It appears that terraforming is now known as geoengineering. Whether this is because you can only terraform worlds that are not actually dear old Terra, or whether someone decided that they needed a word that was not tainted by association with science fiction, or indeed whether whoever coined geoengineering had never heard of terraforming, I do not know. However:
- Oliver Morton on why it is likely to become more politically acceptable
- Gary Jones with some cogent commentary
- Oli responds
It’s actually a pretty good term from several standpoints. Terraforming implies some very specific things.
What if you want to geoengineer a planetary body to something that’s not Terra-norm standards? What if you only want to tinker and make “small” adjustments (as in the examples)?
Jamais Cascio is well worth following for the accessible end of geoengineering discussions (and much more besides). In summary: most of the ideas are batshit crazy, but there’s a growing chance we’ll have no other choices by the time everyone agrees that we need to make a choice.
Paul: Yes, that’s it in a nutshell.