Could SRM’s Greatest Risk Be That It Works?

There is quite strong opposition within academia and environmentalism to research into SRM.¹ Probably the most prominent and powerful reason is that it creates a distraction from the most essential task of reducing emissions. Too much discussion of techno-fixes may seduce the public into thinking that there is an easier, lazier way to deal with climate change, that avoids the hard choices and sacrifices which a transition to a sustainable way of life requires. SRM is here a siren, calling seductively from her rock, but if humanity follows that call it will end up in an environmental shipwreck.

Is SRM unworkable?

Sometimes this point of view is rooted in a scepticism about what SRM has to offer.² It has been argued that none of the proposed techniques are really workable, and that dreams of managing the climate are more science-fiction than science. Along with the political problems around governance and side-effects that could arise, it is suggested that putting money and effort into SRM is wasteful and pointless.

The difficulty with these claims is that they are all speculative. Nobody knows whether a useful and practical SRM technique will emerge or not, and whether a way will be found to use it without conflict or not. Claims to know in advance which research lines will be a success and which will not are completely unscientific and reminiscent of the distinguished scientists who confidently explained why metal aeroplanes could never fly.³ It made sense on the basis of what they knew, but it turned out that they didn’t know everything.

On the other hand, there is no basis to assume that because an idea can be made to work in abstract theory it can be translated into practice. The medicine analogy shows us how often wonderful new insights founder on the long path from basic chemistry to working treatment.

The only way of deciding what SRM might have to offer is thus more research. It is simply impossible to form a strong opinion on its possibilities without knowing more. That makes it odd that some critics are trying to block research – the only way we have to gain that knowledge.

Would SRM block real social change?

A more persuasive critique of SRM research actually comes from the opposite point of view; a belief that at least some techniques probably will emerge that could meaningfully contribute to preventing or reducing climate crises. That is exactly what SRM researchers hope for, but it is precisely what some of its opponents fear.

A common perception is that climate change is not simply a matter of emissions, to be solved by replacing carbon fuels with renewable ones. It is rather an inevitable by-product of a global socio-economic order based on endless extraction, exploitation, and growth – a by-product of capitalism.^4,5 It belongs in a list along with loss of biodiversity, of forests, of fish, and of insects and probably of human fertility, all of which are happening not because of an inherently inadequate planet, but because of the destructive and over-consuming way that humanity treats it.

From this point of view, the fundamental challenge is to re-organise the global order. If the structural incentives towards more of everything can be removed, the technical problems of transitioning to net zero and to sustainability can be overcome. If, on the other hand, that global order remains fundamentally the same, then humanity and the environment are, to put it bluntly, doomed.

The risk of SRM is that it diminishes the urgency to change. A best possible scenario for an SRM researcher might be that, over the coming decades, humanity transitions to net zero emissions by changing its sources of energy and food, finds sustainable ways to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, and in the meantime uses SRM to prevent dramatic temperature rise or sea level rise, bridging the gap between now and a better future.

But that is not an ideal scenario for someone who thinks the system is the underlying problem: Will humanity then really have changed its relationship to consumption, to ecology, and to the planet – or indeed people’s relationship to each other? Or will it simply have ‘solved’ one problem for a while without addressing the underlying behaviour which created it? If one believes the latter, then it might be better to follow Alexander the Great and burn our ships; to have no plan B and no techniques to reduce the short-term impact of global warming. That’s because facing the full force of the crises that we can expect in the coming decades may be necessary to persuade a somewhat complacent humanity that deep change is unavoidable. It would then be better to have more pain now, if that pain drives deep change, than to take techno-fix painkillers and wait for the next, perhaps bigger, crisis of capitalism to emerge.

These kinds of arguments often sound a bit radical and surprising to those for whom social and political theorizing is not their daily life, and who are inclined to assess SRM on its physical potential rather than its place in wider philosophy. However, they are coherent arguments, and the intertwining of capitalism, growth, and environmental over-exploitation is hard to deny.

Two Visions of the Future

What this shows is that debates about SRM research are not really about science, or risk, or governance. They are between two different visions of the future: one is of a world that is somewhat similar to what we have, but cleaner and greener and smarter – the status quo with renewable energy and better farming; the other is of a global order which is no longer driven by competition, exploitation, and the endless desire for more. Which utopia one is inclined towards, and, perhaps more importantly, what one thinks is realistic and achievable, is likely to influence what one thinks about research into SRM.