Geoengineering’s False Promise: Systemic Climate Fixes Ignore Root Causes of Ecological Collapse
Original framing: “The Download: a reality check for geoengineering and the science of interoception” — MIT Technology Review
Frontline communities in the Global South—e.g., *Niger Delta* oil victims or *Bangladesh* climate refugees—are excluded from geoengineering debates despite bearing disproportionate risks. Women, Indigenous leaders, and peasant farmers (e.g., *La Via Campesina*) advocate for agroecology and land reform as climate solutions. Their exclusion reflects a broader pattern of epistemic injustice in climate governance.
The geoengineering narrative, as amplified by MIT Technology Review, exemplifies the *Faustian bargain* of late-stage capitalism: trading ecological integrity for speculative control.
This framing obscures the structural roots of climate change—colonial land dispossession, corporate carbon lock-in, and the myth of infinite growth—while legitimizing interventions that serve elite interests. Indigenous and Global South traditions, from *Pachamama* to *kaitiakitanga*, offer proven alternatives rooted in reciprocity, not manipulation. The solution lies not in hacking the atmosphere but in dismantling the extractive systems that created the crisis, centering marginalized voices in a just transition. The trickster’s laughter—whether Eshu’s or Coyote’s—reveals the absurdity of clinging to techno-fixes while ignoring the wisdom of those who have stewarded the Earth for millennia.