In the Spring of 2025 I completed a documentary film called Plan C for Civilization. The film unfolds over more than a decade, charting the scientist at the forefront of research into the field of solar geoengineering as the idea begins to move out of the lab and into the world. What began as an exploration of a frightening but distant future technology ultimately bore witness to a broader paradigm shift as the climate crisis itself moved from future scenario to unfolding reality, and solar geoengineering along with it. 

As I prepare to launch this film with a complementary educational and social advocacy campaign against this backdrop, I see it as a vanguard in a new and complex era of climate communications. And as a professor at Drexel, I’d like to pilot the higher education components of the film’s tour and campaign here in partnership with professors, students, and staff. Building on connections with existing initiatives and engaged individuals, I will begin with a campus screening and Q&A/panel. The screening will be followed by in-class discussions in select courses.

The screening and additional activities share the broad goals of the campaign:

• Leverage dialogue and discussion around the film and solar geoengineering to focus urgency amongst existing and new audiences;

• Foster attitudinal shifts and behavioural changes; and

• Create community around interdisciplinary and novel climate action. 

Following the screening and discussion of the film, participating instructors can build upon the conversation in their courses with additional activities.

The outcomes of these conversations are intended to explore and critique "plans" A, B, & C for Civilization. These "plans" are based upon the understanding that modern civilization was built through fossil fuel extraction and combustion, which has resulted in an increasing energy imbalance on planet Earth that is dramatically impacting ecosystems, animals, humans and ultimately, civilization itself.  

• Plan A: Mitigation. To reduce and to the extent possible, eliminate carbon and methane emissions from fossil fuels.

• Plan B: Removal. To remove legacy CO2 emissions from the atmosphere through various means: nature-based, mechanical, open air. 

• Plan C: Reflection. To reduce incoming solar radiation to the planet directly by reflecting sunlight away from the planet whether from the troposphere, stratosphere or space. 

Students can be organized into small groups and provided with additional readings exploring a range of perspectives on and various approaches to climate action. Subsequent in-class small group discussions can address specific topics and questions such as:

• Earth’s Carbon Budget & Climate Modeling

  • What do we know about historical atmospheric carbon dioxide levels on Earth and their relationship to planetary ecology, global temperature and climate?

  • How much carbon has been extracted and combusted post-Industrial Revolution, where has it gone, and how long does it take to rebalance within the existing carbon cycle? 

  • What are some anticipated thresholds for carbon emissions, and what are their relationships to temperature?

• Carbon Removal

  • What is “legacy carbon,” what is carbon removal, and what are various approaches to removing carbon from the atmosphere from nature-based to mechanical to open air capture?

  • Are there safety concerns with carbon removal and are some forms of removal and sequestration more permanent than others?

  • What are the economic drivers of carbon removal from the free market to government subsidies and regulation?

  • Should the goal of carbon removal be to offset current emissions?

  • What role might carbon removal play in the sequencing of climate change action and mitigation?

• Albedo & Reflectivity

  • What does the albedo, or reflectivity, of the planet have to do with its temperature and climate?

  • What natural phenomena have been observed to affect earth’s brightness in the past, and how have they impacted climate and weather?

  • What are the ways in which scientists and engineers believe that technology might be developed and used to mimic or increase natural reflectivity? 

  • What side effects could be anticipated in both natural systems and social dimensions?

• Moral Hazard and Reverse Moral Hazard

  • How might the idea of a technology that could cool the planet quickly and (relatively) affordably negatively affect efforts to reduce emissions?

  • Conversely, how might the idea of a risky, uncertain technology to cool the planet encourage efforts to reduce emissions?

• Risk Analysis & Uncertainty

  • What are the risks associated with different approaches to slowing, stopping and reversing climate change impacts?

  • How might we assess and balance the risks of novel technologies against the risks of unmitigated climate change on ecosystems and humans?