Thread by @Eaterofsun

This New Yorker piece on solar #geoengineering by Bill McKibben really irritated me, not because I disagree with it (although I do) but because of the fatuous way it expresses itself.
newyorker.com/news/annals-of…

His argument is that the Scopex experiment looking at stratospheric aerosol injection should not go ahead now, because over the next decade all of humankind's effort needs to go into emissions reduction and Scopex would be a distraction which bad actors would exploit.

(Scopex background can be found here keutschgroup.com/scopex)

As I said, I disagree with that analysis. But it's the way it is expressed that infuriates me.
Mr McKibben writes: 'If we want to, as a civilization, we can devote the next decade to an all-out effort to transform our energy system.'

What 'we' is this? How does it act as a civilisation? As Mr McKibben knows well, getting the world to act as one is hard enough; how to get it to think as one, to devote itself as one?
What of the people who have no power to do this, but are still part of human civilisation?

He goes on: 'If we don’t meet [the target of a 45% emissions reduction] by 2030, then we need to have a serious talk as a species and start assessing our options.'

So now 'we' are having a conversation with ourselves as a species? Whose voices are expressing whose interests in this conversation?

He goes on: 'It seems clear that the thing we need to test first is not aerosol-spewing balloons but our ability as a species to rein ourselves in'
That's not what species do; there is no 'we' of the human species which can act

To cap it all: 'If we fail, then perhaps we deserve to stare pathetically at a white sky.'
By which he apparently means: then is the time to hastily deploy solar geoengineering, having done nothing in the meantime to understand or reduce its risks.

To unpack this, de-we'd: 'if actors with the power to drastically reduce emissions fail (first use of 'we') those with no such power (constituent of much of the referent in the second use of 'we') deserve what they get, pathetic losers'

I know Mr McKibben to be a compassionate man; but by abusing 'we' and neglecting power relations he enters the realm of collective punishment on a global scale.

As a few colleagues and readers know, I have a thing about the abuse of the word 'we' which I expressed in this passage from my book 'The Planet Remade'

This piece leads me to double down on my distrust of this slippery little word.
Geoengineering deserves serious discussion and serious disagreement, and this piece is not that.

PS I should probably declare an interest, lest people think this is simply sour grapes/jealousy. I agree with Mr McKibben that Elizabeth Kolbert’s new book, “Under a White Sky", is very good. It is timely, well reported and synthesises a powerful, disquieting whole.

I do not, though, agree that the 45 or so pages it devotes to solar geoengineering provide 'the fullest account yet' of the subject.