https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/dale-carricos-critique-of-the-fallacy-of-geo-engineering/2012/04/22 Researching, documenting and promoting peer to peer practices Sun, 22 Apr 2012 15:38:38 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.5.15 https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/dale-carricos-critique-of-the-fallacy-of-geo-engineering/2012/04/22/comment-page-1#comment-491432 Sun, 22 Apr 2012 15:38:38 +0000 http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/?p=23514#comment-491432 Very interesting thoughts!
The geo-engineering ideas, as you point out, assign agency to megacorporations (which would do the work) and governments (which would finance that work). Altogether, they are about creating new “needs” that can then be satisfied in a highly capital-intensive way (shutting out any but the largest corporations). The more realistic environmentalist approaches you mention, on the other hand, eliminate certain needs (e.g., via greater energy efficiency there is less need for fuels and electricity), or satisfy basic human needs through non-market mechanisms (for example, more liveable streets allow people to interact more easily with their neighbors, satisfying a need for togetherness with other people, while at the same time reducing the need for cars). This makes environmentalist solutions not impossible, but rather DANGEROUS – to the political economy of manufactured needs and never-ending economic growth, measured as monetary flows (and profits). So I suppose it’s safe to say that geo-engineering is not about saving all the life-forms on our planet, but about making the planet safe for the perpetuation of a failing growth-economy. Maybe that’s the criterion by which you can determine whether something is “geo-engineering” or not.
Thanks for your perceptive comments!

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