It’s worth pausing to reflect on the growing fascination with geo-engineering. What’s interesting about it is that it embodies the very same logic that got us into trouble in the first place: the idea that the living planet, rendered as mere ‘nature’, is nothing but a set of passive materials that can be subdued, conquered and controlled. Geo-engineering represents dualism taken to astonishing new extremes, unimaginable by Bacon and Descartes, where the planet itself must be bent to the will of man so that capitalist growth can continue indefinitely.
