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“Crisis talk” or how the Wizards of Climate Engineering (CE)

might become influential

Second draft (24.06.2014) – Comments very welcome!!!

Please do not cite without authors’ permission

Markus Lederer/ Judith Kreuter

WWU Münster

Abstract

The paper asks to what extent the current political discourse of a “climate crisis” initiates the notion of a “state of exception” that legitimizes researching, experimenting and possibly deploying a specific policy instrument – climate engineering (CE). It explores under which conditions the “unthinkable” becomes a legitimate policy instrument simultaneously delegitimizing potential alternatives. The paper analyzes the political discourse of the climate crisis and how CE is being framed as a potential solution and a “lesser evil” compared to a business as usual scenario. The first part of the paper explores how and why “crisis talk” has gained prominence in the international popular and scientific literature on climate politics within the last ten years. This includes advocates of a “war” against the climate in which CE is the ultimate weapon and covers the discussion of securitizing the climate. Also those authors like James Lovelock will be considered who argue that due to insufficient mitigation politics a business as usual scenario is no longer an option. In a second step the paper compares the contemporary crisis of the climate with other “crisis” situations in the recent past in order to learn under which conditions “crisis talk” and the potentially resulting “state of exception” can justify the use or at least the development of specific instruments. A particular interesting case – with richer and deeper connections to CE than one might expect – is the deployment of nuclear weapons where the argument of a “state of exception” has been successful in legitimizing specific political actions that are presented as “extraordinary” but necessary. The potential deployment of nuclear weapons and the concurrent theory of deterrence dominated much of political “crisis talk” during the Cold War legitimizing the build-up of large nuclear arsenals where drastic measures were perceived as legitimate only to avoid an even worse disaster. Similarly, one prominent route for CE to gain legitimacy would be as an instrument of avoiding a worst-case scenario. In both instances, a narrative of the “lesser evil” legitimizes “thinking the unthinkable” – a comparison Thomas Schelling already made more than 20 years ago but never has been picked up systematically.

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Introduction

In the age of climate change, we are said to be approaching a time of crisis. The

conceptual history of “crisis“ shows the peculiar character that is associated with

such a diagnosis (Koselleck 1982). The antique medical term κρίσις described the

moment of the decision between a good or a bad ending in the course of a febrile

illness, the moment of truth that decides between sickness and health, life and death.

As initially a legal and later a Christian term it meant the (Last) Judgment at the end

of times. It was not before the French Revolution that it became a signum of an entire

era that realized that it was undergoing crises and constructed the ability to design

this transition period. It is also since then that whole collectivities can be “in crisis”

and not only individuals (Holton, 1987). Furthermore, crisis implies a point of decision

where subjectively as well objectively some of the most important values of a society

are endangered and there is not much time left for decision-making (Brecher &

Wilkenfeld, 1982; McCormick, 1978). Thus, the range of possible answers narrows

down to a point where only few options remain available often resulting in a judgment

of a “lesser evil” legitimizing the use of “extraordinary means”, e.g. means that in a

time of non-crisis would not have been considered as being legitimate. In a nutshell,

at the moment of “crisis”, the stakes are at their highest while the normal course of

events is suspended and only extraordinary measures, if any, can have any effect at

all. We thus might enter a “state of exception”.

This paper takes the potentially emerging climate crisis as its starting point asking to

what extent the current political discourse is initiating such a “state of exception”

legitimizing research, experimentation and eventually even deployment of climate

engineering (CE)? The paper does not claim to be the first one to do so as various

authors have started to analyze how CE is considered to be an answer to the climate

crisis. For example, Bellamy et al. counted how often specific framings have been

used in order to appraise specific CE measures and the notion of “climate

emergency” topped the list together with “insufficient mitigation” (Bellamy, Chilvers,

Vaughan, & Lenton, 2012, p. 15). Similarly, Nerlich/Jaspal show that terms like

“crisis”, “catastrophe” or “emergency” dominate the debate resulting in an

understanding of the planet as a “body” to be cured, a “machine” to be fixed or an

addict to be “healed” (Nerlich & Jaspal, 2012). These authors have, however,

focused more on the semantics that are being used, but less on the political

implications that might follow from such argumentation patterns. Also Gardiner has

recently pointed out that one of the most important questions regarding CE is “under

what conditions would geoengineering become justified?” (Gardiner, 2013a, p. 28)

and he continues to show that an argument based on desperation is not enough for a

complex justification. Although one can easily agree with Gardiner on a normative

level, this is not how things might turn out as we have had situations where “crisis

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talk” and the “desperation argument” have been sufficient to provide legitimacy to

thinking the otherwise unthinkable on a large scale (see below for examples). For

analyzing CE it is thus necessary to understand how and why talking of crisis could

potentially lead to CE measures even if technical, normative or economic reasons

strongly speak against it.

To show how “crisis talk” could eventually legitimize CE the following paper proceeds

as follows. In a first step an overview of possible CE measures is given in order to

provide some background on the techniques that are possible and that are currently

being explored. In a second step it is shown that the notion of crisis is not the only

one that we currently find when it comes to CE but it definitely is one line of

argumentation that has been taken up by many social and natural scientists. In order

to understand under which conditions such “crisis talk” might become powerful, the

next part of the paper introduces the notion of analogies and explains why reasoning

by analogy allows us to better understand the current situation. In the fourth part of

the paper one specific analogy – the crisis that surrounded the research as well as

the set-up of nuclear weapons – is introduced in more detail and the parallels with

CE are explored. The idea of comparing CE and nuclear weapons is an old one, as

already in 1983 Thomas Schelling warned that “climate control” could – like nuclear

weapons – become “more a source of international conflict than a relief” (Fleming,

2010, p. 243; Thomas Schelling, 1983, p. 470 quoted in). The conclusion sums up

the argumentation and shortly contemplates what the analysis bears out for the

future of CE.

What is CE?

Changing or influencing the weather has been the intention of most societies, but

doing so on a larger scale has only been possible with technological advancement

after World War II and thus the notion of “fixing the sky” has been one that has

dominated much of Cold War thinking (Fleming, 2010). The objective that was

supposed to be achieved through changing climate or weather, however, has not

always been the fighting off of adverse effects of climate change. In the late 1940s,

Irving Langmuir, for example, proposed the idea of unleashing the energy of storm

clouds around microscopic chemicals which would, in his estimates, release at least

as much energy as an atomic bomb (Fleming, 2010, p. 170) . Military operations

such as “Popeye” or “Motorpool” in the 1960s and 70s in Southeast Asia were aimed

at producing downpours or droughts in order to immobilize the enemy or cut off their

supplies (Fleming, 2010, p. 179). The idea of combatting adverse effects of human

activity on the climate with CE techniques was discussed as early as the 1960s, both

by the Soviet geoscientist Mikhail Ivanovitch Budyko and Joseph O. Fletcher of the

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US RAND Corporation (Fleming, 2010, p. 236+239). Subsequently, both published

on the issue, calling for a intentional management of the climate to counteract the

effects of air and heat pollution, growing populations and other developments

(Budyko, 1977; Fletcher, 1969).

The end of the Cold War era saw the development of a certain hesitance on the part

of scientists to delve into the issue of CE. Particularly in the United States, the topic

was, however, never completely off the table (Sciences, 1992; Teller, Hyde, & Wood,

2002; Teller, Wood, & Hyde, 1997). And it was a seminal contribution by Paul

Crutzen in 2006 that opened up CE for deliberation and research in a larger scientific

community (Crutzen, 2006). Ever since – and particularly after the failure of reaching

an international agreement at Copenhagen in 2009 – CE as the “deliberate, large-

scale manipulation of the planetary environment in order to counteract anthropogenic

climate change” (see also Heyward, 2013, p. 23; Shepherd et al., 2009, p. 1) has

been on the agenda of international climate politics. The current relevance of the

issue is underlined by the fact that the most recent Assessment Report (AR5) by the

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) mentions CE technologies as

ideas that have been brought forth as potential solutions to some climate change

problems (see, for example, IPCC, 2013, p. 29). It is thus perceived as a third

category of how to deal with climate change, mitigation and adaptation being the

other two (helpful overviews are Bellamy et al., 2012; Hamilton, 2013 ch. 3 and 4;

Rickels et al., 2011; Shepherd et al., 2009).

CE proposals are being differentiated into those that argue for (solar) radiation

management (SRM) and those that advance carbon dioxide removal (CDR) (for a

critical perspective on this typology, see Heyward, 2013). SRM would deflect sunlight

from the earth and includes such rather utopic measures like setting up mirrors in the

sky, but also rather banal instruments like the enhancement of the earth’s albedo

effect through painting roads and roofs white or saving existing glaciers. Also cloud

seeding is an instrument that has recently gained some attraction. Most importantly it

also covers the injection of sulfur aerosols that for many is if at all the most realistic

SRM technology at all (Crutzen, 2006; Rickels et al., 2011). SRM would not solve the

problem of increasing CO2 concentrations and can thus be considered to be a

techno-fix, but for its proponents it is the fastest, cheapest and potentially only

alternative to runaway climate change.

The following graph one provides a good overview of all measures that are currently

being discussed:

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Source: http://www.spp-climate-engineering.de/home.html

This is not the place to discuss all the scientific and popular debates surrounding

these partially very different techniques, but it should be mentioned that currently

there are only a few natural scientists who openly advocate CE measures as an

alternative to mitigation or adaptation at this point (e.g. Keith, 2009). Most natural

scientists are highly critical of the feasibility, the economics and the potential side

effects that CE could entail and thus do not perceive it to be an option for avoiding

dangerous climate change (e.g. Schellnhuber, 2011). How the scientific debate has

nevertheless contributed to a perception of crisis and thus to an evolving discourse of

“crisis talk” is covered in the next section.

CE and crisis talk

Neither in the public nor in the scientific discourse is the notion of crisis the only one

that is associated with CE. For example, from a political/social science perspective

CE has mostly been debated critically as a mechanism that i) might dilute necessary

mitigation and adaptation efforts (Urpelainen, 2012); ii) requires (legal) regulation and

institution-building (Virgoe, 2009); iii) needs strategic (scientific) coordination among

states, non-state actors and International Organizations (Edney & Symons, 2013; D.

Humphreys, 2011; Olson, 2011) or as a mechanism that (iv) generates its own

constituency and initiates some sorts of vested interests in the business world and/ or

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epistemic community that could push CE being deployed (Fleming, 2010; Hamilton,

2013).

There are, however, also those authors (social as well as natural scientists) who

have perceived CE as a potential answer to a global climate in crisis. The idea that

first of all the global climate system is in a state of crisis has been observed a

number of times. Some early proponents of this idea were the Cold War scientists

Budyko and Fletcher, who warned of dire consequences if the climate effects of

human activities were not counteracted (Budyko, 1977; Fletcher, 1969). More recent

advocates warn of “unquantifiable change and potential disaster on a global scale for

decades to come” (Launder & Thompson, 2008, p. 3841), talk of an “imminent

climate catastrophe” (Lane, Caldeira, Chatfield, & Langhoff, 2006, p. VI) or

understand the climate to already be in a state of crisis or to move into that state in

the near future (Caldeira & Keith, 2010; Frantz & Mayer, 2009; Lenton et al., 2008).

Particularly, the notion of a threshold or “tipping point” (Caldeira & Keith, 2010;

Lenton et al., 2008) provides a background for the idea of climate crisis and has been

famously elaborated upon by climate modeler James Hansen of NASA in 2005: “The

Earth’s climate is nearing, but has not passed, a tipping point beyond which it will be

impossible to avoid climate change with far-reaching undesirable consequences.”

(Hansen, 2005, p. 1). It is based on the idea that the climate is a non-linear system.

This means that a small change in one variable may lead to a disproportionately

bigger change in another one (Hamilton, 2013, p. 12; Rickels et al., 2011, p. 9)

implying that a sudden change of the whole climate system is theoretically possible

at any moment, a situation that, by some, is called “abrupt climate change”.

All the above claims do not directly speak of a “crisis” but they evoke the notion of

emergency and urgency. The perfidiousness of such argumentation lies in its

characteristic as a performative speech act. Thus, first elements of a “crisis talk” are

out there now and it cannot be taken back, even if all of its proponents would

renounce their ideas. Policy entrepreneurs can use the talk to forward their own

ends, which might be grossly different from what the scientists originally intended.

This is why talking about the notion of crisis is so centrally important in the

deliberation of CE technologies.

Aside from to the idea of a climate in crisis, another notion adds weight to the claim

of CE as a potential answer to the problem: that of bureaucratic inertia and diplomatic

deadlocks that results in a political crisis (Blackstock et al., 2009; Victor, 2011). On

the part of numerous social as well as natural scientists, a loss of faith in a political

negotiation solution is communicated, which gained momentum after the Conference

of Parties of the UNFCCC in Copenhagen in 2009. As early as 2006, Paul Crutzen

justified his re-opening the issue of CE by stating that that “attempts [at lowering

emissions of greenhouse gases] have been grossly unsuccessful.” (Crutzen, 2006, p.

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211). Two years later, Launder and Thompson observe: “there is increasingly the

sense that governments are failing to come to grips with the urgency of setting in

place measures that will assuredly lead to our planet reaching a safe equilibrium”

(Launder & Thompson, 2008, p. 3841). Burns agrees that “it has become

increasingly apparent that the world community lacks the political will to reduce

emissions to a level that avoids extremely serious climatic impacts.” (Wil C. G. Burns,

2013, p. 87).

To the twin problem of a physical climate crisis and a political decision-making crisis,

CE has been brought forth as a potential solution. As many uncertainties and risks in

connection with CE technologies persist, proponents often frame CE as an

“emergency measure” (see Lane et al., 2006, p. VI; Michaelson, 2013, p. 81) which is

not the ideal solution but will be effective in tackling problem at hand. The major

argument brought forth in support of this solution is that CE is the lesser of two evils,

the other being unmitigated climate change: “a necessary evil deployed to head off a

greater evil, the damage due to unchecked global warming” (Hamilton 2013: 159; see

also Gardiner 2013a: 28 and Rickels et al. 2011: 27). A version of this argument was

already proposed in 1992 in order to justify discussing CE technologies in US

National Academy of Science’s report (see Schneider 2008: 3847). Some

researchers have also started to explore the potential development benefits of CE for

those who are most affected by climate change effects providing an analysis of a

“humanitarian rationale” for its employment (Buck, 2012). CE could thus evolve into

the potential “lifeblood” of a global “Climate Leviathan” (Wainwright & Geoff, 2012).

Similarly, more and more social and political scientists share the notion that we live in

the age of the Anthropocene (Steffen, Grinevald, Crutzen, & McNeill, 2011). In such

a geological epoch where mankind is influencing the surface of the planet and the

composition of the atmosphere the notion becomes stronger that insufficient

mitigation politics and a business as usual scenario are no longer an option and

some authors are therefore ready to promote a potential “state of exception” that

would forgo traditional democratic instruments. Most prominently James Lovelock

states that “orderly survival… may require, as in war, the suspension of democratic

government for the duration of the survival emergency” (Lovelock, 2009). In that

case, instead of decision-making on the basis of democratic deliberation,

extraordinary measures will be employed to solve the crisis.

These lines of argumentation are of interest here as they provide a potentially very

strong justification for CE measures. To understand under which circumstances such

“crisis talk” can become powerful a comparison with similar situations, e.g. analogies,

can be of help.

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Analogies of crises

This paper does not analyze the historical development of CE as Fleming (Fleming,

2010, 2012) has done who has nicely shown that the notion of “fixing the sky” and

tempering with weather as well as with the climate has deep roots in the post-WW II

era (see also Hamilton, 2013). Rather the paper provides a contemporary analogy.

An analogy exists when two objects, events, ideas etc. have enough common but

non-accidental properties that allow them to be compared in some, although not in all

aspects (Weitzenfeld, 1984). Analogies are highly common in the historical and

social sciences (e.g. the “domestic analogy” when international and national politics

are being compared or the “analogy of the tragedy of the commons” when studying

common good problems), but they are often criticized as being unscientific. In

particular, positivistic approaches as represented by King, Keohane and Verba (KKV)

have argued that valid inferences should be drawn from a comparative approach that

proceeds deductively and that uses as many observation points as possible as the

reasoning by analogies too easily leads to selection biases (King, Keohane, & Verba,

1994, p. 212f).

Contrary to KKV one can argue that analogies allow us to generate relevant

knowledge when we are confronted with new material that cannot yet be considered

a closed case (Gentner et al., 1997, p. 4) or in new situations that are considered to

be without precedent (Houghton, 1996, p. 525). Drawing an analogy for the case of

CE is particularly interesting, as it has been argued that this case is unprecedented in

human history. Following Khong one can claim that analogies “(1) help define the

nature of the situation confronting the policy maker, (2) help assess the stakes, and

(3) provide prescriptions. They help evaluate alternative options by (4) predicting

their chances of success, (5) evaluating their moral rightness, and (6) warning about

the dangers associated with the options” (Khong, 1992, p. 10). In order for the

analogy to be valid, it cannot be based on a random choice of common properties

between the two cases between which the analogy is supposed to exist. Instead, it

needs to be shown that the two cases are isomorphic: “Two structures are

isomorphic when there is a mapping of the elements of one structure onto the

elements of the other such that all the relations are preserved.” (Weitzenfeld, 1984:

140).

How can good analogies to CE be found? For this paper the most important common

and thus non-random property has to be the notion of crisis and thus “criteria for case

selection” for analogous situations are the following:

Cases have to include objective and subjectively felt threats to the values of a

community or society.

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They have seen the articulation of a threat (in the form of explicit claims) that

has resonated within the public realm (at least some acceptance of the claims)

such that the events unfold in a discursive setting of distress, social and

economic disruption, and an uncertainty about the future that signifies a

moment of imminent crisis.

Cases have witnessed the narrowing of the choice of possible options to the

point where on the one hand the use of “extraordinary means” has been

perceived as legitimate by a large number of people and on the other hand

people appear to be helpless, confronting fate.

Cases where the threats have been perceived to be of a global nature and

where the use of extraordinary means has been advocated and to some

degree implemented.

Narratives of such a “state of exception” that call for politics beyond the normal have

a long tradition in political theory, but their modern use dates back to decrees calling

for a “state of siege” during the revolutionary wars in France after 1789 (S.

Humphreys, 2006). Political theorists, like Carl Schmitt, claim that the right to declare

a “state of exception” lies at the core of politics (Schmitt, (1922) 2004). Some have

built on Schmitt’s perspective arguing that sovereignty today implies a permanent

“state of exception” (Agamben, 2005) – a view that has, however, been criticized

strongly by many (Huysmans, 2008). In Realist approaches to International Relations

the use of “exceptional means” was perceived as the realm of the international,

whereas domestically the routine dominated (Koskenniemi, 2000). More recently

analyses of “securitization” building on insights from the Copenhagen School have

been used to explore speech acts that legitimize “exceptional means” as a self-

referential practice (Balzacq, 2010; for an analysis of securitization of finance in the

context of the war on terror, see Lederer, 2011; Waever, 1995).

Possible cases that could be explored as analogies to CE are the “war on terror”

where Guantanamo stands as a symbol for a situation where exceptional means

have been perceived to be necessary and where thinking the unthinkable became a

policy option and the “lesser evil” to be employed. This of course holds also true for

the current debates on the role of the NSA and the protection of information rights

whose suspension is sold as a necessary trade-off. However, also less drastic cases

come to mind like the Euro-crisis that also saw exceptional means and the saving of

large banks with billions of taxpayer’s money that has been justified on the ground

that there was no alternative and that a larger evil (run on the bank) had to be

prevented. A particular interesting case – with richer and deeper connections to CE

than one might expect – is the deployment of nuclear weapons where the argument

of a “state of exception” has been successful in legitimizing specific political actions

that are presented as “extraordinary” but necessary.

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Nuclear weapons and CE – a comparison

The potential deployment of nuclear weapons and the concurrent theory of

deterrence dominated much of the Cold War legitimizing the build-up of large nuclear

arsenals where drastic measures were perceived as legitimate only to avoid an even

worse disaster (Jervis, 1989; T. C. Schelling, 1966). The potential military use of

nuclear weapons (and for some even the peaceful use of nuclear energy) was a sign

for the state being in an absolute emergency situation (Jungk, 1979). The crisis that

led to the setting-up of nuclear weapon systems was of course the bipolar

confrontation between the superpowers that dated back to the ideological

confrontation that the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 initiated and that erupted into a

territorial, economic, and political competition after the end of WW II (for an excellent

overview of the history of the Cold War, see Gaddis, 2005). In the US as well as in

the Soviet Union the crisis was perceived to be real, imminent and of a global nature

that had to be confronted with all necessary and very often also extraordinary means.

During the Cold War a certain “state of exception” was always present at least in so

far as a certain amount of nuclear weapons was always ready to be launched within

a very short time frame as a second-strike in case of an attack of the other. The

notion of crisis was articulated over and over by Eastern as well as Western

statesmen and led to a rather broad acceptance of the researching, testing and

setting-up of nuclear weapons in order to avoid an even greater evil.

Similarly, today one prominent route for CE research, experiments and potential

deployment to gain legitimacy would be as an instrument of avoiding a worst-case

scenario. Thus, in both instances, a narrative of the “lesser evil” legitimizes “thinking

the unthinkable” and there are further similarities:

Both instruments are perceived as a “weapon of last resort” and even their

proponents argue that they should only be employed when all other options

have failed. Potentially disastrous side-effects are well known and normally

not neglected, e.g. in the case of nuclear war the coming of a “Nuclear Winter”

or the potential shift of the Monsoon in the case of some SRM technologies

like cloud seeding or the injection of aerosols. This also holds true for the

social implications, as the actual deployment of nuclear weapons or CE would

most likely have severe consequences for (international) politics, potentially

even regarding the possibility of upholding democratic systems. In the case of

CE this is, for example, openly acknowledged by James Lovelock who are

argues that democratic systems cannot solve the climate crises. As a corollary

to this, both supporters of nuclear weapons as well as of CE strongly favor

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research and testing in order to have a clear understanding of what the actual

use would entail (Hamilton, 2013, p. 125).

Deterrence theory, as well as the thinking about CE deployment, make use of

a cost-benefit analysis and in both cases the argument is advanced that the

costs are low in comparison to the expected benefits. In the case of nuclear

deterrence the famous argument about “more bang for the buck” has been

important up to this day, as e.g. current discussions in Iran or North Korea

have shown. Similarly, some scientists have claimed that CE would be a

cheap technology in comparison to most mitigation or low-carbon

development options (Barrett, 2008). This argumentation has, however, raised

various doubts among the scientific community (Klepper, 2012; Rickels et al.,

2011). Nevertheless, various constituencies might push for this argument

claiming that in the future technological advances will make CE cheaper.

Both instruments – CE and nuclear weapons – face various governance

challenges, so that in the end they are hardly covered by international law,

particularly not in an emergency situation. In the case of using nuclear

weapons the International Court of Justice came close to stating that when

survival is at stake, hardly any legal barriers exist (Koskenniemi, 2002).

Whether a legal framing of CE is possible is still an open question and

whereas some claim that SRM would for example be illegal (William C. G.

Burns, 2011), others argue that in times of a climate crisis “the niceties of

international law might be expendable” (Hamilton, 2013, p. 152). So far no

international convention covering all forms of CE exists and there is no

prohibition of researching or testing CE measures except they would violate

existing rights or the territorial integrity of other states (Proelss, 2012).

Furthermore, besides the legal issues, power politics is of importance. This is

evident for nuclear weapons and their role in the Cold War and beyond but it

also plays a role in CE. Whereas the threat of China unilaterally using CE

measures might be overdone (Edney & Symons, 2013), “atmospheric

geopolitics” might become an issue, particularly as various scientists in Russia

are pushing for CE to be developed (Hamilton, 2013, p. ch. 6).

The conceptual challenges in thinking about nuclear weapons and deterrence

on the one hand and climate engineering and its potential deployment on the

other are quite similar. We hardly have any empirical evidence to draw

conclusions from, testing is highly problematic and thus scientists are

themselves looking for analogous situations where models could be tested. In

the case of deterrence comparisons were made with oligopolies to understand

under which conditions newcomers and competitors could be deterred.

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Regarding CE the comparison made most often is with volcano eruptions, as

the sulfur dioxide emitted cooled the earth’s atmosphere quite substantially but

also air pollution serves as a comparison. Also it is acknowledged that both

instruments constitute a very strong moral hazard problem. Regarding the

nuclear option this was most famously conceptualized by Thomas Schelling

who thereby re-invented deterrence theory (Thomas Schelling, 1960; T. C.

Schelling, 1966). In the case of CE the question of whether researching CE

technologies will lead to even less efforts regarding mitigation or low-carbon

development is disputed but cannot be ignored (Buck, 2012; D. Humphreys,

2011).

In the end, the consequences of using either nukes or CE might be so

detrimental that their very existence prevents their deployment. It has long

been argued that the Cold War stayed cold (or at least only got “hot” on the

periphery) due to nuclear weapons (e.g. Gaddis, 2005). Similarly, the debate

about CE – once it reaches the public on a larger scale – might lead to more

stringent action on mitigation and adaptation as people realize that the

alternative is not only “unthinkable” but should also stay that way.

The exploration and set-up of nuclear weapons as well as the research on CE

have or appear to be in the train of developing highly supportive

constituencies. For nuclear weapons US President Eisenhower already in

early 1950s famously spoke of the military-industrial complex and it is evident

that the research, testing and setting-up of nuclear weapon systems is a multi-

billion dollar business. The situation is less clear-cut for CE. Hamilton (2013ch.

4) has nicely elaborated on who the most important supporters are and he

argues that besides prominent scientists like Ken Caldeira and David Keith,

individuals like Bill Gates or Richard Branson are important players.

Interestingly think tanks also play a substantive role in CE research similarly to

the beginning of nuclear weapon research. Particularly, members of the RAND

Cooperation have been labeled the “Wizards of Armageddon” (Kaplan, 1983)

and scientists employed in this think tank are today proactively arguing for CE

(Lempert & Prosnitz, 2011). Other pro CE think tanks are the American

Enterprise Institute (AEI) or the Hoover Institution and Hamilton nicely points

out that many of those who have worked for the Lawrence Livermore National

Laboratory are now also advocating CE. The Livermore National Laboratory

had originally been founded as a nuclear weapons facility in 1953 and it

seems that the “kind of intellectual culture that characterized weapons

research at Livermore during the Cold War is having a formative influence on

the geoengineering debate in the United States and beyond” (Hamilton, 2013,

p. 121). With the Cold War being won RAND, the AEI, the Hoover Institution

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and particularly the Livermore National Laboratory lost some of the their raison

d’être and thus looked for new challenges that could be solved. It seems that

the looming climate crisis came very handy. It is thus no surprise that some of

those scientists like Edward Teller who were managing the Manhattan project

or were responsible for Star Wars under the Reagan administration have now

advanced SRM as the most effective and efficient way of controlling the

climate even if no dangerous climate change is to be expected (Hamilton,

2013; Teller et al., 2002). While developing a strong supportive constituency in

the scientific community, CE also alienates many scientists. This characteristic

also points to a strong likeness to nuclear weapons, which similarly divided the

scientific community in proponents and opponents (see Hamilton, 2014, p. 1).

This last point of a personal connection of the scientists involved in nuclear weapon

development during the Cold War and those researching CE today is particularly

interesting as it opens up the path for a first attempt at showing the analogy between

the two cases in an empirical study. One could ask: Who is Edward Teller and who is

Robert Oppenheimer in the case of CE? Who stays on with the notion of a climate

emergency and who takes a step back, as Oppenheimer did when he became more

critical of nuclear research? And can the particular interpersonal relationships of the

nuclear case be copied onto the case of CE? This is made even more interesting by

the fact that there exist some personal identities between the two cases. Edward

Teller was an early member of the Manhattan Project and is considered the

inspiration of Dr. Strangelove. However, he has also published articles on CE as late

as 2002, one year before his death at 95 years old. Irving Langmuir, who considered

the weaponization potential of climate engineering in the 1940s, worked closely with

Teller and discussed his theories and findings with him (Fleming, 2010, p. 170).

Lowell Wood is considered a protégé of Teller (Keith, 2013, p. 123) and was involved

in the so-called Star Wars program of protection against nuclear attacks. Today, he is

a prolific proponent of CE.

Of course the two cases also have some important differences as the nature of the

issue of what actually should be achieved differs considerably (avoiding war/victory

of the other side vs. avoiding runaway climate change) and in the case of nuclear

weapons the supposed “crisis” was primarily framed in national terms, whereas the

current “climate crisis” is perceived as a global one. Thus, the geopolitical situation

seems to be a different one. Hamilton, furthermore, notes that the community of CE

researchers is much more spread out and thus much less of a closed community

than those researching nuclear weapons (Hamilton, 2013, p. 125). Nevertheless,

enough similarities are present so that the patterns of legitimization can be

compared. It thus becomes obvious that talking crisis might open up the way to a

state of emergency that in turn legitimizes CE.

14

Conclusion

In the end the politically important question is whether crisis talk and the “emergency

argument” will succeed in pushing CE strongly enough. As it has become obvious

various scholars are already advancing the claim that we are in or at least close to an

emergency and that we have to contemplate about researching, setting-up and

potentially deploying extraordinary means. As the analogy to nuclear weapons can

show the arguments that win out in such a situation are neither the most economical

ones nor those with most normative appeal. It is rather the case that apparently

“simple” solutions have the greatest appeal in the political arena and that specific

constituencies are sometimes able to push these up the agenda. This has certainly

been the case regarding the attractiveness of deterrence theory where nuclear

weapons became the cornerstone of strategic thinking for more than fifty years. Will

CE similarly become the cornerstone of future climate politics?

At this point in time the question cannot be answered. It is evident that some

scientists are pushing for CE research with the intention of eventually deploying it.

There is, however, much less recognition within the general public that we are close

to a crisis and it is questionable that this will change in the near future. One potential

short-term push could be the release of the 5th IPCC Assessment Report which

began in 2013 and will successively be concluded in 2014 and 2015. So far, the

contributions of the three working groups have been released. The severity of climate

change impacts has again been stressed: “It is extremely likely that human influence

has been the dominant cause of observed warming since the mid-20th century.”1

(IPCC, 2013: 17) Also, in the AR5, CE measures are discussed next to mitigation

and adaptation for the first time (see, for example, IPCC, 2013: 29). However, taking

into account current climate fatigue and the financial crisis still dominating most

Western thinking, it is doubtful that general crisis awareness will develop on a large

scale shortly. This might, however, change once climate change impacts become

more severe and more widespread – it is at this point where the wizards of CE will

have a chance of being heard.

Currently it is also very hard to estimate how strong the CE lobby actually is. It is

evident that various scientists and some think tanks are strongly pushing the notion

but with the exception of Bill Gates in the US they have not been able to reach out to

a broader audience and thus have not been able to create a powerful constituency.

Hamilton denies that supporters of fossil fuel based economies will refer to a crisis as

this would only underline their political and moral failure in preventing such a situation

in the first place (Hamilton, 2013, p. 165). However, looking at the Euro crisis strong

1 Accentuation taken from the original.

15

doubts rise whether those culpable of the worst problems (banks) do not call for

emergency measures because this would highlight their mistakes in the past

(reckless lending and speculation). What happened is quite the contrary, those most

guilty of creating the situation called for the most drastic measures to be saved.

Gardiner calls this “creative myopia”, which he deems to be a form of moral

schizophrenia: “This arises when an agent invokes a set of strong moral reasons to

justify a given course of action, but this course of action is supported by these

reasons only because the agent has ruled out a number of alternative courses of

action more strongly supported by the same reasons, and where this is due to

motives she has that are less important, and are condemned by those reasons” 20.

What follows from all of this politically? It has become clear that the notion of “crisis”

plays a major role in the current scientific CE discourse, and that it might push CE

strongly enough to eliminate alternatives. Future decisions about CE research and

deployment will most likely not follow a clear rationality neither in the form of a

technical or cost-benefit analysis nor in the form of a normative judgment. Rather the

decisions about CE will be deeply political and it is thus important to have an open

discourse as long as possible. The pros and cons of CE should be discussed now

and decisions about research and experiments need as much public involvement and

legitimatization as possible. If there is no open deliberation the situation might arise

where the wizards of CE are able to sell their instruments as the last straw that could

solve the crisis.

16

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