C2G2
Gender and Climate Engineering:
A View From Feminist Science
Guest post by Tina Sikka, Newcastle University / 27 February 2020
Climate engineering and its relationship to gender has been a topic of some discussion over the past few years, and yet is still not adequately addressed in governance discussions.
There is a lack of women actively involved in conducting research on the subject ( [ COMMANDER OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE, Joanna Haigh FRS] and [ NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCE PRESIDENT & SCIENCE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ] Marcia McNutt are two notable exceptions), and technological designs have so far tended to reinforce masculine-identified norms, such as interventionism, hierarchy, control, and dominance...
What does feminist science look like in practice?
A prime example of science that does this is... “Glaciers, Gender, and Science: A Feminist Glaciology Framework for Global Environmental Change Research.”
The authors approach the study of glaciers with an eye towards instituting feminist scientific principles including:
- The centring of marginalized knowledge and alternative narratives (e.g. local and indigenous knowledge);
- A transformation in the norms by which methods are chosen and evidence collected (e.g. by including lived experience, storytelling, narratives, and visual knowledge);
- The due consideration of who relies on glaciers for things like drinking water, electricity, recreation, and life – both human and non-human.
These are placed in opposition to the traditionally accepted scientific values asserted by Thomas Kuhn of accuracy, consistency, broad scope, simplicity, and fruitfulness... as I outline in my book Climate Technology, Gender, and Justice: The Standpoint of the Vulnerable (2019), a feminist approach could encourage a more open, diverse, diffuse, novel, and pro-social science with respect to climate engineering.
Here are five ideas – although there are many more examples in the book!
1. Feminist science can improve data and modelling
One major shortcoming of current models is a lack of direct observation and historical data reflected in literature, storytelling, and songs...
A better approach could include data, for example, about how poor women would be affected by particular approaches, or the direct observation of environmental change by indigenous communities.
2. Questioning the 280ppm baseline
Current approaches see 280ppm as the baseline from which to compare current CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere.
This is based on data from the start of industrialization, yet deforestation practices and early forms of agriculture were quite also disruptive. These practices, when utilising feminist science, would be considered in light of the principles of novelty and ontological heterogeneity...
3. More granular approaches to measuring temperature change
Focusing on global averages rather than local temperatures can mask important details...
The binaries of male/female often map onto the global/local wherein the global (like male) is the dominant factor. As J.K. Gibson-Graham argues: “Globalism is synonymous with abstract space, the frictionless movement of money and commodities, the expansiveness and inventiveness of capitalism and the market [male]. But its Other, localism, is coded as place, community, defensiveness, bounded identity, in situ labor, noncapitalism, the traditional [female].”...
4. More representative maps and visualizations
One striking example of bias in visualisation in climate engineering science, is that it often uses the Mercator map to present data. This is very Eurocentric, in that countries identified as representing the West are disproportionately larger. Feminist and postcolonial cartography offer alternatives.
5. The consideration of aesthetics
A white sky as a result solar engineering would impact how we see, represent, and move through the world. These aesthetic considerations of deploying many climate engineering approaches could have a massive impact in terms of societal support and governance, and yet have so far received limited consideration in the discourse.
These points are far from exhaustive, but would provide a good start.
If you want to continue this discussion, please get in touch!
