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Global climate change is not the first time that human societies have created ecological problems for the systems they rely on for survival, nor is it the first time that technology has been proposed as the solution to socially caused environmental crises.
This talk examines historical examples of the “techno-fix”, in which technology has been used to attempt to repair metabolic rifts in the ecosphere, without success. From increasing technological efficiency to the energy transition, technological solutions have often pushed the horizon of crisis further into the future rather than resolving it. The talk then turns to the next horizon of the techno-fix: geoengineering, technologies designed to alter the functioning of Earth’s systems to suit human needs rather than changing society to meet the ecosphere.
Drawing on recent research into the funding of solar geoengineering, the seminar explores the economic, political, and social dynamics that encourage research and development of this controversial techno-fix.
Please bring your own lunch. Coffee will be served.
Bio
Jared Sanborn is a PhD Candidate in Sociology at the University of Utah. His research focuses on how economic, political, and social structures affect the way society interfaces with the non-human world. In particular, he examines how these structures shape the creation of science and technologies proposed as solutions to socially caused problems, often described as the techno-fix.