Questioning the technological fix to climate change - Lay sense-making of geoengineering in Sweden

Abstract

Abstract This paper explores how Swedish laypeople make sense of emerging ideas of the large-scale deliberate technical manipulation of the global climate, known as geoengineering (GE). The paper is based on semi-structured focus group interviews with open-ended questions, allowing participants to express their spontaneous thoughts about GE. Although the focus group participants expressed great concern about climate change, GE was largely met with a sceptical, negative response. Participants perceived GE to: have negative environmental side-effects, address the symptoms rather than causes of climate change, create moral hazard and give rise to various governance challenges. Participants did not just reject the idea of GE outright; rather, social representations started to form in the focus groups through testing and negotiating arguments both pro and contra GE research and deployment.