Re-Engineering the Earth Goddess
“Geoengineering” in the subject of the ETC Group’s new Communiqué, “Gambling with Gaia.” The report focuses on ETC's concern that the U.S. and other countries are planning to reduce global temperatures through geoengineering, defined as the “intentional, large-scale manipulation of the environment by humans to bring about environmental change, particularly to counteract the undesired side effects of other human activities.”
ETC Group notes that “at least 9 national governments and the European Union have supported experiments to spread iron filings on the ocean surface to nurture plankton and sequester carbon dioxide.” The potential seeding the stratosphere with particles intended to reflect more sunlight back into space is another geoengineering strategy discussed in the report.
Also known as the Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration, the ETC Group is a Canadian-based NGO “dedicated to the conservation and sustainable advancement of cultural and ecological diversity and human rights.” The media-savvy ETC Group received attention recently for it’s anti-nanotech campaign based on a contest to develop a “nano-hazard” symbol.
For all of its über-hip swagger and genuine cleverness, the ETC Group’s recommendations are of the most mundane, worn, and discredited variety. In short, the anti-technology watchdog wants to call in the United Nations. As Gaia report’s recommendations explain, the Group believes that geoenginnering experiments should not take place without extensive debate and “UN
authorization.”
Winston can understand why ETC may be skeptical about new technologies and suspicious of governments; it’s the organization’s belief in the UN that Winston finds less plausible than any plan for climate engineering.
See ETC website
See “Gambling with Gaia”
