Unchaining the atmosphere: rethinking solar geoengineering with Hannah Arendt

[Geoengineering News]

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-025-04062-8

Authors: Linde De Vroey 

08 December 2025

‘We have found a way to act on the earth and within terrestrial nature as though we dispose of it from outside, from the Archimedean point. And even at the risk of endangering the natural life process we expose the earth to universal, cosmic forces alien to nature’s household.’

‘… the situation created by the sciences is of great political significance.’

—Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (1958)

Abstract

This article addresses ethical and political implications of solar geoengineering through the lens of Hannah Arendt’s analysis of contemporary science. Geoengineering, particularly Solar Radiation Management (SRM), is often framed as a continuation of the (Baconian) scientific project of mastering nature through reason. This article examines solar geoengineering’s appeal as a response to climate change precisely because it is seen as calculated human mastery over nature. It challenges this view, however, by drawing on Arendt’s distinction between ‘natural’ and ‘universal’ science, situating solar geoengineering within the latter category. Rather than reinforcing control over nature, solar geoengineering exemplifies a shift towards a ‘universal’ science in which human actions into nature increasingly unchain unpredictable and irreversible natural processes. Moreover, Arendt’s framework shows that these new scientific actions into nature not only undermine the possibility for controlled mastery, but also erode the capacity for deliberate political action. Through this Arendtian reframing of SRM, the article invites new moral and political considerations.

Source: Springer Nature Link