Research resource review Hulme, M. Can Science Fix Climate Change? Polity: Cambridge, 2014, pp. xiv þ 158. ISBN 9780745682068, £9.99 (pbk) Reviewed by: Noel Castree, University of Wollongong, Australia; University of Manchester, UK. This small book packs a big punch. Ostensibly it is a critique of ‘solar radiation management’ (SRM), a proposal to control the atmosphere’s average temperature by injecting millions of tonnes of sulphate aerosols into the stratosphere. However, as its title intimates, Can Science Fix Climate Change? is about more than the perils of geoengineering. It is an assessment of the proper role of science and technology in helping us to address the ensemble of very large-scale, complex environmental problems captured in the plenary concepts of ‘the Anthropocene’ and ‘planetary boundaries’. As such it serves a dou- ble purpose. It provides a succinct introduction to, and assessment of, SRM for those interested in a topic that is now much discussed in scientific and policy circles, and it also uses the example of SRM to offer a pithy case for science and technol- ogy that can better acknowledge social diversity and conflict. This case envisages a ‘social con- tract’ between scientists and society different from that recently proposed by some keen to make geoscience more useful (e.g. DeFries et al., 2012). It is of relevance to professional scientists of all persuasions, so too science policy makers and anyone else who ponders the means and ends of the scientific enterprise in the 21st century. The bulk of this short text focuses on SRM. For those who know little about geoengineering or the context within which it has received seri- ous consideration in some quarters, Hulme’s introductory chapter (‘Imagining an engineered climate’) provides a concise introduction. As he explains, there are a range of technologies that can modify Earth surface processes, with SRM being among the most ambitious. Like other ‘high-leverage, high-risk’ geotechnologies, SRM has been discussed as a possible ‘Plan B’ to prevent ‘runaway climate change’. Plan A is 25 years old. It has involved getting interna- tional agreement and commensurate action on reducing greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. The Plan has manifestly failed and the ‘sustainability gap’ is today larger than ever. In this context, Plan B has been enter- tained at the highest political levels (e.g. the UK Parliament in 2010); relatedly, basic and applied research has been conducted to see if large-scale geoengineering is technically possible. In chapters two, three and four of Can Science Fix Climate Change?, Hulme shows why SRM is undesirable, ungovernable and unreliable, respectively. For him it is undesirable because trying to control average global temperatures does not address those aspects of climate and weather that matter to people year-in, year-out. SRM would involve imagining the atmosphere as a metaphorical room in need of a thermostat, whereas the Earth is a complex and differentiated system of systems that are registered physically in geographically diverse ways. Even if it were desirable, Hulme shows in chapter three that SRM is ungovernable internationally. He offers strong reasons to believe that no global consensus could be reached on what volume of sulphate injection would be acceptable or what risks of unforeseen consequences would be tolerable. Finally, Hulme shows that international political tensions could reach breaking point if SRM was implemented because it is unreliable. As chapter four demonstrates, even a successful attempt to regulate global temperatures would probably Progress in Physical Geography 2015, Vol. 39(2) 279–280 ª The Author(s) 2015 Reprints and permission: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0309133315571206 ppg.sagepub.com