Catastrophism toward ‘opening up’ or ‘closing down’? Going beyond the apocalyptic future and geoengineering

Climate change is conquered or ‘drowned’ by a discourse of fear, the fear about the future climate (Hulme, 2008). Apocalyptic imagining of the catastrophic impacts of climate change such as rising sea levels and deadly hurricanes is the typical language to talk about what the future will look like at risk of global climate change. Discourses of fear and catastrophe have been prevalent in the public debate since climate change became a salient political issue in the late 1980s (Weingart et al., 2000). A discourse of fear mobilizes human society into taking action against climate change, resulting in political and ethical imperatives of limiting greenhouse gas emissions. However, a fear discourse can also create the conditions for a technocratic turn to govern climate change, which arises from the anxiety about the collapse of a global deal on GHG emissions reduction, as seen in Copenhagen 2009. Such anxiety over the failure of mitigation can guide us toward the lure of a ‘techno-fix’, geoengineering the Earth’s climate.

Here, I argue there is a power (or catastrophism) to change our world, guided by dystopian imagination of the future and humans’ hubris to control the climate, which I call ‘apocalyptic catastrophism’ – in opposition to what Ulrich Beck (2014) called ‘emancipatory catastrophism’, introduced in his public lecture at the conference Climate Change and Risk Society: New Trends of Megacity Transformation in Seoul, Korea, July 2014 (see also Beck, 2015, this volume). In this short essay, I discuss the underlying discourse that leads us to ‘techno-fixing’ climate change, and contrast it with the concept of emancipatory catastrophism. To do so, first I look into what geoengineering – artificially setting the global thermostat to cool the planet’s temperature – is.

Geoengineering or climate engineering is defined as ‘the deliberate, large-scale manipulation of the planetary environment in order to counteract anthropogenic climate change’ (Royal Society, 2009), either by solar radiation management (SRM) to reduce incoming sunlight, or carbon dioxide removal (CDR) to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The interest in geoengineering has grown rapidly over the last decade, despite the fact that geoengineering is highly controversial in political, ethical and social dimensions (Corner and Pidgeon, 2010). Geoengineering is advocated based on two rationales: one is the ‘plan B’ argument, the other is ‘climate emergency’ (Nerlich and Jaspal, 2012). The plan B argument claims that geoengineering can be an ‘insurance’ in case mitigation policy fails, and therefore (at least) research into geoengineering should be pursued. ¹ In conjunction with the plan B argument, geoengineering is also justified as a necessary option in order to avoid ‘climate emergency’, that is, abrupt, nonlinear and irreversible climate change – namely climate ‘tipping points’ such as the Greenland and west Antarctica ice sheets melting (Markusson et al., 2014). The climate emergency argument has an emotive power that is hard to resist since it is the normative call for taking action against potential catastrophe of the future climate and does not propose immediate deployment. However, ‘climate emergency’ is a slippery concept, and what it really means is not yet scientifically well-defined. In fact, the rhetoric of climate emergency rests on the logic of preemption: anticipation of potential emergencies in the future – but as yet unknown about whether and how they may occur – necessitates action now to prevent such emergencies (Markusson et al., 2014). The fear of future impacts of a changed climate rather than a changed climate itself legitimizes the option of geoengineering. As such, what underlies the idea of a ‘techno-fix’ through geoengineering is catastrophism that imagines the future climate as the apocalypse.

I think, in the debate on climate change, there are two competing narratives: one is apocalyptic catastrophism, that is the imagination of a dire future climate and the discourse to feed the idea of a ‘techno-fix’ as an alternative to curbing GHG emissions; and the other is emancipatory catastrophism, that is, as Ulrich Beck argues, about the imagination of a cosmopolitan horizon of global climate risk and oriented to changing the mode of operation of modern society toward coping with ‘cosmopolitan climate’ (Beck et al., 2013). These two catastrophisms are inherently different with regard to the view of climate change and democracy, though there are similarities between them. Both view climate change as a serious problem that modern society is faced with and regard as irrelevant the current politics based on the concept of nation-states. And both are oriented to imagining the future climate within the context of catastrophism, demanding that action be taken now.

The notion of emancipatory catastrophism stems from Beck’s critique of ‘methodological nationalism’ in sociology, which frames every issue of modern society in the context of nation-states. Beck argues it is no longer relevant because our experience is intrinsically inseparable and interconnected in the world risk society. Our world is, like it or not, cosmopolitanized in the face of global climate risk – it is a cultural fact, an empirical (not normative) phenomenon. Therefore, emancipatory catastrophism calls for stepping outside of a national perspective, instead taking a cosmopolitan turn to understand global climate risk. Likewise, apocalyptic catastrophism is constructed on the ground of skepticism toward today’s climate politics. On apocalyptic catastrophism, it is assumed that current climate negotiation among nation-states (e.g. the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change; UNFCCC) is unlikely to succeed in alleviating a catastrophic climate change, and thus the alternative pathway (geoengineering) should be pursued as a ‘plan B’. For both catastrophisms, it is a common claim that we should go beyond the national horizon of climate change and find new ways of addressing global climate risk.

Emancipatory catastrophism is conceptualized as capturing ‘the unintended positive side effects of bads [in here, climate change)]’. As such, emancipatory catastrophism embraces a certain kind of optimism, sees global climate risk as an opportunity to change our mode of ‘being in the world, seeing the world and doing politics’, which Beck (2014) called ‘metamorphosis [verwandlung]’. However, emancipatory catastrophism is still founded on the basis of catastrophism – same as apocalyptic catastrophism – in that it sees climate change as a fundamental flaw of modern capitalism; therefore, Beck acknowledges that the ‘anthropological shock’ of catastrophe is necessary for a paradigm shift. Furthermore, both apocalyptic and emancipatory catastrophism share the idea of demanding action be taken now in response to the future climate risk. Apocalyptic catastrophism necessitates pursuing research into geoengineering now in order to arm ourselves against a future climate emergency, whereas emancipatory catastrophism asks us to be engaged in ‘meaning-work’, connecting the disconnected to confront the present future of global climate risk. Both catastrophisms are about the reconstruction of the present by anticipating the future.

What, then, distinguishes emancipatory catastrophism from apocalyptic catastrophism? It is a conception of climate change. As Beck (2014) stated, on emancipatory catastrophism, climate change is ‘a reformation of modes of thought, of lifestyles and consumer habits, of law, economy, science and politics’. Here, the word ‘emancipatory’ has a double meaning: first, it means emancipation from the prison of ‘methodological nationalism’; second, and more importantly, it emancipates climate change from the old, classic definition of an environmental problem waiting for ‘a solution’ – it reframes climate change as ‘wicked problems’ (Rayner, 2006), sees it as the condition for new ideas and perspectives to be brought forth to reshape our social world itself (Hulme, 2009). As such, emancipatory catastrophism is oriented to diversifying approaches to address climate change at different scales and places, refocusing the role of adaptation (Rayner, 2010), cities (Bulkeley et al., 2012) and so on. It brings climate change into our everyday practice to transform the meanings of human life. Climate change becomes a new opportunity for humanity and a ‘rebirth of modernity’. On the contrary, apocalyptic catastrophism conceptualizes climate change as an apocalyptic end of modernity. Here again, the word ‘apocalyptic’ has a double meaning; one is the apocalypse of a changed climate and the other is the demise of politics. It suggests ‘fixing’ climate change by geoengineering because there is no other way but to pursue a ‘techno-fix’ to escape from climate catastrophe. Geoengineering embodies humanity’s hubris and a promethean dream of mastery over nature to control the climate (Hamilton, 2014); hence a geoengineered climate becomes an ‘excess’ of modernity.

Emancipatory and apocalyptic catastrophisms are also different in the direction of guiding political debate, whether it is ‘opening up’ or ‘closing down’ space for democratic deliberation (Stirling, 2014). Apocalyptic catastrophism is, by invoking climate emergency, inclined to ‘close down’ space for deliberation; this is not only about closing down the choice of policy options, but more importantly, it is about putting democracy on hold (Szerszynski et al., 2013). As it is claimed as an ‘emergency’ in which the conventional approach (mitigation) is not enough, a radical approach (geoengineering) is needed. On the other hand, emancipatory catastrophism is directed toward ‘opening up’ space for deliberation. It is the empowerment of democracy to include what is excluded, to connect what is disconnected in the national prism, and the expansion of democracy to confront global climate risk as a cosmopolitan reality. Emancipatory catastrophism envisions the future climate beyond the apocalypse to find new horizons of common goods produced by the bads – it is a discourse against technocratic enterprise to domesticate our climate by geoengineering.

Finally, I pose an open-ended question – between apocalyptic catastrophism and emancipatory catastrophism, which pathway to the future climate will humanity take? Both catastrophisms have the power to determine how we imagine the future but are in opposite directions. My argument is that the answer is still uncertain and ambivalent, and humanity now stands at a critical juncture to take either pathway. However, I want to stress that we should also consider the asymmetry of power in today’s climate and energy politics. The incumbent interest of modern society, which often prefers a business-as-usual strategy, is assumed to be in favor of a technocratic response (Stirling, 2014). In short, there is a strong temptation (and interest too) within our society to ignore the topos of climate change – ‘renewal of modernity’ – and to seek a ‘techno-fix’ so as to keep society unchanged. Emancipatory catastrophism is a political discourse to resist such temptation. Thus, the task of sociologists and social scientists is to reinforce the discourse of emancipatory catastrophism to take our climate (and democracy) back into our own hands.