Clive Hamilton’s latest book, Earthmasters: Playing God with the Climate, induces real anger and apprehension. Philosopher and climate-change action advocate Hamilton’s previous books Scorcher (2007) and Requiem for a Species (2010) had the same effect. Scorcher explored the politics of global warming in Australia, and Requiem examined why we have ignored the warnings about global warming and why it is too late to prevent it. Now, however, the stakes are greater than ever. Where these previous books explored, in main part, climate change and global warming’s Australian context, Earthmasters examines them on a global scale from the point of the entire planet and the future of its inhabitants.

This sophisticated and powerful book pulls no punches – climate change and global warming are here. Hamilton explores the vast geo-engineering programs designed to mitigate global warming’s negative consequences. He describes the absurd mass-technological solutions, including, among others, liming the oceans to undo acidification, biological sequestration, regulating sunlight (solar radiation management), cloud brightening to reflect solar energy radiating away before it reaches the earth, and even eliminating cirrus clouds. Instead of carbon reduction by the cessation of or reduction in the burning of fossil fuels, geo-engineering refers to technological programs designed to alter the climate to mitigate the effects of global warming. Brought about because nations, for a myriad of reasons, have not acted on global warming, geo-engineering appears to be a white knight. It is, for its advocates, both a solution and an opportunity not to move away from consumerism, which relies so heavily on the burning of fossil fuels. Hamilton argues persuasively that the debate between fossil-fuel reduction and geo-engineering has already been won because of the widespread failure of abatement measures. He paints a frightening picture of global warming in which geo-engineering will be employed. But it is no magic bullet. In the coming decades, these theoretical technologies, with their untested and unknown consequences, are likely to be far-reaching, unavoidable, and negative.

Clive HamiltonEarthmasters is a complex and articulate book in which Hamilton analyses the scientific and geo-political implications of engineering. Although he reluctantly concludes that this is where we are headed, he does not advocate geo-engineering, which is driven by what he refers to as the ‘geoclique’: scientists, financiers, neoconservative climate-change deniers, and fossil fuel corporations, rather than democratically elected governments. The future of the planet is set to be in the hands of those who hold the patents, the money, and the intellectual property. Earthmasters is an urgent ‘call to arms’ for us to make judgements about the regulation of geo-engineering and who should drive such initiatives. While technological intervention in the climate is inevitable, the driving motivations for doing so are not so fixed. Hamilton deftly explains why.

Surprisingly and persuasively argued, Earthmasters uncovers how two of the most unlikely of allies – geo-engineers and climate-change deniers – can be on the same page philosophically. Most interesting is Hamilton’s analysis of those on the conservative right in the United States; indeed, he has little positive to say about the ‘white male effect’ driving technological solutions. Drawing on the lessons of history and Greek philosophy, he breaks geo-engineers into two philosophical camps, describing their debate as a battle between Prometheans on the one hand and Soterians on the other, between those who seek to exert control over nature by technological means and those who have concluded that technological means will be all we have to deal with global warming. Indeed, the divide is not along right–left lines or an environmental–economic dichotomy; rather, Hamilton argues between a belief in humanity’s ability to control nature and one more suspicious of unnatural technological solutions and extreme arrogance of domination.

From Hamilton’s point of view, it is not a matter of if geo-engineering will be employed. That question has been answered. It is a matter of which philosophical framework will dominate. Earthmasters asks two very different philosophical questions, both of which have been eloquently dealt with here. As Hamilton tells us, deep ethical concerns lie at the heart of the geo-engineering debate. The main question under examination here is ‘who is to have dominion over the climate?’ The answers are not reassuring for those of us who believe human activity has already done the planet irreversible harm.

Hamilton also implores us to ask a much larger and more complex question: ‘what have we – as enlightened rational humans – become?’ He eloquently explores how climate-change deniers – those who believe that human activity is not responsible for global warming (and here he identifies some powerful players) – can enthusiastically and stridently support geo-engineering. Despite geo-engineering’s promises, the future outlook is not bright for poor nations or for anyone or anything that has been dominated by the American ‘way of life’.

Hamilton believes that global warming is the consequence of deliberate and destructive actions. Simply put, we know what causes it and how to avoid it, yet we go on burning fossil fuels. Who will be called to account? Who will initiate legal proceedings to stop the damage? Although he does not lay blame at the climate scientists who have made strong arguments for abatement, Hamilton argues that the Global North has failed. These are the same scientists who have turned to geo-engineering. It will become the preferred method of dealing with global warming because it will be too late (if it is not already) to reduce emissions.

Despite its deeply serious side, there are some hilarious moments in this book. Hamilton describes some absurd suggestions of geo-engineering, and the section on engineering humans to adapt to climate change provides some much-needed light relief.

Earthmasters is easy to read, but its message is not easy to bear. Nevertheless this is not a lightweight, feel-good book about climate change in which consumers are empowered by buying ‘green’. It is a book that every politician, policy-maker, and citizen should read. The future of the planet and its inhabitants simply demands it. In our attempts to control the world’s climate, Hamilton argues, the world has become less predictable and controllable. But geo-engineering is all about controlling the climate. Our ability to turn back the clocks and undo the damage of mass-scale burning of fossil fuels has passed. Hamilton warns us that geo-engineering will become the preferred method for those who favour the ‘business as usual’ approach. Geo-engineering is the final stage in the Enlightenment project’s aim to control nature. It is a cruel irony that the system and activities that cause global warming are the same that will continue to dominate. I am left wondering whether it will be business as usual, or business accelerating.

As humans continue to play god with the climate, as they inevitably will, they remain heedless of the consequences of their actions. For those who have been content to wait for science to come up with a solution to global warming instead of adopting measures that will dramatically change our ways of living, Earthmasters eloquently describes the frightening consequences of such apathy. This book needs to be read now and its messages acted upon immediately.