This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate

by Naomi Klein

Because governing geoengineering, as opposed to just testing it, is the focus of this retreat, the usual club has been temporarily expanded to include several climate scientists from Africa and Asia, as well as legal ethicists, experts in international treaties and conventions, and staffers from several green NGOs, including Greenpeace and WWF-UK (Greenpeace does not support geoengineering, but WWF-UK has come out in cautious support of “research into geo-engineering approaches in order to find out what is possible”).19 The organizers have also invited a couple of outspoken critics. Alan Robock, a famously gruff white-bearded climatologist from Rutgers University, is here. When I last saw him in action, he was presenting a slide show titled “20 Reasons Why Geoengineering May Be a Bad Idea,” ranging from “Whitening of the sky” (#7) to “Rapid warming if deployment stops” (#10). Most provocative is Australian climate expert Clive Hamilton, who has wondered aloud whether “the geoengineers [are] modern-day Phaetons, who dare to regulate the sun, and who must be struck down by Zeus before they destroy the earth?”20