Geoengineering: The Next Era of Geopolitics?

While geopolitics used to be about the context of global politics, now in the Anthropocene, it has become a matter of remaking that context rather than taking it as a given. What kind of planet is being made for what kind of civilization is now an unavoidable question of the global economy, as is the related political question of contemporary globalization concerning who decides the future planetary configuration. The discussion of geoengineering proceeds apace as the limited success of climate mitigation focuses attention on what comes next. Thinking about how to govern geoengineering before major experiments are tried unilaterally might be the key to preventing future conflicts over such practical issues as what temperature the planet ought to be. Such questions are the key to the new geopolitics of the Anthropocene, a debate to which geography in general and political geography in particular could have much to contribute. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]