A commercial airline? Or a rogue geoengineering experiment? The
World Economic Forum has put out a new report on global risks
for 2013, and the report’s chapter on “X factors” — concerns
more remote than the report’s primary risks, but still worthy of
note — includes a section on rogue “geoengineering” experiments.
Geoengineering involves large-scale efforts to either remove
carbon from the atmosphere, or to remake the atmosphere’s
chemical or physical make-up to offset the effects of climate
change. The most plausible scenario mentioned by the report uses
aircraft to inject particles into the atmosphere to mimic the
way eruptions of volcanic ash block sunlight, and thus cool the
climate. More far-fetched scenarios go so far as deploying
mirrors into orbit to reflect sunlight. Such projects involve a
host of funding and deployment problems, as well as the serious
risk of unintended consequences for both the climate and the
billions of humans who rely on it. For instance, a project at
the UK-based Stratospheri