DOI: 10.4324/9781003157571-3
2 Insurance and geoengineering
From the delusional to
the terrestrial?
Lauren Rickards
Insurance as utopian narrative
Insurance is inherently future-oriented. Acknowledging the need for insurance is about acknowledging the fact that things may go wrong in the
future, that disasters may occur, that our current life may be disrupted. At
the same time, in response to this dystopian vision, insurance seeks to reassure; it offers a Plan B, a compensatory measure to speed our recovery to an
imagined disruption. In this way, the insurance industry flits between two
of the three classic narratives about the future, a triad of utopian stories 1
characterised, respectively, by the phrases ‘If this continues, then.’, ‘What
if?’, and ‘If only.’ Insurance warns us that if the volatility and riskiness of
the world continues – as it will increasingly do under climate change – then
all of us will likely face periods of disruption, loss, and damage. Once we
are forewarned, it posits a solution: What if you had insurance? What if you
had a Plan B? A promise is dangled: our future would be difficult but not
destitute, different but not disastrous.
This triad of narratives about the future – ‘If this continues, then.’, ‘What
if?’, and ‘If only.’ – are not only stylistic devices used by writers of utopian
science fiction, but are a reflection of a triptych that Bridgit Schneider
(2017) traces to eschatological depictions of the future within Christianity.
Capturing messages of the prophets, they represent warnings, speculations, and promissory visions. Schneider argues that a similar triptych
features in IPCC depictions of possible futures under their Representative
Concentration Pathways: a dark climate future with out-of-control atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, a moderate climate future, and a least
disastrous climate future secured by rapid and immediate mitigation and,
notably, widespread use of ‘negative emissions technologies’ (NETs) – that
is, carbon removal geoengineering techniques. Jumping genres, Schneider
also suggests that the same sort of triad features in a 1979/1982 cartoon A
Short History of America by Robert Crumb. The cartoon depicts the gradual
replacement of ‘natural landscapes’ with urban sprawl, and three potential
futures: the Ecological Disaster that arguably awaits if urbanisation continues unchecked; the ecomodernist Fun Future that capitalists suggest we can
2 Insurance and geoengineering
From the delusional to
the terrestrial?
Lauren Rickards
Insurance as utopian narrative
Insurance is inherently future-oriented. Acknowledging the need for insurance is about acknowledging the fact that things may go wrong in the
future, that disasters may occur, that our current life may be disrupted. At
the same time, in response to this dystopian vision, insurance seeks to reassure; it offers a Plan B, a compensatory measure to speed our recovery to an
imagined disruption. In this way, the insurance industry flits between two
of the three classic narratives about the future, a triad of utopian stories 1
characterised, respectively, by the phrases ‘If this continues, then.’, ‘What
if?’, and ‘If only.’ Insurance warns us that if the volatility and riskiness of
the world continues – as it will increasingly do under climate change – then
all of us will likely face periods of disruption, loss, and damage. Once we
are forewarned, it posits a solution: What if you had insurance? What if you
had a Plan B? A promise is dangled: our future would be difficult but not
destitute, different but not disastrous.
This triad of narratives about the future – ‘If this continues, then.’, ‘What
if?’, and ‘If only.’ – are not only stylistic devices used by writers of utopian
science fiction, but are a reflection of a triptych that Bridgit Schneider
(2017) traces to eschatological depictions of the future within Christianity.
Capturing messages of the prophets, they represent warnings, speculations, and promissory visions. Schneider argues that a similar triptych
features in IPCC depictions of possible futures under their Representative
Concentration Pathways: a dark climate future with out-of-control atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, a moderate climate future, and a least
disastrous climate future secured by rapid and immediate mitigation and,
notably, widespread use of ‘negative emissions technologies’ (NETs) – that
is, carbon removal geoengineering techniques. Jumping genres, Schneider
also suggests that the same sort of triad features in a 1979/1982 cartoon A
Short History of America by Robert Crumb. The cartoon depicts the gradual
replacement of ‘natural landscapes’ with urban sprawl, and three potential
futures: the Ecological Disaster that arguably awaits if urbanisation continues unchecked; the ecomodernist Fun Future that capitalists suggest we can