{"id":3028,"date":"2026-04-08T14:11:54","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T13:11:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/weknow0.co.uk\/?p=3028"},"modified":"2026-04-08T14:11:54","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T13:11:54","slug":"talking-terraforming-in-birmingham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/weknow0.co.uk\/?p=3028","title":{"rendered":"Talking Terraforming in Birmingham"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a>
Front page of the April 2026 issue of Brum Group News<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Three and a half years ago, I wrote a piece <\/a>likening the rapid climate change on Earth to the fairly well-established science fiction concept of terraforming, but in reverse. So what has happened since? Well last summer, according to researchers at Imperial College and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, two thirds of the 24,400 heat deaths<\/a> from June to August across Europe were due to human-made global heating. And a study published last month<\/a> has suggested that the pace of global warming has nearly doubled since 2015. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It this point I would like to suggest rehabilitating an old word to describe this process, in the opposite direction to terraforming (which is action designed to make a planet more<\/em> habitable). Barrenize means to make barren or sterile and was used between the mid 1600s and the early 1700s according to the Oxford English Dictionary,<\/em> originally in the context of animal husbandry. I think it’s time to bring this word back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a week when a US President has threatened, variously, “blowing everything up and taking over the oil” and that Iranians would be “living in Hell”, to last night saying that “a whole civilisation will die tonight”, unless they opened the Strait of Hormuz, it certainly sounds like a commitment to barrenization to me, only at a faster pace than the global warming he is already doing everything possible to accelerate further.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Friday this week, the Birmingham Science Fiction Group<\/a><\/em> will have Oliver Bettis as its guest speaker. Oliver has been a leading actuary in the field of sustainability for many years. He is one of the authors of a series of publications by the actuarial profession in collaboration with the University of Exeter in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Climate Scorpion<\/a><\/em> shows how we need to develop a best guess about the worst-case scenarios and make policy on that basis, given our lack of knowledge about extreme climate risk and tipping points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Planetary Solvency – finding our balance with nature<\/a><\/em> sets out an approach to civilisational risk management which attempts to address the fact that the severity and frequency of extreme events are unprecedented and beyond current model projections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Parasol Lost<\/a><\/em>, which we will be discussing in particular this Friday, focuses on the cooling effect of aerosols: a side-effect of pollution from fossil fuel burning. Without aerosol cooling the global temperature would be around 0.5\u00b0C higher than the 1.4\u00b0C increase above pre-industrial temperature that we have today. It is critically important to recognise that, as air pollution is cleaned up, this may ironically lead to a short-term increase in warming through the loss of aerosol cooling. The question must be asked, can we afford to lose this cooling and if not, should this be replaced by working with nature, using technology or both? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This will allow us to tap into the rich history of science fiction literature on terraforming (and dealing with the threat of barrenization) and whether this can allow us to look at this question in a new way. It should be a lively discussion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This event will be held in-person at the Friends of the Earth Warehouse, 54-57 Allison Street,
Birmingham B5 5TH and simultaneously on Zoom, with online access opening from around 7.45 for an 8 pm start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ticket prices for non-members are \u00a38 for in-person attendance and \u00a36 for Zoom attendance. For members it’s \u00a34 in-person attendance and free Zoom attendance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tickets can be purchased on the door or via the Eventbrite link below:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.eventbrite.co.uk\/e\/1985958692911<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And if this whets your appetite for more science fiction and you think you might like to join the group, just email us at contact@brumsfgroup.org.uk<\/a>. Hope to see you there!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three and a half years ago, I wrote a piece likening the rapid climate change on Earth to the fairly well-established science fiction concept of terraforming, but in reverse. So what has happened since? Well last summer, according to researchers at Imperial College and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, two thirds of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4,15,22,14,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-actuarial","category-birmingham","category-climate-change","category-media-politics","category-risk","category-science-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weknow0.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weknow0.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weknow0.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weknow0.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weknow0.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3028"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/weknow0.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3028\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3032,"href":"https:\/\/weknow0.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3028\/revisions\/3032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weknow0.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weknow0.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weknow0.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}