Introduction - Environmental Transformations - page 5

Box 1.2 Geoengineering

Geoengineering is a term that is used to describe a series of large-scale, technologically driven
interventions in the Earth's climatic system. Geoengineering can take many different forms,
including: cloud whitening, space mirrors, carbon capture and storage. At the heart of all
geoengineering efforts is a desire to artificially regulate the Earth's temperature and avert the onset
of climate change. While supported by many as a necessary response to the emerging threats of
climate change, many are sceptical of geoengineering efforts. Concerns have been expressed that
a reliance on geoengineering could see less effort being made to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Others, such as the World Economic Forum (2013), argue that geoengineering technologies carry
with them the threat of being exploiting by rogue nations in order to cause climate-related
problems in different parts of the world.

Key readings

See The Guardian's special section on geoengineering at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/
geoengineering
World Economics Forum (2013) Global Risks 2013, WEF, Davos

the same intellectual powers that had created the
Anthropocene could enable the 'evolutionary leap'
- particularly in the ways in which we harness
energy sources and artificially regulate the global
environment - that our contemporary environ-
mental problems appear to require. At the heart
of the technocentric solutions envisaged by The
Economist were the building of zero-carbon
energy infrastructures and the initiation of new
geoengineering programmes. These normative
perspectives on what we 'should' do in response
to contemporary forms of environmental change,
and where these perspectives come from, are
themes we will continually revisit in this volume.

so-called Long Anthropocene ) (see Chapters 3 a nd
7 o f this volume). Paul Crutzen is more precise,
suggesting that the Anthropocene began in 1784
when James Watt developed the first design for the
steam engine and kick-started the industrial
revolution. Others link the Anthropocene to the
rise of nuclear technology and the clear radioactive
traces it has left in the geological record. As a
geographer, I feel that these historical deliberations
can often lead us to forget an equally important
question: where is the Anthropocene? Asking
where is the Anthropocene is a spatial question. As
a spatial question it has both historical and more
contemporary implications. In historical terms, it
leads us to ask in what places did the processes
associated with the Anthropocene first begin?
In more contemporary terms, it can result in
important questions being asked about how the
effects of the Anthropocene are being experienced
differently in different locations. The geographical
perspective I pursue in this volume means that the
objectives set out above must become geographical
questions. The key questions I thus explore are: 1)
In what particular places have the changes that

1.2 THE ROUGH GEOGRAPHIES
OF THE ANTHROPOCENE
I find one of the debates surrounding the notion
of the Anthropocene particularly interesting.
This debate concerns precisely when this new
geological epoch may have begun. Some see its
origins in the human domestication of animals and
the associated birth of modern agriculture (the