The Planet Remade: How Geoengineering Could Change the World - Hardcover

Morton, Oliver

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1783780959 ISBN 13: 9781783780952

Publisher: Granta Books, 2015

Synopsis

Despite the on-going political horse-trading over emissions targets, each piece of new scientific research offers further evidence that no feasible reduction in the emissions can now effectively mitigate the carbon crisis. With limited time for action, an increasingly influential minority of climate scientists are exploring proposals for planned human intervention in the biosphere. A stratospheric veil against the sun; the cultivation of photosynthetic plankton; a fleet of unmanned ships seeding clouds: these are technologies from the radical fringes of climate study, and they are chilling, not least given the risk of hostile use. And yet, we're now at the point where we have no choice but to take them very seriously indeed. The Planet Remade explores the science, history and politics behind these strategies. It looks at who might want to see geo-engineering techniques used, and why - and why others would be dead set against any such attempts. Throughout history, people have made huge changes to the planet - to the clouds and the soils, to the winds and the seas, to the great cycles of nitrogen and carbon - that are far more profound than often realized, and which can help us to fundamentally rethink our responses to global warming. With sensitivity, insight and expert science, Oliver Morton unpicks the moral implications of our responses to climate change, our fear that people have become a force of nature, and the potential for good in having such power. The Planet Remade is about imagining a world where people take care instead of taking control.

About this title

About the Author

Oliver Morton is Environment Editor of the Economist, having formerly been Chief News Editor of Nature and Editor-in-Chief of Wired. He is the author of Mapping Mars: Science, Imagination, and the Birth of a World and Eating the Sun: How Light Powers the Planet and has written for many publications, including Nature, the Independent, National Geographic, the New Yorker, Newsweek, Prospect, and Wired. Asteroid 10716 Olivermorton is named for him.

Edition details

• Publisher: Granta Books
• Publication date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1783780959
• ISBN 13: 9781783780952
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 448