Here It Comes

From today's Wall Street Journal: "Scientists Resort to Once-Unthinkable Solutions To Cool The Planet". I can't access the article but basically they are describing the research and deployment of various geoengineering schemes, now that it is understood there will be no reduction in emissions or the production of fossil fuels. I remember Guy Mc Pherson years ago predicting this would happen; capitalists and their clients in government would stall and stall and pretend to be making progress and there would be all this greeenwashing and "blah,blah, blah" until the day they announced that due to the emergency it was necessary to deploy geoengineering. That day has arrived. In my novel a sinister collaboration of private and state actors results in a disastrous geoengineering deployment, leading to societal collapse. This was my most optimistic scenario. Because the sooner this thing implodes the better; for species losing habitat, for people being oppressed and exploited and annihilated in various parts of the globe, for the very concept of justice. In an essay in VOX, Eric Levitz takes issue with Andreas Malm's call for the use of property destruction, believing we must wait till enough renewable energy production is installed to replace our current use of fossil fuels. Until the "price goes down" or it is "economical" and there need be no sacrifice. Waiting for the Market, waiting for Godot. Levitz's argument echoes that of COP28 president Sultan Al-Jabar, who quipped that those wanting to halt fossil fuel production wish to "take the world back into caves". This from a man who lives in a palace. But decarbonisation is not anti-modern ( though I personally have no problem with de-industrialization and believe Bruno Latour is correct that climate change signals the end of the modern project) and we can live nicely with considerably less stuff. Instead we can expect our skies to turn a sparkly white sooner than later.