Elliott Woodhouse

PhD project title: Climate ethics and enhanced weathering.

Elliott’s research looks at the ethical issues surrounding climate change mitigation: especially geo-engineering and specifically enhanced rock weathering.

The changing climate is the most pressing issue humanity faces, and the means we use to prevent or mitigate its effects must face sound ethical analysis. The use of enhanced weathering is prevalent in climate modelling and these forecasts are political and financial speculations on the kinds of lives future generations will be living; the work they will be doing, where they will be doing it, and the political systems they are governed by.

Beyond and alongside the science we have to ensure that the political economy of the future is governed by just and ethical principles.

Elliott’s main interest is within the philosophy of social ecology. This theory holds that human domination of the environment, the driving factor in causing climate change, is predicated upon the human domination of other humans. Its political claims are characterised by a focus on democratic control of industries, a localisation of politics, and a view of economics as inseparable from ecology.

Technologies, such as enhanced weathering exist within a social and economic nexus, that may be resistive or ameliorable to the concentration of power and the promotion of democracy. Elliott is interested in how geo-engineering technologies relate to democratic societies, and the ability of people to live free of coercion.

Elliott holds a BA in Philosophy and Politics, and an MA in Political Theory from the University of Sheffield.