Paper short abstract:

Projects aimed at geoengineering the ocean's biogeochemistry are currently underway. This emergent technoscientific imaginary transforms the ocean into a 'planetary carbon sink'. Yet, ocean-engineering is continuously thwarted not only by human resistance but by the materiality of the ocean itself.

Paper long abstract:

New attempts are underway to engineer the Anthropocene Ocean to withstand and even mitigate the conditions imposed on Earth by the 'Great Acceleration' in industrial impact. In this presentation we explore emergent modalities of marine geoengineering as they relate to an emergent global 'biopolitical economy'; a mode of governance aimed at securing the conditions for capital accumulation in the Anthropocene. By fertilising plankton - with the hope of triggering large-scale algal blooms - scientists hope to set off a "biological cascade" which can absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. In this emergent technoscientific imaginary, the ocean is morphed into cybernetic system which can be managed, rationalised, and engineered according to 'the principles of machine production'. Such proposals are beset by a profound contradiction; while ocean sciences are continually revealing universes of increasing complexity - exposing just how little we actually know of Earth's water worlds - technoscience increasingly aims to intervene in these processes. This colonial fantasy of total control is continuously thwarted not only by human resistance, but by the very 'wet ontology' of the ocean itself.