Unless you are into dystopian end-of-the-world movies that contain violence, cannibalism, stratified societies, slave-work, murder and mayhem during an 18-year-long train ride with fewer survivors than you can count on one hand, you have probably not seen Snowpiercer.

I have, if only for the reason that I watch every thing that has Tilda Swinton it… but I also like films where there is a glimmer of hope at the end, if you think that two surviving humans and a polar bear on an iced-over planet earth predict a happy ending.

The 2013 film by Bong Joon-ho, based on a French graphic novel, is visually and intellectually brilliant, but not for the faint of heart. Or stomach. Then again, wouldn’t you want to explore what Terry Gilliam meets Samuel Beckett looks like, as one clever reviewer wrote? In any case, I’m bringing it up because the premise of the movie is that scientific eco-engineering has produced unanticipated, catastrophic results, a new ice age on earth that only a few humans, fit into a moving train, survived. And this very premise, science with unpredictable results, has occupied my thoughts after reading about real-life plans to manipulate the climate.

Here is the deal (much of which I learned from this NPR conversation which also pointed to Snowpiercer): who should control the earth’s thermostat?

Let’s assume we are not that far away from having technology that allows us to cool the earth. (We don’t have it yet, but it’s a safe bet that we will be there soon. Just ask the folks at the National Academies committee that examines solar geo-engineering research.) We could, for example, use volcanoes as a model, and shoot a lot of sulfate particles into the atmosphere – they act like little mirrors and would reflect sun light back to its source rather than having it come to us, warming earth. Another path might be to make clouds artificially whiter, so they, too, would reflect light back, don’t ask me how.

Of course we have no clue about the consequences, whether for wind, rainfall, or the ocean acidity. It might disturb weather-patterns that are necessary for agricultural production, create flooding or droughts, we simply don’t know. Sulfate injection would also lead to ozone depletion which is quite dangerous for our health since it increases UV light exposure, a source of various cancers.

Independent of unintended, dangerous consequences there is the question who has the ability, and/or right to make these decisions and go forward with manipulations of the atmosphere. The cost is, as these things go, not at all an obstacle – $ 2 billion or so – so any rogue nation state (think Bolsonaro), or entrepreneur (think Musk) or big corporations (think Koch brothers) could swing it. If they see a gain in cooling temperatures in the southern hemisphere (never mind what it might do for the rest of the world) or as a justification for continued fossil fuel extraction to enlarge their fortunes, who is to stop them?

This rings particularly true as the world is waking up to the climate crisis and and some quarters starting to exert pressure on the powers that be to change their ways. This week alone Big Oil suffered three defeats where it eventually will hurt them, their bottom line. A Dutch court told Shell to cut emissions by 43% by 2030; and both Chevron and ExxonMobil lost key shareholder votes, with more progressive constituencies demanding emission cuts and electing directors demanding climate action.

If we can fall back on short-cut solutions through temporary solar engineering we might think we can avoid making the long term hard changes, not just corporations, but all of us who consume too much, produce too much waste and are addicted to energy. Efforts to decarbonize our economy and put the brakes on global warming will be hurt if we dream of rescue by means of some futuristic science.

In the meantime we face the Kafkaesque situation where fossil fuel giant ConocoPhillips plans to open many more drilling stations in the arctic – yesterday given the green light by the Biden administration – with the plan to stabilize the melting permafrost with cooling units so that heavy machinery can commence fracking for fossil fuels that will warm the earth even further….

Let’s watch dystopian movies instead and get it into our heads that that WILL be our future if we put off any meaningful change.

And remember what (purportedly) Socrates said in Halcyon:

Photographs today are of the greenest of green pastures to remind us what is at stake if drought catches up with the entire planet.

Music is The sorcerer’s apprentice – we had to learn Goethe’s poem of the same name, another example of hubris and unintended consequences, by heart in school.