Special thanks to Clive Hamilton for answering 5 questions about his recently featured book – Earthmasters: The Dawn of the Age of Climate Engineering

Clive Hamilton is an Australian author and public intellectual. Since 2008 he has been Professor of Public Ethics at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, a joint centre of Charles Sturt University and the University of Melbourne. He is based at Charles Sturt University’s Canberra campus. -From Clive’s Homepage

Clive’s Homepage: http://clivehamilton.com

#1 – What was the impetus behind Earthmasters?

While writing Requiem for a Species I reviewed the possible ways by which the world could escape the mess we are in. One of those was resorting to geoengineering. I wrote a few pages on it for Requiem and soon realised that the question of geoengineering was a huge and complex one, and that there were no voices countering those of the technological boosters. So I decided to write a whole book on the subject.

#2 – What is geo-engineering? Is it such a crazy idea that some people worry about?

Well, they are questions too big to answer here. It’s all in my book, or shorter pieces and a video available on my website http://www.clivehamilton.com

#3 – How did you go about doing the research for this book?

I read pretty much all of the literature, I went to conferences and I spoke to a lot of scientists. All of the scientific parts of the book were thoroughly reviewed by experts in the field.

#4 – Who are you writing this book for? The public? Politicians? students?

The book was written for those who are engaged in the climate debate in one way or another. I was keen to reach environmentalists, most of whom have not taken geoengineering seriously and are therefore allowing the agenda to be set by those more inclined to believe in techno-fixes.

#5 – Are you working on any new projects/books that you can tell us about?

I am writing a book on the Anthropocene, and editing one with some French colleagues following a conference we organised in Paris on the implications of the Anthropocene for the social sciences.

[Image Credit: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/22/Hamilton_Clive_07.JPG/220px-Hamilton_Clive_07.JPG ]