Evidence from geoengineering and the Fukushima accident

Forewords
This seminar was organised by the Europeace Chair on Environment & Security
on 7 November 2013 at the ULB, Brussels.
It is the result of a collaboration between
the Sustainable Development Study Centre
(CEDD) of the Science Faculty and the International Relation Study Centre (CERI)
of Sciences Po Paris. It addresses the environmental challenges of technological risks
and disasters from a security perspective.
Several studies have focused on the links between technologies and environmental degradation, whereas only few have approached
these issues from a security perspective.
Yet, the latter is of increasing interest in a
context where environmental issues are an
ever-growing political and societal concern
in everyday life. This seminar assesses how
technologies and disasters transformed environmental security through examples of
global environmental changes and major
disasters. The first part brings together evidence from two separate environmental
disasters: the global climate emergency and
the Fukushima Daiichi accident. The second part discusses consequences of environmental disasters in terms of how technologies affect environmental security with
regards to security and governance.
and nuclear accident lies a dialogue between
the three concepts of technologies, disasters and environmental security. The second
panel aims to shed light on this dialogue.
The Europeace Chair on Environment &
Security thanks the Bernheim Foundation
for supporting its development. It also
thanks the Peace & Conflict Group hosted
by the European Study Institute at the ULB
for its support.
http://www.iee-ulb.eu/fr/projet-europeace
The Europeace Chair on Environment
& Security brought together a set of researchers from natural, political and social
sciences to raise ethical features of environmental security from different perspectives.
The first panel discussed a series of risks
and disasters related to technologies that
have environmental and social consequences. At the crossing between geoengineering
*****
For more information about this document,
please contact the author Krystel Wanneau [email protected]
*****
The Bernheim Foundation has supported
the ULB in the realms of peace and conflicts over the past 10 years, mainly through
teaching and research. In this context, the
“Europeace” project developed a Chair
dedicated to the nexus between security and
environment, jointly with Sciences Po Paris.
http://www.iee-ulb.eu/fr/pole-bernheim-d-etudessur-la-paix-et-la-citoyennete
*****
This report reflects the rapporteur’s personal interpretations of the proceedings of the
seminar and does not constitute as such any
other organisation or individual involved in
the event.
*****
Photographs by Victor Micoud
http://www.flickr.com/photos/victormicoud
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ii
Key points:
Avoiding environmental disasters
The seminar questions how technologies
and environment blend with science in
framing and responding to these new kinds
of disasters. It introduces elements to analyse the extent to which technologies in their
conception and relation to politics define
environmental security. It raises evidence
from emerging technologies in the case of
geoengineering and technological accidents
in the case of Fukushima Daiichi.
• The term environmental security involves both the emergency and the routine
versions of “security”. Tracing back to the
historical development of the notion, environmental security has, it seems, been, at
least in part, about technologies and disasters. Therefore, ambiguities abound from
these technologies. They are both a solution
to a problem, may it be climatic emergency
or energy routine needs, and a problem requiring solutions, as linked to human security and vulnerability. Understood in terms
of artificial disasters, geoengineering and
Fukushima are nothing but two ways of
probing the geopolitics of the Anthropocene. Simon Dalby exposes, in this conceptualization of environmental security, how future is shaped in part by how to avoid these
disasters.
• Some scientists have advanced geoengineering as a plan B to respond to climate
change. In this framing, their concerns
about climate change has turned into an
emergency due to the sluggishness of mitigation politics and potential conflicts from
the adaptations of societies to climate
change. Clive Hamilton raises the risks behind
these technics by picturing an overview of a
world with geoengineering. The nexus between science, politics and security is particularly illustrated in length.
• Lessons from the military abound in the
previous directions. The military supports a
liable international governance of technologies that have an impact on the environment
or that present safety issues from abrupt
environmental changes. Illustrated by the
treaty on environmental modifications as a
weapon (ENMOD), Luc Mampaey demonstrates how this international treaty remains
important as a governance tool. Though
ENMOD is not suitable to address climate
or nuclear engineering, it remains a good
criterion to end the threats, those originally
being the environment or technology.
• Engineers portray the Fukushima Daiichi accident as a technological Titanic about
unplanned risks, when the unthinkable becomes reality – when the iceberg shows.
The earthquake and tsunami generated two
evacuation tales opposed in several ways in
their social consequences. François Gemenne
compares the management of both tsunami
and radiation hazards victims by the authorities. The study of environmental displacement evacuation policies highlights two major consequences for the Japanese society:
discriminations of the doomed population
affected by the nuclear cloud and social tensions due to the broken trust in the government, Tepco and local authorities.
Krystel Wanneau (REPI, ULB)
http://repi.ulb.ac.be/
iii
HOW DID
TECHNOLOGIES
AND DISASTERS
TRANSFORM
ENVIRONMENTAL
SECURITY ?
Evidence from geo-engineering
& the Fukushima accident
iv
Introduction
The main objectives of the seminar were
to discuss linkages between technologies,
disasters and environmental security. This
synthesis first brings together evidence of
risks and insecurities related to, in the case
of geoengineering, the governance of science and technologies in the perspective
of a climatic emergency, and in the case of
Fukushima, the consequences of a technological accident triggered by a natural disaster. The question is how to avoid these
environmental disasters when it seems that
a Titanic like mind-set impedes to formulate accurately the technology-environment
nexus? The synthesis opens up a new research agenda pertaining to the meaning
of environmental security with these new
kinds of technological disasters. It raises
the unsettled question of responsibility toward environment when framed as a threat
to human kind.
1
1
Crutzen PJ. (2006) Albedo Enhancement by Stratospheric Sulfur Injections:
A Contribution to Resolve a Policy Dilemma? Climatic Change 77: 211-220.
Part 1
Evidence from geoengineering and
the Fukushima accident
a. When scientists access political
spheres
1// Justifying an intervention: the climatic emergency
Plan A to reduce gas emissions to mitigate
climate change, was repeatedly postponed
and failed to penetrate during international
climate negotiations. Clive Hamilton presented the case of geoengineering development, a set of technics framed by scientists
as a plan B for the climatic emergency. His
presentation stresses the gap between the
efforts from varied actors to advocate for
geoengineering research and the lack of ethic, as well as the great responsibility these
developments would entail. Clive Hamilton
focused on two implications of geoengineering: i) the notion of a climatic emergency, which may give rise to demands for
climatic intervention, and ii) the attempt to
formulate a picture of what a geoengineering world would be like, and particularly of
the politics of a geoengineering world. He
first discussed the context that justifies a climatic intervention, reasons given to support
geoengineering researches. The synthesis
describes consequences of a decision to securitize the climatic emergency, in terms of
which policy-making would emerge.
A first implication of geoengineering is the
emergence of the notion of a climatic emergency, which may give way to demands for
climatic intervention. Indeed, a specific context that justifies climatic intervention, can
also, most likely lead to a support towards
geoengineering research.
What defines the climatic emergency? This
debate has been developed by the climate
scientists’ observations of the climate system’s reactions. Improved understandings
of the Earth machine - although the more
earth scientists know about it, the more
complex and fragile it appears - have created
an emergency to tackle climate change with
or without gas emission mitigation. Recent
developments in the field of geoengineering can be attributable to the 1994 Chemistry Nobel prize winner, for his work on the
ozone layer. Paul Crutzen broke the geoengineering taboo in 20061 , at a time when the
scientific community grew weary of waiting
for a response from the international institutions and the political system. Paul Crutzen framed the topic and was then joined by
a number of other scientists that have advocated since for geoengineering research. The
case of Michael C. MacCracken, as argued
by Clive Hamilton, reveals different options
and facilities that could be developed. The
scientist identified what he called a number
of high priority applications targeting the
reduction of the albedo of the Earth in particular areas, such as the Arctic, to reduce
Geoengineering is the deliberate, large-scale intervention in
the climate system designed to
counter global warming or offset some of its effects.
1 // Justifying an intervention:
2
the warming and the melting of ice caps?
Some sound crazy when in fact these are a
serious set of proposals discussed in small
circles, publically or behind closed doors in
Washington. The seriousness is also connoted with the writing of reports. The NASA
issued a report in 2006 following a workshop
of experts in geoengineering, on managing
solar radiation to propose a rapid deployment in response to the climate emergency.
Solar radiation management reflects at large
what is said in experts’ circles: they define
climate emergency as circumstances of severe consequences of climate changes, too
rapid to be significantly adverted by even
immediate mitigation efforts.
sol spraying in terms of the possibility of a
climatic emergency that would require some
kind of rapid and effective intervention.
The use of sulphate aerosol is preferred, because carbon dioxide removal works slowly.
The problem with this framing is its potentially anti-democratic political consequences
of a ready-to-use SAS technics developed
by a major research program funded by
government. The NASA report underlines
that, due to the current state of emergency, the political decision to deploy solar
radiation management would be relatively
straightforward. Clive Hamilton exposes
the political consequences, which induce no
need to worry about opposition, democratic
processes, persuading the public that there
is an emergency happening. It phrases forage and implication for governance. In this
framework, there is not point in thinking of
objections or popular resistance to solar radiation management because as the NASA
report said, ideological objections to SRM
may be swept aside. And that might be a
kind of objective statement, but that a rather disturbing one.
Clive Hamilton stressed two broad kinds of
geoengineering responses: carbon dioxide
removal and solar radiation management.
Carbon dioxide removal is designed to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. The main
issue is how to deal with the carbon that is
fixed in one of the capture solutions, so that
it does not go back into the atmosphere.
These include biochar, ocean iron fertilization and air carbon capture and storage. Solar
radiation management, on the other hand,
are a series series of techniques designed
not to counter climate change as a whole,
but to try to mitigate one of its symptoms,
that of global warming. These technics are
about increasing the albedo of the earth by
painting rooftops white, by brightening marine clouds with particular technics or solar
reflections in the space, or by sending sulphate aerosol aircrafts into the stratosphere.
The NASA document framed sulphate aero-
2 // What kind of world it would be
like: science, politics and security
The disturbing framing of the climate emergency draws a picture of what a world with
geoengineering would be like; and particularly Clive Hamilton investigates what the
politics of a geoengineering world. Economic and natural emergencies are often ex-
3
2
ploited for political benefit following a maxim “never let a good crisis go to waste”. He
articulates the climatic emergency with policy-making issues around three questions:
1) What are the criteria for deciding whether
or not we have a climatic emergency apart
from scientists?
2) Who would authorise a response, based
on which legitimacy?
3) Who would then decide when the emergency is over?
Quoted from the seminar
wing conservative climate sceptic think tanks
such as the American Enterprise Institute,
are coming out in favour of geoengineering
after years of devaluation, debacle and rejection of climate science. It demonstrates
that science is not really about science, but
about defending ideological standpoints.
Geoengineering promises to transform a
drastic failure of the free enterprise system
into a triumph of human technological ingenuity. The sulphate aerosol deployment is
a shift into a world of technocratic control.
By analysing the relationship between science and politics, Clive Hamilton supports
how technologies have strong transformative potential. He raises the relationship
between scientific and politics through and
introduces ethics. For instance, to which
scientists political leaders turn to when they
have to decide who manages the world’s climate? They turn to the one they trust. The
question remaining is what do they trust
about scientists? Clive Hamilton only grants
a secondary role to expertise, underlining
that what really matters, is the ideological
sympathy. He also attributes a role to emotions and values. In 1937, Churchill wrote a
newspaper article “Life in a world controlled
by the scientists” saying “there are secrets
too mysterious for man […] secrets which
once penetrates may be fatal to human happiness and glory, but the busy hands of the
scientists are already fumbling with the keys
of all the chambers even too forbidden to
mankind.”2 In many ways, geoengineering
reproduces these anxieties by trying to work
out ways to take control of the world climate, fumbling with the keys to a hidden
As a result of the climatic emergency, the
emergence of geoengineering as a plan B to
deal with the crisis brings about other political consequences. Having a plan B ready
to be used impacts states’ mitigation efforts
at both levels of international negotiations
and democratic functioning. Clive Hamilton underlines that if a state, being in the
middle of a crisis, embarks on a program to
regulate the earth’s climate system, it would
obviously have enormous geostrategic implications. To effectively install a thermostat
in the global climate system and have the
power to turn it turn it down a degree then
explains why the military institutions are interesting in geoengineering.
David Keith’s new book A case for climate engineering switches from the framing of a climatic emergency to an assessment of what
deployment would mean. It gives reason to
believe that the deployment would require
extensive modelling of all the data related to
complex measurement of the atmosphere
chemistry, of the SAS injections, of the increasing CO2. Interestingly enough, right
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3
Steve Shapin teaches the history of
science at Harvard. He frequently writes
book review for the London Review of
Book. He reviewed Churchill’s Bomb:
A Hidden History of Science, War and
Politics by Graham Farmelo. Website acces: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n18/steven-shapin/fat-man
4
Information about Devast research
project available at
http://www.devast-project.org/
chamber that human kind should never
have attempted to enter. As Clive Hamilton
put it, most of us would agree with Churchill. Our humanity moral development,
self-control and political institutions lag well
behind our scientific insight and technological capabilities.
ests of the most vulnerable populations of
the world. This explains why countries of
Latin America or South-East Asia advocate
restrictions on geoengineering research and
experimentation through bodies such as the
Convention on Biological Diversity. Plan B,
as seducing as it appears, does not solve the
responsibility burden of Western countries
in climate negotiations. On the contrary, it
blurs the lines even more, and continues to
engage human kind in a fight for surviving
natural systems maybe ecosystems is better.
In reviewing the recent book Churchill’s bomb,
Steven Shapin wrote as early as the Second
world war: “the distinction between the
domains of science and politics is put on
pressure when there is a prospect that the
nature of the politics and diplomacy would
be transformed by the business of new science and new technologies.”3 The current
issue is about the human liability toward environmental change that is no longer possible. Once embarked with a process of SAS
to regulate the climate of the Earth, experts
far away effectively set conditions of daily
life. Today, surveys show that only few percentages of the populations of countries
like France or Belgium know about geoengineering, but once 50 or 60% does, say in
about 5 years, they will have a view on it. A
first consequence would be the ethical anxiety the general public will have once they
become aware of geoengineering.
b.
Fukushima, the broken social
contract: trust, democratic state and
its people
The seminar tackled the second type of engineering from another entry point. François
Gemenne presented the social consequences of what happens when nuclear engineering goes wrong. The low-tech qualification
of the Fukushima accident management is
the result of a field inquiry conducted in the
region of Fukushima, six months after the
triple disaster.4 Only few studies have focused of these consequences. In fact, most
of the attention is constantly captured by
the power plant itself, as if the power plant
was in the middle of the desert, forgetting
to question what had been happening to the
people living close to the power plant. The
power plant, though providing energy security to Japan, does not reveal the human and
environmental costs of the accident and the
engineering of the atom.
A second remark is that this is only the start
of a process of various actors involved in
a technical frame of geoengineering. The
truth is, we find ourselves in a situation
where plan B, geoengineering, is being proposed because we failed in plan A. It is unlikely that this implementation will be done
in a democratic way that reflect the inter-
5
ities competed with each other to attract the
power plant, mainly because it would provide jobs, food, schools, and wealth for the
communities.
1 // The magnitude of the quake
An analysis of the magnitude of the disaster acknowledges how unexpected the chain
of events of the triple disaster was. It is a
disaster whose magnitude will never be fully
grasped. The quake was so powerful in itself
that the rotation axis of the earth shifted.
For that matter, there were not only many
aftershocks to this disaster in the following hours, but Japanese people experienced
earth tremors every day until mid-June. The
tsunami waves themselves reached up to
forty meters, the tallest in Japan since the
16th century.
A second characteristic of the accident lies
in a similar trust in the engineering that sunk
the Titanic. The iceberg, like the quake,
disturbed the safety of the device. Feeling
no risks that such an accident could have
happened, the Titanic was not equipped
with enough safety boats to save everyone,
just like the power plant was not equipped
with the ventilating system that would have
pumped the water out of the engine room.
The reason in both cases is similar. Nuclear engineers were absolutely convinced that
the power plant was 100% safe. The argument advanced by engineers was that if this
ventilation system had been installed as a
precautionary measure, it would have been
used by the anti-nuclear movement as a reason to counter the installation of the power
plant. It would have perpetuated controversies instead of facilitating decision-making
for policy-makers. These two facts framed
the mind-set that led to the accident.
The fact that Japanese people were so used
to tsunami, proved to be a key factor of the
vulnerability of the population. That is, people thought they knew how to react to these
events. It took a bit longer for the waves to
reach the coast. Many people, when they
experienced the quake, sought refuge from
the tsunami in the higher floors of buildings and high grounds. Expecting the waves
shortly after, they assumed they were out of
danger, while the waves arrived 40 minutes
later. That explains why so many people
perished.
2 // A comparison between the tsunami and nuclear evacuations
François Gemenne raised two important
facts about the accident. In a country like
Japan, which is accustomed to tsunamis,
why would you establish a power plant next
to the coast? One of the key reasons why
the power plant was located in Fukushima
Daiichi is because the community wanted
the power plant to be there. The municipal-
The Japanese authorities have manage not
one, but two evacuations. Even though we
tend to speak about the Fukushima disaster, for the Japanese people, the tsunami and
the nuclear accident are two very different
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things. They would distinguish them strongly and not speak about one single disaster
and sometimes speak about it as a ‘triple
disaster’ – earthquake, tsunami and meltdown. Focusing on the way the authorities
had managed the two evacuations, the Devast research project highlights the differences between the earthquake and the tsunami
and the evacuation of the population after
the nuclear accident.
On 27 April, the Japanese government decided to evacuate the people in areas with
more than 20 milliSievert per year (mSv/y)
abandoning the concentric zone evacuation
when they realised that the shape of the radioactive cloud was not precisely the shape
of the concentric circles around the power
plant.
Finally in mid-June, after the last aftershocks, they took the decision to measure
the radioactivity level in every single house,
and the house-by-house evacuation begun.
Houses with a certain level of radioactivity were evacuated, whereas others that were
not sufficiently radioactive were not under
evacuation orders. Considering that radioactivity is a local phenomenon, within a
street, one home could be highly radioactive whereas the one next-door would not
be, due to the material the house was built
in. Consequently, there was a zone affected
by the nuclear cloud outside the mandatory
evacuation zone where it was up to the population to decide whether or not they wanted to evacuate.
2.1 // Nuclear step-by-step Vs. organized tsunami evacuation plans
Given that Fukushima Daiichi considered
its power plant to be safe, there was no need
for a nuclear evacuation plan. Therefore, the
evacuation plan did not exist and was completely improvised by the authorities, who
followed a step by step process. Initially
they evacuated the zone within a 2 km radius around the plant, extended to 3, 10 and
20 km in concentric circles even though the
nuclear cloud went North and then derived
to the South.
By comparison, the evacuation for the tsunami was well prepared; the population was
posted and could be hosted in pre-fabricated houses whereas the nuclear evacuation
was a complete improvisation without provision of clear information by local authorities. The tsunami was an evacuation with
warning, a plan built on previous knowledge
of how to proceed.
On 15 March, authorities issued a statement
strongly recommending the population
living within a 20 to 30 km radius to stay
indoors. These people were not evacuated, but were forbidden to go outdoors for
several weeks. On 22 April, the population
were given the choice to evacuate, provided that authorities would deliver them with
the needed assistance and compensation. If
not however, they were to remain indoors.
7
of the tsunami victims. Differences in the
compensation or in the perception of the
victims, generated various discriminations
between tsunami and nuclear accident victims across Japan.
2.2 // Contradicting relations: “tsunami solidarity” and “radiation discrimination”
The nuclear accident, unlike the tsunami,
did not benefit from the same social acceptability or positive historical background in
the Japanese society. The two disasters may
have been the result of the same earthquake, but the social tales of the evacuations
are opposed in many ways. By comparison,
the evacuation for the tsunami was well
prepared; the population was posted and
could be hosted in pre-fabricated houses
whereas the nuclear evacuation was a complete improvisation without provision of
clear information by local authorities. The
tsunami was an evacuation with warning, a
plan built on previous knowledge of how
to proceed. Those displaced by the tsunami are commonly well accepted, whereas
several discrimination patterns of displaced
population from the radiated zones can be
exposed.
The people from the contaminated zones
appeared as a doomed population with
huge social impacts, such as fathers from
Fukushima fearing they would fail in finding a suitable husband for their daughters,
- or people fleeing Fukushima being avoided
out of fear of being contaminated. François
Gemenne highlights different patterns of
evacuation and social discrimination. From
the community of origin first, people who
stayed consider evacuees as coward to the
community or unpatriotic to Japan. Since
the Japanese authorities did not orchestrate
their evacuation, evacuees were perceived
as traitors. There were also social discriminations from the welcoming community
where evacuees fled because of fears to integrate people with radioactive health issues.
Radiations and their unknown effects by the
public opinion tend to create negative and
sometimes misplaced perceptions such as
the one that touched the first HIV patients.
The integration issue of these people displaced rises from the social discriminations
they suffer.
A striking contrast concerns the number
of people evacuated, which continued to
rise months, even a year after the nuclear
accident, while the number of displaced
by the tsunami decreased over time. Major
differences affected the social impacts of
the nuclear evacuation management. Once
the population realised that their house was
highly contaminated and therefore that it
was dangerous to stay, they decided to leave
with their own means. These decisions led
to significant tensions and discriminations
in contrast with the planned evacuation
2.3//Return and reconstruction
plans: individual Vs. collective
In the case of the people affected by the tsu-
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nami, the plan to return is relatively clear and
based on an individual choice: re-build with
more adaptation to natural disaster. There is
hope as to what to do. Besides, a democratic process has respected the willingness of
people to return or not. In contrast, for the
regions that have been contaminated by the
radiations, the return has become a political
project for the Japanese government. Using
wartime like rhetoric, the political project
lies in the reconquering of the lost territories. In fact, the government refuses to be
defeated by the Fukushima disaster and is
therefore decontaminating the territory. Yet,
efforts by bulldozers to remove all contaminated trees and superficial layers of the zone
are a rather low-tech way to bring contamination levels down. Unlike the quasi-immediate return after the tsunami, it will take at
least 30 or 40 years before the population
can return to the territory.
tensions, François Gemenne underlines the
collective dimension of the return to the region. These populations have no glimpse of
hope. The difference with a natural disaster
is a striking one, and draws the line of a research agenda pertaining to the meaning of
environmental security with these kinds of
disasters.
In addition, the responsibility to define the
accepted level of radiation depends upon
a limit to which scientists and politics will
have to agree to, bearing in mind the contested meaning of such a limit. Controversies about the danger of radiations already
are a societal debate, challenging democracies in a similar manner as climate scepticism. However, a major social consequence
of the Fukushima Daiichi accident lies in
the broken trust in the government or experts. The information provided by them
no longer satisfies the people. In fact, many
among the population, have resorted to buying their own Geiger counter and providing
their own measurements. Stressing these
9
Part 2
Reframing environmental security
ists, worrying about the scale and impact
of the natural world transformations. The
notion comes from two ways of thinking
that blends together intentions to shape the
future of the planet and which environment
will be secured.
a. The desuetude of fixing environmental security with technologies
The very notion of environmental security
only arises in the context of the technologies that both provide the risks and the
modes of knowing and measuring what
we have of late come to understand as the
environment. A technological fixing of environmental issues has become a vicious
circle rather than being a virtuous progress
toward modernity. This idea carries along
with it, all the ambiguity of the term ‘environment’, the term being a reflection of
the interaction between’ hybrid entities’ as
embodied by the Fukushima meltdown or
anthropogenic climate change, and ‘natural
phenomena’ through the tsunami and radioactivity hazards or the carbon cycle. In fact,
the ambiguity of its meaning, and allows for
both “natural” and “artificial” elements to
constitute the “surroundings” that become
a matter of political concern, should they
impinge or constrain human actions in ways
that endanger security, usually understood
as the provision of relatively predictable
safe conditions of routine human life.
Security is both a focus for policy discussions and a legitimation for political decisions. Simon Dalby recalls that security is
the quintessential modern concept in some
important ways. Rooted in the late eighteenth century, security is specified as a
matter of the legal assurance of freedom,
a necessary prerequisite to the operation of
commercial society, where property and the
derived provision of long-term capital accumulation were conditions to reach modernity. A routine characteristic of the notion
pertains to this first understanding of security. In the 1990s however, it was suggested
that the use of the term to stimulate priorities that transcended the routine matters of
“normal” politics. Extra-measures could be
used to exceptional contexts. The emergency acts as a legitimation for political decisions, a securitization of the issue. The term
“environmental security”, involves both the
emergency and the routine versions of “security”.
Describing a state of environmental security, Simon Dalby offered an encompassing
view of its historical development. Environmental security refers to the discussion
that emerged a quarter of a century ago
in the Anglo-American world. As the cold
war wound down, security thinkers were
concerned to rethink geopolitics once the
superpower rivalry ended. Some linked
their ideas with those of environmental-
Tracing back the notion, it seems that environmental security has always been, at least
in part, about technologies and disasters. In
many ways technological disasters are part
of what constitutes environmental security in the first place. Simon Dalby first uncovered the ambiguities of environmental
10
security in relation to technologies as i) an
emergency linked to accident, ii) the perpetuation of present geopolitical order, and
iii) a conflict erupting from miscalculations
or disruptions of the order. Fukushima is
the immediate disaster that requires security in terms of emergency measures. While
geoengineering might be understood as a
response to climate change that requires
emergency measures, it can also be read as
security in terms of the provision of the
conditions necessary to perpetuate the present geopolitical order and manage potential
conflicts.
ing solutions, as linked to human security
and vulnerability.
b. The evolution of the notion in the
Anthropocene context
Besides discussing the notion of environmental security in relation to technologies,
Simon Dalby also stressed the relationship
between humanity, ecosystems and geophysics. Human life as an ecological process
relies on an amount of “artificiality” that include a series of assemblages such as transportation links, communication networks
and industrial systems, that make modern
life. Two consequences arise and feed environmental security discourses.
Furthermore, both discussions of Fukushima and geoengineering have added urgency
to the linkage between large-scale formulations of human security and vulnerability.
Linked together they pose the question of
choices about the future. Fukushima reminds us that we cannot assume environmental stabilities in the face of such things
as earth quakes. The same idea runs with
typhoons or volcanoes. It is also a spinoff
from nuclear weapons programmes and a
larger engineering project to build nuclear
infrastructure, a warning to future development of “engineering the Nature”. While
geoengineering might be disastrous in terms
of making things worse for humanity, it
might also be a recognition that we are already in a disaster, the climatic emergency,
to which the plan B might only be a partial
solution. Ambiguities abound from these
technologies. They are both a solution to
a problem may it be climatic emergency or
energy routine need, and a problem requir-
First these human systems disrupt both ecological and planetary system, creating stress
on our resources and quality of environment; the notion of “limits” abounds here.
And secondly, these limits threaten, indirectly, the viability of human infrastructures
and the vulnerability of human systems.
Humanity is no longer merely an ecological
actor; it has become a geological actor, in
part, through the use of technologies. Put
sharply by Simon Dalby, homo sapiens has,
in the last few centuries, begun the systematic process of turning rocks back into air
by burning fossil fuels, thus reversing the
normal geological processes of sequestering carbon.
Life, now in technological form, is once
11
again changing planetary processes, but too
rapidly by geological standards. Away from
environmental determinism, which suggests
that nature causes disasters, the formulation
of the Anthropocene reframes environmental security by saying that we are in part
responsible of disasters and that there is no
longer a one-way environmental determinism, if there ever was.
ble of imagining any other human arrangements or how to adapt rapidly to a new climate.
In his concluding remarks, Simon Dalby
stresses what unifies both cases outlined in
this seminar. Understood in terms of artificial disasters, geoengineering and Fukushima are nothing but two ways of probing
the geopolitics of the Anthropocene. Our
future is thus shaped in part by how to avoid
these disasters. They became unavoidable in
the increasingly artificial world we are securing in the Anthropocene. Simon Dalby thus
suggests to look to the advocates of these
technologies, as well as to assess the best
ways to govern each of them. The formulation of Anthropocene redefines a starting
point of security for collective action. It acknowledges the desuetude of environmental security defined as fixing environment
with technologies that furthermore initiate
other threats such as climate change or radiation hazards.
The question that remains is how to contextualize the disaster? Simon Dalby portrays a
landscape of environmental insecurities that
put into question technological solutions.
The Anthropocene formulation makes it
clear that humanity is determining the future of the planet in many ways that we are
only beginning to comprehend. The Anthropocene suggests increasing artificialities
of our circumstances, hence environmental
insecurities are now what is made, albeit inadvertently, most of the time. In this sense,
both cases are enlightening.
Fukushima prompts the attempt to provide
cheap electricity and the domination of nuclear technologies, while geoengineering is
both responding to a climatic emergency
and potentially opening a Pandora box of
human geophysical disasters. Geoengineering is understood as a technological fix to
delay if not avert the disaster. The dilemma
framed by scientists concerns the amount
of heating already in the atmosphere. By
causing potential disruptions to the carbon
and climate cycles, geoengineering becomes
politically irresistible to those who wish to
maintain business as usual and those incapa-
c. Lessons from military uses of environmental modification techniques
Luc Mampaey presented an often forgotten
international Treaty as an example of the
premise on which an international governance of technological environmental degradation could base itself on. A careful look
at the Environmental Modification Convention (ENMOD) is revealing of how international law deals with these technologies. The
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5
SEYMOUR M. HERSH, ‘Rainmaking
Is Used As Weapon by U.S.; Cloud-Seeding in Indochina Is Said to Be Aimed at
Hindering Troop Movements and Suppressing Antiaircraft Fire Rainmaking
Used for Military Purposes by the U.S.
in Indochina Since ‘63’, The New York
Times, July 03, 1972
6 Hearings available online:
http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/virtualarchive/items.php?item=2390601002
ENMOD is the first attempt to prohibit
military techniques and weapons modifying
the environment. Adopted in 1972, it came
into force in 1976 and shut down several initiatives developed by military researches undertaken after the Second World War. These
projects have been partly forgotten, but they
paved the way to test the acceptability of
potential geoengineering techniques.
bodies and the General Electric Corporation
projected to modify hurricanes by dropping
crushed dry ice into the clouds. Cirrus was
cancelled after its first test because the hurricane changed direction and nearly caused
a disaster in Savannah, Georgia. Public
opinion blamed the seeding and following
lawsuits threatening. The affair was settled
by evidence brought to demonstrate that
the storm had already begun to turn when
seeding had started. This example outlined
potential conflict implications driven by environmental modifications, although used
for peaceful intentions.
The impact of military weapons over the
environment is one topic, but Luc Mampaey addressed a precise type of military
weapons. Relatively present in the public
concern, military uses of environmental
modification techniques raise concern with
regard to the disastrous consequences they
may have. The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP), an ionosphere research facility near Gakona, Alaska, is an emanation of these scientific and
military research chimera programs. Since
its first deployment in 1999, research about
complex mechanisms that govern the higher atmosphere have allegedly played a role
in some natural disasters. Questions such
as “do you think that HAARP is the cause
of the 2004 tsunami, 2008 cyclone Nargis
in Myanmar or 2007 cyclone Sidr in Bangladesh?” for instance keeps being raised in
private policy-making circles. Tracing back
military uses of environmental modification
techniques supports the image of research
programs falling short on democratic support.
Artificial environmental modifications for
military or hostile purposes were brought
to the international agenda later on. The
U.S. Department of Defence led by Robert S. McNamara launched cloud seeding
missions in Vietnam continuously through
every rainy season from March 1967 until
1972. Its objective was to flood the Ho Chi
Minh Trail to slow enemy movements by
increasing precipitations. In the early 1970s,
Operation Popeye was first revealed publicly by Pentagon reports, but it was only after the publication of an article in the New
York Times5 that the operation ceased in
Vietnam. Later on, the U.S. Senate organised hearings6 where representatives of the
Department of Defence amongst other experts presented the operations at length, but
it was only at the end of the Nixon era that
this ‘Watergate of weather warfare’ was fully
made public.
The Cirrus project was the very first geoengineering attempt in 1947. Several military
The ENMOD Treaty is an attempt to bring
13
7
The Treaty is available online at:
http://disarmament.un.org/treaties/t/
enmod
these military research programs and experimentations on environmental modification
to an end. More than 50 years later and in
the context of climate change debates, environmental modifications find new supporters from the scientific and climate-sceptic
communities. It re-emerged under the new
framing of geoengineering, without any
clear relation to military. The main issue
with this treaty, is the non-exhaustive list
of environmental modifications presented
on article 2: “any technique for changing
- through the deliberate manipulation of
natural processes - the dynamics, composition or structure of the Earth, including its
biota, lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere, or of outer space.”7 The existence
of a military use treaty also induces a disconnection between civilian use of technologies and their impact on the environment
and the military. Technological development
should not advance at a faster pace than
conventional treaties that ban the use of
new technology, which is not the case today.
The Weather Modifications Incorporated
helps manage atmospheric and water resources. Their team of scientists, researchers, project managers, technicians, and pilots
offer the expertise needed to carry out “an
efficient, effective weather program.” They
recently completed programme Sanji in Mali
to provide among other services Aircraft for
Cloud Seeding & Atmospheric Assessment
and Evaluation between 2006 and 2008.
challenges posed by environmental and climatic modifications and their possible military uses. Nevertheless, ENMOD remains
important because it stops the circle of
threat, may it be caused by the environment
or by technology. In these discussions however, the potential for conflict among states
with regard to the agenda of technology still
remains a taboo.
In the debate to redefine environmental
security and how it affects the people, ENMOD is no longer suitable to tackle the
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Conclusion:
The evidence of the risks from geoengineering research in
the United States and Fukushima are striking, supporting
a need to assess security implications in relation to technologies. Consequences of reframing environmental security are a better articulation of the linkages between technology, ethics and risks. A better dialogue between these
notions implies large-scale formulations of human security and vulnerability included in the geopolitics of Anthropocene. The acknowledgement of the double-coined
concept of “security” being a routine maintenance of the
political order and a response to emergencies shapes the
geopolitics of Anthropocene.
The question of governing and managing these technologies and risks remains a taboo, firstly because no one
seems to have the required skills to manage it, and secondly because of the actors, may they be private or public, that
are involved in the race between technologies and Earth.
There are many ambiguities regarding the responsibility
and liability of actors with regard to the social and scientific consequences of a man-made environmental disaster.
Whereas geoengineering deployment is a shift into a world
of technocratic control, the Fukushima accident blurred
the lines of responsibility between private – public actors
and broke open the trust between state and its people. The
dialogue between the three concepts of technologies, disasters and environmental security discloses faulty lines in
democracies and international institutions. The reluctance
of political systems to respond to scientific warnings uncovers challenges to settle controversies and propose political vision to tackle environmental disasters.
15
APPENDIX
Geoengineering solutions
Design: Marine cloud brightening
© Clive Hamilton seminar presentation
The climate emergency
Photo: West Antarctic disintegration
© Clive Hamilton seminar presentation
16
Fukushima accident and evacuation zones
Map: Radiations related to the Fukushima accident © Prof.
Hayakawa, University of Gunma, 18 June 2011
Source: © Devast project
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Speakers
Simon Dalby, supervises the CIGI (Centre for International Governance Innovation) Chair in
the Political Economy of Climate Change and is a Professor of Geography and Environmental
Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University. His research is centred on climate change, political ecology,
geopolitics, global security environmental change, militarization and the spatial dimensions of
governance. He has published many articles and books including Security and Environmental Change
(2009).
François Gemenne is a research fellow at the Centre of studies of International Relations
(CERI - Sciences Po Paris) and at the Centre for Ethnic and Migration Studies (CEDEM - University of Liege). A specialist of environmental geopolitics and migration governance, he also
lectures on these issues in various universities, including Sciences Po (Paris and Grenoble), the
University of Paris 13 and the ULB. He has authored four books: Controverses climatiques, science et
politiques (2012), Anticiper pour s’adapter (2010), Géopolitique du changement climatique (2009).
Clive Hamilton, is a professor of Public Ethics (Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics / Charles Sturt University and the University of Melbourne). He has held visiting academic
positions at the University of Cambridge, Yale University and the University of Oxford, and
is the author of a number of influential books, including Growth Fetish (2003) and Requiem for a
Species: Why we resist the truth about climate change (2010). He recently published a major book about
geo-engineering Earthmasters: The dawn of the age of climate engineering (2013).
Luc Mampaey, teaches at the ULB and is the Director of the GRIP (a Brussels’ based think
tank for research and information about peace and security). He is specialised in questions of
defence and security and has published many articles on the evolution of the armament industry
in the USA and in the EU. He recently wrote about weapons production in the USA: Finance,
technologie et production d’armements aux États-Unis : une lecture institutionnaliste (2010).
Christian Olsson is a professor at the ULB and member of Recherche et Enseignement en
Politique Internationale (REPI). His topics of interest include security and conflict management
and his latest publications tackle the issues relating to militarization, counterinsurgency and security practices: “France: Making Both Ends Meet?” in Leander, Anna (ed) Commercialising Security:
Political Consequences for European Military Operations, London & New York: Routledge (2013).
Edwin Zaccai is a professor at the ULB and the director of the Centre of Studies on Sustainable Development (CEDD). He has published on multidisciplinary approaches to sustainable
development, with a focus on sociopolitical implications of environmental change in societies.
Recent book: 25 ans de développement durable, et après ? (2011), Controverses climatiques, science et politiques
(2012), L’adaptation au changement climatique (2014).
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