Multiple and continuous political failures to cut greenhouse gases emissions have led to proposals that the large-scale deliberate manipulation of the planet (a.k.a. geoengineering) could constitute an alternative to offset or counteract the human-driven impact on the global climate on Earth. It has been suggested that such an intervention, either by removing carbon dioxide from the air or by managing solar radiation, invites important moral and political issues. One may, for example and more particularly, raises the ethical question of hubris. In this paper, I provide a review of fictional figures considered to have manifested hubris and provide a definition of hubris in the age of the Anthropocene with regard to our past and current influences on nature and the global environment. In an attempt to develop a normative inquiry into the ethics of geoengineering, I then engage with the three categories of power, knowledge and humility as the foundational triptych of hubris in the modern era. Looking back at examples of geoengineering prospects as complements or substitutes to mitigation and/or adaptation, I also assess the resulting potential for hubris in geoengineering schemes. Conversely, I sketch what the appropriate relationships between human beings and the environment could be in terms of ethical attitudes towards the non-human world and for ourselves. I finally suggest that fatal retribution (or nemesis) for intentional interventions in the climate is not unlikely, through eventually not granted.
