I’m reading The Planet Remade: How Geoengineering Could Change the World. It’s by an Economist journalist, a book about the taboo topic of engineering our way out of global warming. It starts with two questions. Do you think global warming is a real threat? Do you think reducing CO2 emissions to near zero is very hard?

If you answer "yes" to both, then maybe you’re open to an alternate solution to climate change: geoengineering. Active measures to combat global warming other than just telling everyone they have to stop using energy. Some of these methods seem plausible and inexpensive and worth discussing.

One example idea is stratospheric aerosol injection. You fly planes or balloons regularly up to 60,000 feet or so and spray sulfur dioxide. There it turns into various gasses that reflect sunlight, replicating more or less what volcanoes already do naturally. Estimates are it’d cost $2B–$8B per year to completely counteract global warming, a small amount of money. The intervention is temporary, the sulfurous particles don’t last forever. That’s a good thing in that if something goes catastrophically wrong it’s not permanent. Also a bad thing in that it’s an annual cost that has to be maintained. Note the cost and technique is simple enough any individual country could choose to do this unlaterally, at any time.

There’s other possible techniques for geoengineering. Chemical carbon capture, planting enormous forests, orbital sun shades, … But the topic is nearly taboo in environmental circles; a recent UN meeting failed to get consensus to even decide to discuss the idea further. If you believe global warming is a threat to humanity and that our current efforts to stop CO2 emissions are failing, it seems worth thinking about alternatives. Even if you don’t like the idea of geoengineering it’s worth studying in case some other country decides to just do it on their own.

Me, I like the idea. Because I’m a technocrat. I want to believe science and engineering can solve any problem. Also because it doesn’t require demanding that the 50%+ of the world that’s not yet industrialized goes years more without cheap power because we’re mad they’ll put as much carbon in the air as the rich countries already have. The risks are obvious and enormous. But they are also hopefully manageable and the risk is absolutely worth it if it saves our planet.