Future Imaginings

Abstract

This Chapter is future focussed and therefore more speculative. It looks in particular at three dimensions expected to be relevant in shaping whether solar geoengineering (SGE) is embraced and deployed, or spurned and discarded. These are: the relevance of actual changes in climate and weather; the extent to which elites see SGE as essential to stabilising the dominant geo-political and socioeconomic order; and the degree to which SGE’s proponents are able to replace the predominantly dystopian vision which currently accompanies it. In relation to the last of these, the Chapter explores how paradigms of ‘development’ and the Anthropocene have begun to be mobilised by SGE’s advocates in the reframing of SGE as a positive project of modernity.