Strelka announces "The Terraforming," a research program headed by Benjamin Bratton

2019-08-27T17:45:00-04:00

The Moscow-based Strelka Institute has announced a new research program geared toward exploring the issues of planetary urbanism, global energy infrastructure, “geotechnology,” and speculative design, among other topics.

Directed by professor and theorist Benjamin Bratton, the three-year program will be tuition-free and will explore the topics above as part of a multi-disciplinary effort involving both Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The initiative, The Terraforming, seeks to approach the future inhabitation of planet Earth a literal world-building exercise. A website announcing the program explains: "The term 'terraforming' usually refers to transforming the ecosystems of other planets or moons to make them capable of supporting Earth-like life. However, the looming ecological consequences of human activities suggest that in the decades to come we might need to terraform our own planet if it is to remain a viable host for Earth-like life."

A focu...

Could scientists engineer synthetic organisms to stop climate change?

2015-04-08T14:12:00-04:00

Scientists and politicians the world over are looking for ways to halt or reverse [climate changes], a task that is fraught with difficulties in a world hooked on fossil fuels. One option increasingly discussed is terraforming—deliberately altering the environment in a way that cools the planet... Instead of creating global engineering projects, why not create life forms that do a similar job instead...

Ricard Sole and his associates at the ICREA-Complex Systems Lab in Barcelona are experimenting with the potentials of using synthetic organisms to terraform the planet. One advantage to such a project – as opposed to other terraforming ideas that would require engineering feats of unprecedented scale – is that the landscape could be changed with minimal human input, using "the growth and colonizing potential that life offers."

Of course, as the article notes, the potential problems are also massive, like, for example, unintentionally triggering feedback mechanisms that accelerate global warming, or devastate global food supplies. Looking back at other historical attempts to engineer biology to suit human interests, this seems a more likely outcome than not. But Sole and his team are trying to develop preventative measures against such runaway growth. And as the article notes, one day this may be an urgent necessity: "if and when that day comes, let’s hope we’ll be glad of the researc...

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Strelka announces "The Terraforming," a research program headed by Benjamin Bratton

Could scientists engineer synthetic organisms to stop climate change?