Airspace in the Anthropocene

Abstract

Technologies for manipulating the weather and climate have long been around, especially since the early 1950s. Weather modification applications were quickly weaponised to influence war and protest, until the 1978 UN Convention on the Prohibition of Military or any other hostile use of Environmental Modification Techniques. Reviewed interest in controlling weather and climate has grown again since. Technology to modify weather has been used consistently to modify weather at local scales, but regional applications are now being developed to mitigate impacts of wide-scale drought. Interest in climate modification technologies has grown rapidly in the past 15 years as back-stop solutions to the problem of global warming. Climate modification technologies (often called geoengineering or climate engineering) can largely be classed as either greenhouse gas removal or radiation management, the latter being more controversial. However, there is widespread concern as to the implications of geoengineering in terms of social justice and human rights; climate modification does not recognise political boundaries. In this paper, I will provide a brief review of how humanity has influenced the atmospheric environment above us since the Industrial Revolution, and how this chemical modification of the atmosphere kills millions of people every year, especially those who are poor and vulnerable. I will summarise major geoengineering techniques in play today, highlighting issues related to governance and human rights, relevant to this special issue on The Airspace Tribunal.