Open AccessThe futures of climate engineering
Author(s) -
Low Sean
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
earth's future
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.641
H-Index - 39
ISSN - 2328-4277
DOI - 10.1002/2016ef000442
Subject(s) - futures contract , vision , work (physics) , context (archaeology) , engineering ethics , climate science , science and engineering , sociology , climate change , political science , environmental ethics , regional science , engineering , economics , geography , ecology , mechanical engineering , philosophy , archaeology , anthropology , financial economics , biology
This piece examines the need to interrogate the role of the conceptions of the future, as embedded in academic papers, policy documents, climate models, and other artifacts that serve as currencies of the science–society interface, in shaping scientific and policy agendas in climate engineering. Growing bodies of work on framings, metaphors, and models in the past decade serve as valuable starting points, but can benefit from integration with science and technology studies work on the sociology of expectations, imaginaries, and visions. Potentially valuable branches of work to come might be the anticipatory use of the future: the design of experimental spaces for exploring the future of an engineered climate in service of responsible research and innovation, and the integration of this work within the unfolding context of the Paris Agreement.