Should we dim the sun? Why we need to talk about solar geoengineering
Injecting reflective particles into the atmosphere could turn down the heat on Earth, but research has been controversial.
Quotes from above article:
".... Nature is the best geoengineer, and volcanic eruptions are their own form of solar radiation management. During an eruption, plumes of smoke filled with sulfates can dim the sun. The Pinatubo eruption, the second largest in the 20th century, dropped planetary temperatures by half a degree in 1991...."
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Moratoriums and moral hazards
Paul Crutzen, a Dutch chemist and Nobel laureate, broached the idea of stratospheric aerosol injection in an essay 15 years ago, igniting a debate over SRM that continues to this day.
Even
though solar geoengineering had been floated for decades already (some
trace it back to US President Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1960s),
scientists barely spoke about it. They certainly weren't conducting the
research. Crutzen's essay, Wagner says, lifted a "self-imposed
moratorium" on discussing or researching the technology. ...
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