Shooting sulfur particles into the stratosphere to reflect the
sun? Dumping iron into the ocean to boost the absorption of
carbon dioxide? Could these far-fetched and dangerous-sounding
schemes help avert potentially catastrophic effects of climate
change, or would they exacerbate conditions on our ever warming
planet? These strategies, which involve the deliberate and
large-scale intervention in our climate system to moderate
global warming, are known as geoengineering. Fantastical as they
seem, billionaires Bill Gates, Sir Richard Branson and others,
are investing millions of dollars into the geoengineering
research of a few leading climate scientists like Ken Caldeira
at Stanford. At first, Caldeira thought geoengineering sounded
crazy too, but his research showed that it would basically work.
If global warming exceeds 2˚ C, it would be “a prescription for
disaster,” said NASA scientist James Hansen. To prevent this
from happening, we need to cap atmospheric carbon dioxide levels
at 350 parts per million;