Desert Edens (eBook)

Colonial Climate Engineering in the Age of Anxiety

Philipp Lehmann (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2022
256 Seiten
Princeton University Press (Verlag)
978-0-691-23828-9 (ISBN)

Infos

How technological advances and colonial fears inspired utopian geoengineering projects during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries From the 1870s to the mid-twentieth century, European explorers, climatologists, colonial officials, and planners were avidly interested in large-scale projects that might actively alter the climate. Uncovering this history, Desert Edens looks at how arid environments and an increasing anxiety about climate in the colonial world shaped this upsurge in ideas about climate engineering. From notions about the transformation of deserts into forests to Nazi plans to influence the climates of war-torn areas, Philipp Lehmann puts the early climate change debate in its environmental, intellectual, and political context, and considers the ways this legacy reverberates in the present climate crisis.Lehmann examines some of the most ambitious climate-engineering projects to emerge in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Confronted with the Sahara in the 1870s, the French developed concepts for a flooding project that would lead to the creation of a man-made Sahara Sea. In the 1920s, German architect Herman Sorgel proposed damming the Mediterranean in order to geoengineer an Afro-European continent called ';Atlantropa,' which would fit the needs of European settlers. Nazi designs were formulated to counteract the desertification of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Despite ideological and technical differences, these projects all incorporated and developed climate change theories and vocabulary. They also combined expressions of an extreme environmental pessimism with a powerful technological optimism that continue to shape the contemporary moment.Focusing on the intellectual roots, intended effects, and impact of early measures to modify the climate, Desert Edens investigates how the technological imagination can be inspired by pressing fears about the environment and civilization.

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 25.10.2022
• Reihe/Serie: Histories of Economic Life
• Reihe/Serie: Histories of Economic Life
• Zusatzinfo: 20 b/w illus. 9 maps.
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Wirtschaftsgeschichte
• Themenwelt: Naturwissenschaften ► Biologie ► Ökologie / Naturschutz
• Themenwelt: Naturwissenschaften ► Geowissenschaften ► Geografie / Kartografie
• Themenwelt: Technik ► Umwelttechnik / Biotechnologie
• Themenwelt: Wirtschaft
• Schlagworte: Accuracy and precision • Albedo • Algeria • ancient China • Anton Zischka • Appellate body • Arid • Atlantic Ocean • Atlantropa • Atmosphere of Earth • Atmospheric circulation • autarky • Autobahn • Beijing • Botswana • Calculation • Carbon Capture and Storage • Carbon Sequestration • Censorship • Chairman of the Communist Party of China • Chott • Climate • climate change • Climate Change Mitigation • Climate Engineering • climatology • Collaboration • collusion • colorado desert • Communist Party of China • Community • conservation movement • David Keith (scientist) • Decision-Making • Deductive Reasoning • deforestation • Desertification • Desiccation • Dislocation • distraction • Djerba • Documentary Film • Drainage system (agriculture) • Drang nach Osten • Dune • Earthquake • East Prussia • Engineering • Environmental issue • Erich Mendelsohn • ethnic cleansing • Eurafrica • Evolution • Explanation • Exploring (Learning for Life) • extreme environment • Federal Republic • forestry • Fossil fuel • Fritz Todt • Full scale • G20 • Generalplan Ost • geographer • Geographical feature • geologist • Geopolitics • German Studies Review • Gestapo • glaciology • global cooling • Globalization • global warming • Global warming controversy • Great Power • High-pressure Area • Hydraulic engineering • Hydroelectricity • hydropower • Ice Age • Ideology • income • indictment • Industrial society • Industrial Technology • Interwar Period • James Rennell • jan smuts • Jean Bodin • Kuomintang • Land reclamation • Landscape maintenance • Leveling (philosophy) • Malaise • Martin Broszat • mathematician • Measurement • Mediterranean basin • meiji restoration • Mein Kampf • Messinian salinity crisis • meteorology • military hospital • Milutin Milankovic • Mining • Missionary • Modern Physics • Mosque • napoleonic wars • nation state • Nazi Germany • New Generation (Malayalam film movement) • newspaper • North Africa • North America • nuclear reactor • Old World • Osten • Overreaction • Paleoclimatology • papal infallibility • pathogen • Paul Bert • Philosophy of History • Pollutant • Population Growth • Population Transfer • positive feedback • power station • Pragmatism • Prisoner of War • Provision (accounting) • Provision (contracting) • Proximate cause • Public sphere • Reactionary modernism • Regime • Sahara Sea • Sake • Schutzstaffel • SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS • Scramble for Africa • sea level • Self-confidence • sexualization • Social Environment • Society • Soil • Sovereignty • Strait of Gibraltar • Stunde Null • technocracy • Technocracy movement • Technological rationality • Technology • Temperature record • The Geographer • Thesis • time horizon • Treaty • trilemma • Tunisia • Unintended Consequences • untermensch • V. • Wealth • Weapon • Weather forecasting • West Germany • World Bank • World energy consumption • Writing • Xinjiang • year
• ISBN-10: 0-691-23828-6 / 0691238286
• ISBN-13: 978-0-691-23828-9 / 9780691238289