Zahar Koretsky and Harro van Lente have published an open access article titled “Technology phase-out as unravelling of socio-technical configurations: Cloud seeding case” in the Environmental Innovations and Societal Transitions journal.
The article offers a conceptual framework to analyse how established socio-technical systems can be reverted. Koretsky and Van Lente examine the historical case of a once high-profile meteorological project of ‘cloud seeding’ in the USA. This technology is now resurfacing decades later as a type of geoengineering.
The study shows how the American meteorology, adjacent cloud seeding business ventures and the wider society responded to the events around cloud seeding. Authors conclude that cloud seeding is re-emerging because it ceased to be contested as a valid and ethical technique, and because most cloud seeding knowledge and know-how was preserved. This may have implications for future interventions in phasing out and preserving socio-technical systems.
