Dr. Stefan Schäfer, Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies, Potsdam
Research in Science and Technology Studies (STS) has shown that how societies know and represent the world is deeply interwoven with how they order collective life. In this talk, I present past and ongoing work that analyzes the co-production of natural and social order in climate geoengineering and earth system science, respectively. Climate Geoengineering is an ambiguous umbrella term that defies clear categorization but is generally understood to mean large-scale technological interventions into the global climate to counteract some of the effects of climate change. While visions of manipulating the climate emerged together with «the climate» as an object of modern scientific knowledge in the late 18th century, anthropogenic climate change provided a new framework within which to conceive of and articulate such visions beginning in the mid-1960s. Earth system science emerged during the late cold war as an ensemble of knowledge making practices and institutions that would deeply shape the articulation of climate change as a global problem, chiefly via the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The 1990s’ global expansion of earth system science also saw the marketization of carbon dioxide and the tight circumscription of ethical possibilities associated with climate change. This history continues to shape contemporary struggles over natural and social order, as concepts such as «Anthropocene» and «planetary boundaries» introduce new possibilities and limits to collective social life.
Join us in Zoom on May 25th, at 18:00.