: Two Questions 1

Climate Risks and Responsibilities 5

The Second Fossil-Fuel Century 8

Altering the Earthsystem 22

Deliberate Planets, Imagined Worlds 26

Part One: Energies

1 The Top of the World 35

Discovering the Stratosphere 38

Fallout 43

The Ozone Layer 47

The Veilmakers 54

2 A Planet Called Weather 57

The Worldfalls 62

The Trenberth Diagram and Climate Science 66

Steam Engines and Spaceship Earth 71

3 Pinatubo 83

Volcanoes and Climate 86

Predictions and Surprises 93

4 Dimming the Noontime Sun 100

Rough Magic 107

Promethean Science 112

5 Coming to Think This Way 124

Martians and Moral Equivalents 129

The Day Before Yesterday 135

The Rise of Carbon Dioxide Politics 139

6 Moving the Goalposts 148

From Plan B to Breathing Space 156

Expanding the Boundaries 165

Part Two: Substances

7 Nitrogen 175

The Making of the Population Bomb 184

Defusing the Population Bomb 189

Far from Fixed 195

How to Spot a Geoengineer 201

8 Carbon Past, Carbon Present 209

The Anthropocene 219

The Greening Planet 229

9 Carbon Present, Carbon Future 243

Ocean Anaemia 251

Cultivating One’s Garden 259

10 Sulphur and Soggy Mirrors 268

Global Cooling 274

Cloudships 283

Bright Patchwork Planet 288

What the Thunder Didn’t Say 298

Part Three: Possibilities

11 The Ends of the World 305

Control and Catastrophe 312

Doom and Denial 317

The Traditions of Titans 323

A Tale of Two Cliques 332

After Such Knowledge 338

12 The Deliberate Planet 344

The Concert 347

Small Effects, and Bad Ones 359

And Straight on ’til Morning 369

Envoi 375

Acknowledgements 379

References, Notes and Further Reading 383

Bibliography 393

Index 415