, Columnist
Hacking the Planet Needs Guardrails and Guidelines
Now that solar geoengineering isn't just sci-fi, a regulatory system is required.
Combatting the climate crisis by hacking the planet demands guardrails.
Photographer: Yuki Iwamura/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
A few years ago, solar geoengineering was considered a sort of science fiction. These days, it’s fast becoming a reality. Without international consensus on the guardrails and guidelines, that’s a very dangerous prospect.
The technique, also known as solar radiation management, encompasses a range of technologies including sunshields in space, marine cloud brightening and stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI). They all work in slightly different ways but the goal is the same: reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth’s surface in an effort to turn down the global thermostat.