After Geoengineering: Climate Tragedy, Repair, and Restoration

by Holly Jean Buck

What if the people seized the means of climate production?

The window for action on climate change is closing rapidly. We are hurtling ever faster towards climate catastrophe—the destruction of a habitable world for many species, perhaps the near-extinction of our own. As anxieties about global temperatures soar, demands for urgent action grow louder. What can be done? Can this process be reversed? Once temperatures rise, is there any going back? Some are thinking about releasing aerosols into the stratosphere in order to reflect sunlight back into space and cool the earth. And this may be necessary, if it actually works. But it would only be the beginning; it’s what comes after that counts.

In this groundbreaking book, Holly Jean Buck charts a possible course to a liveable future. Climate restoration will require not just innovative technologies to remove carbon from the atmosphere, but social and economic transformation. The steps we must take are enormous, and they must be taken soon. Looking at industrial-scale seaweed farms, the grinding of rocks to sequester carbon at the bottom of the sea, the restoration of wetlands, and reforestation, Buck examines possible methods for such transformations and meets the people developing them.

Both critical and utopian, speculative and realistic, After Geoengineering presents a series of possible futures. Rejecting the idea that technological solutions are some kind of easy workaround, Holly Jean Buck outlines the kind of social transformation that will be necessary to repair our relationship to the earth if we are to continue living here.

Genres: Climate Change, Politics, Nonfiction, Environment, Science, Nature, Ecology

288 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2019

About the author

Holly Buck writes on emerging technologies in the Anthropocene, with work appearing in journals such as Development and Change, Climatic Change, Global Sustainability, Annals of the American Association of Geographers, and Hypatia. Since 2009, she has been researching the social dimensions of geoengineering as a faculty fellow with the Forum for Climate Engineering Assessment in Washington, DC, as a member of the Steering Committee for the international Climate Engineering Conference in Berlin, and as a doctoral researcher at Cornell University, from which she holds a PhD in development sociology.

Reviews

[Chantal Lyons · Rating 4 out of 5]

I mostly found this book to be a fascinating read - but it wasn't without its drawbacks.

It's highly informative and well-researched, as you would expect of an academic. The author has called on not only her own knowledge but has clearly scanned far and wide for the cutting edge science - I didn't know, for instance, that the excitement around seagrass restoration for carbon offsetting could actually be unfounded because of bad science around the calculations of how much carbon can be sequestered by different species.

But for the book as a whole, I'm still unsure who it's aimed at - often, the author's choice of language struck me as academic-speak, and there were plenty of sentences I had to re-read a few times. Too opaque. On the other hand, there are a few "sketches", pieces of flash fiction, that are written as imaginings of the future and with the intent of bringing to life what a geoengineered world could be like. This part of the book seems to strain for a wider, lay readership. And I enjoyed the sketches, but there were so few of them that I'm not sure how much they contribute to the effect of the book. More gimmicky than innovative.

All that said, I've given four stars because this is an incredibly important book. Having recently read Naomi Klein's 'This Changes Everything', it was refreshing to get a different viewpoint on geoengineering. Or at least, a more nuanced one. I've learned a lot - though very little of it made for comfortable reading.

[Nils · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a curious book, that makes the case, sotto voce, for why geoengineering is essentially inevitable and necessary (not least because it is already happening) and asks how it can be done in a more humane way. But then it sort of wraps itself around an axle of wanting to embracing Western STEM as the inevitable way that this will have to take place while at the same time wanting to celebrate fashionable tastes for "indigenous epistemologies," apparently rooted in some combination of (justifiable) guilt over settler colonial treatment of indigenous peoples and the (much less justifiable) view that indigenous peoples were wonderful ecological stewards. In fact, mass extinctions followed the arrival of indigenous people's ancestors everywhere from the Americas to Oceana. (This is not to mention that indigenous history prior to the arrival of Columbus was hardly the fairy tale that some have since made it out to be: beyond the bad ecological impacts, there was also vicious forms of enslavement, genocidal military campaigns, public rape of female captives and other forms of sexual servitude, not to mention pervasive cannibalism.)

[Soph Nova · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although this book is relatively short, it's packed with a bit too wide of a variety of topics, writing styles/narrative devices, and unanswered questions; however, that's probably also the best way to approach a set of topics as complex and ethically thorny as the ones that Buck tries to zero in on in a politically principled fashion.

"Can there be a way of approaching geoengineering that considers the root causes of ecological degradation, and that weaves in accountability, reckoning, and reparation?"

[Matt Knox]

A must-read for anyone interested in keeping our planet habitable.

[Aine · Rating 2 out of 5]

Such a mediocre read. Strange balance in terms of where despair (ability of humanity to address climate change so light as well start looking at geoengineering now) and hope (despite listing every problem with a possible technology that it will not only work but will somehow happen in an entirely different social system) and also there is no need for authors to insert themselves into the narrative to this extent. Would not recommend to a friend.

[Jan H. v. H. · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to read another book about instruments to fight global warming.What I got was a book with superficial descriptions, incoherent stories from the authors life, fictional future stories and social criticism.
If you want to read a good book about the current state of research and possible instruments for fighting climate change, I recommend Bill Gates' book.

[Vuk Trifkovic · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent read on global warming and what to do about it from tech and from a societal angle. Crips and urgent, while well researched and detailed enough.

The speculative fiction thing didn't work out so well, but points for trying nonetheless.

[Jonáš Gruska · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely lovely overview of current state of carbon sequestration, geoengineering and its future. Highly recommend!

[Floris · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well-researched and thoughtful book on geoengineering, that maintains a critical perspective on this controversial idea without dismissing it out of hand. Rather than just focusing on the advantages and disadvantages of geoengineering, which Buck does extensively, she mainly wants to ask what a post-geoengineering world would look like. In other words, rather than the binary thinking of yes-geoengineering or no-geoengineering, she asks about the kinds of people that would be maintaining these projects, the kinds of values people will or ought to foster, and the potential to make geoengineering also work towards social-ecological goals. The imperative for this is clear: attempts to modify the climate are here already and will not go away. Putting our heads in the sand risks leaving climate-manipulation in the hands of malicious regimes and greedy corporations. Whilst we still ought to be wary of geoengineering, and in many cases outright suspicious of its promises, we should still be thinking about the ways it could also serve “accountability, reckoning, and reparation” goals (250).

Buck is mostly concerned with carbon removal technologies. Whether mechanical (through carbon-sucking machines), organic (through trees or seaweed), or geological (through weathering), the key thing is that these technologies speed up the process of taking the carbon we have put into the atmosphere out again and storing it somewhere else. The first part of the book looks at a number of these technologies: their promises, pitfalls, and challenges. The second part of the book looks at the social, political, and economic dimensions to these technologies. Who will be doing the work of “managing” carbon? What should our education systems teach to equip future inhabitants of a carbon-managed world with the skills necessary to do so responsibly? What should we be wary about when it comes to actors with vested interests co-opting carbon removal efforts? The penultimate chapter feels a bit out of place, talking about solar geoengineering, and how it can or should be “programmed”. Yet Buck’s point in the second half of the book stands: yes, technology is important, but so is empathy, creativity, and justice. Any form of responsible future geoengineering would need to avoid doing the harms of centuries past.

Finally, this book does something I haven’t seen in any other non-fiction book yet, namely incorporate short fictional stories to better imagine a post-geoengineering world. As Buck sees it, we regularly fail to imagine a future where these technologies are commonplace. Through her choose-your-own-adventure passages in the introduction, and brief “sketches” at the end of certain chapters, Buck looks to “populate the future” with people and possibilities. It’s an effective strategy, and doesn’t take away from the informative nature of the book. I’d be curious to see more works like this.

[Eilidh Milne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Erudite, informative and inspiring

[Devin Stevenson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book.

Buck takes the reader on a tour of emerging "geoengineering" solution technology to climate change and the possible futures they will cause.

Environmentalists and technology utopians tend to argue over geoengineering in binary terms. The environmentalists characterize carbon negative technologies as pipe dreams put forward by oil companies and governments to claim they can continue business as usual abd simply negate their emissions damage. Environmentalists also point to the frightening unknown and socially unjust consequences of some of the scariest proposals like solar geoengineering.

Technology utopians on the other hand often blandly assume techno fixes will rescue us and ignore climate realism and the unintended harns of many different types of geoengineering solutions.

However the two most recent IPCC reports paint an undeniably bleak picture and make clear that even with an unimaginable, instant halt of emissions we have runaway desastation and loss baked in. The optimistic scenarios of IPCC futures assume developments around negative carbon technologies. Our habitable future must include intentional large scale technologies.

Large scale geoengineering projects are seen as last minute "break the glass" emergency options. The problem is that the later these options are studied and implemented, the greater the interventions needed. Some of these interventions are likely inevitable if we assume a continued form of civilization.

Buck explores vital questions around who will have voices and access to decisions on programming on large scale projects? What does equity look like in designing and exploring these projects?

An essential primer on possibilities we must begin grappling with for our future.

[Jake · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book has been on my radar for while and was recommended on a course that I enjoyed and found the content engaging. I was surprised to find thid book was neither enjoyable (in the sense it helped me think in a new way) nor particularly well organised. Like various other books in the dystopian climate-tech genre it switched between fictionalised accounts of the future and interviews with the proponents for strange new technologies who tell us this might just be what save us. The problem with these new technologies is that they are often not yet scalable, they seem to rely on personalities as the selling point and need other technologies to come through as well. Basically these technologies operate in a ecosystem of 'green capitalism' which is problematic, while Buck touched on this often more deeply engaging with how these technologies will come about would have been interesting, but instead it was disjointed with the intro and concluding chapters offering analysis that seemed to be lacking in the main body of the book.

If you go in for this non-fiction/fiction dystopian environment book then Climate Wars, The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World and Adventures in the Anthropocene: A Journey to the Heart of the Planet We Made may also be for you. However, I found all three of these books largely not particularly insightful or useful and this book was in many ways worse.

[nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Diffuse in the way that many of these primer-type books put out by Verso are, but nonetheless really successful in a) making the case that the left needs to learn about technologies that we'll probably have to face sooner or later, and b) providing information on (and assessments of) specific emerging techs. They may not be great works of short fiction, but I actually liked the narrative sketches, if nothing else as a kind of mnemonic device anchoring some of the more important proposals discussed.

[Mo Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Often when we talk about climate crisis, we don't tend to come up with concrete solutions. Ecological solutions dominate discourse, but these are in reality far too little and far too late. Geo-engineering presents a scientific option for mitigating climate change while employing carbon drawdown techniques, but not without risks. I've certainly changed my position on a few matters after reading this book.

[Adrian Hindes · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't think I can write this review until I finish my PhD...

[Dayton Chen · Rating 5 out of 5]

After Geoengineering is a great look at all of the ways we coul try and repair and restore our Climate using a mixture of current science, trends in what might be possible, and endearing stories of what that might look like. It is a good starting point to explore the various possibilities surrounding climate regeneration and has the breath of knowledge to act as a starting point for your own research.

Holly Jean Buck is great at balancing a good mixture of science comunication and explanations in a way that is encompassing enough to discuss the positives and the negatives of each solutions, while still managing to not overburden the general reader with too many technical terms and approaches.

There is a good balance of optimism along with pragmaticism within this book, where ideas are evaluated in their possible best case scenario and what might be a more realistic middle ground, though all through a lense in which governments do decide to follow up with serious investment into geoengineering for lack of a better term.

I am perhaps still a little too pessimistic about actual change within climate repair, but it is refreshing to see what could be possible if we are willing to work collectively in ensuring the habitability of Earth hundreds of years down the line.

You should read this book if you are curious about:
- climate engineering
- current interesting research in climate repair
- what some nerds mean when they say "geoengineering"

[Neil Joyes · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book explores the various options being devised by scientists to sequester carbon or alter the atmosphere in such a way the temperatures will drop below current levels so that, hopefully, the work of restoring the natural environment becomes a possibility and some of the effects of climate change can be reversed. Atmospheric geoengineering is but one of the proposals explored in the book.

This book not only explores the technical fixes proposed to address climate change, but also envisions the possibilities of post-capitalist forms of social organization that would make these changes possible. The author writes with the rigour and attention to detail you would expect of an academic with a deep empathy and sense of justice at it's core.

This book does a great job at explaining the technical and social aspects of climate restoration proposals in a way that is interesting and accessible to the non-expert and has even included several short stories taking place in the future imagining what climate restoration technologies would look like in practice and what kinds of lives people would live in these hypothetical worlds. These stories were so good that one day I hope to see Holly Jean Buck publish a sci-fi novel as well.

Overall, I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to see Earth remain habitable for current and future generations.

[Seven Pesos · Rating 3 out of 5]

A quote from the cover: "Holly Jean Buck offers a sobering, prescient vision of a climate realism that we should heed. [...] There are no east solutions on offer, only difficult paths to cross while they are still open.". Overall I found this book quite informative, but I did skip over the (brief) fiction sections when they presented themselves as I thought they were a little patronizing. I'm really cynical about climate change and how it inevitably will be used to leverage more labour and class exploitation, something (which despite the heavy left leaning of this book) is barely hinted at by Holly Jean Buck. Perhaps that falls outside the scope of this book, or perhaps is an underlying assumption. Anyhow, this book was good for bringing me (ignoramus) up to speed (this book is already 4 years old, and perhaps outdated in a post-pandemic world) on what climate solutions are floating around right now in industry and academics. We really are diving into unprecedented times and I am of the opinion that climate change will just exacerbate the plethora of human horrors and inequalities which are making a stunning comeback. I hope someone finds a quick, easy, cheap, and scalable solution really soon.

[Leif · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's the way that Holly Jean Buck puts humans at the centre of her imagination, and the way that she remembers to ask questions about scope and scale. It's the way that she foregrounds social justice and the realities of history while putting her mind to the many paths that could constitute our world's future.

It's how the language of geoengineering becomes less formidable and more practical, urgent, and comprehensible in her writing - how the reframing of carbon dioxide as pollution makes carbon removal a question of waste, and thus easily comprehensible, for example.

It's how the easy moralities of environmentalism, soft pieties and unspoken assumptions all are carefully stripped of pretense and, once the core of justice and dignity are revealed, how those cores are re-connected to the possibility of reparative infrastructures and restorative societies.

It's a great book!

[Juniper · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Reckoning with geoengineering in all its forms means coming to terms with loss… For much of the world, the catastrophe is already here.” In this comprehensive book, Holly Jean Buck examines the arsenal for environmental restoration and carbon reversal. The title refers both to possible outcomes of geoengineering – the intentional tinkering of global systems, like brightening the sky – and to strategies beyond such drastic measures. Buck lightens the academic writing with fictional impressions, and in another telling, images of sea farming or solidification of carbon into mountains could’ve become idealized sci-fi. Instead, she imagines them under current pressures of power, economics, and social dynamics. In charting histories towards the future, Buck keeps the dire present in full view.

[Benjamin Tincq · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant and thoughtful introduction to carbion dioxide removal (CDR) and to a lesser extent to solar radiation management (SRM) from a social sciences perspective.

The title « After Geoengineering » confused me at first but in hindsight I think it perfectly captures what Holly Jean Buck aimed to do with this book: help retire the G word by decoupling CDR from SRM (also called solar geoengineering), and imagining an after net zero society where climate interventions have been successful, from the lens of people most impacted.

Recommend reading for anyone taking climate action seriously.

[Craig · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was not really what I was looking for; rather touchy-feely, with a lot of hand-waving about the importance of changing our society. Well, maybe I should've read the title more carefully at the library, but I like to get a variety of different perspectives. Geoengineering of some sort (be it sulfur dioxide in the stratosphere, seeding of iron in oceans, etc) seems the inevitable way to avoid the worst effects of climate change. I did think some of the interviews with people looking into geoengineering topics were interesting.

[melancholinary · Rating 4 out of 5]

The fictional intervention in this book interests me more than the fact about geoengineering. However, this book raises many questions ignored by the venture green capitalist in developing geoengineering, in which provoke the reader to think that geoengineering might/might not the only alternative solution to natural slowdown carbon emission.

[Aaron K · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is an incredibly informative introduction to geoengineering, describing the history of the field, its current research areas, and its implications in broader contexts. Though I didn't find the short fiction sections particularly impactful, I love the idea of that mixed form. As an overview of technological responses to climate change, I would absolutely recommend this book.

[Zack · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good book, covers the topic well and poses important questions for leftists, even if i disagree on some of it.

I read this for a talk i did, alongside the author, on this topic. See workersliberty.org/geoengineering-rea... for more including the talk. I will review it, also to be linked from there.

[KT · Rating 3 out of 5]

An engaging and thought-provoking read on geoengineering and its potential impacts on climate change, I enjoyed the author's mix of informative reporting and fiction, in which they imagine life after climate tragedy

I thought the book took an optimistic view with regards to the potential impact of geoengineering and carbon capture and removal on climate change and could have heeded some of its balanced citations, such as noting that western countries have been bad at reparations with regards to slavery and colonialism, so it would set precedent for them to see the light and handle the disproportionate and unfair impact of climate change

[Vida Rajkovaca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly one of the finest books I have read ever. You know when someone is in full control of their ability - it makes it look easy. Transformative, informative, important, current, clever, everyone should be reading this right now.

[Mert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really excellent!

[Amos Wallgren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book for those new to the topic, with illustrating chapters describing future scenarios in the form of small tales from the perspective of individuals

[cara]

i really thought there would be more about solar geoengineering in this book than there actually was