Forschungsinstitut für Nachhaltigkeit Helmholtz-Zentrum Potsdam

The Intervention of Climate Science

Is climate science changing the Earth? We would normally want to answer no. A science merely represents and does not intervene. Representation comes first and may or may not be followed by intervention, because intervention is a choice. Intervention is what humans decide to do, or not to do, with the causal knowledge that science provides. In this chapter I draw on work from Science and Technology Studies (STS) and neighboring fields to challenge this conventional view. Using the example of climate science, I argue that climate science is best understood as a form of action that not only describes its object but also intervenes in it. It follows that climate science is best understood as a science of geoengineering.

Publikationsjahr

2023

Zitation

Schäfer, S. (2023). The Intervention of Climate Science. In Z. Baker, T. Law, M. Vardy, & S. Zehr (Eds.), Climate, science and society: a primer (pp. 261-267). Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge: Routledge.

DOI

10.4324/9781003409748-42

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