Since the Industrial Revolution, released greenhouse gasses have increased Earth’s average temperature by trapping solar energy.
One potential intervention, stratospheric aerosol injection, posits that we can reflect some solar energy into space using aerosols sprayed into the atmosphere.
The idea has risks and controversies, but some entrepreneurs are already trying it.
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This article is an installment of Future Explored, Freethink’s weekly guide to world-changing technology. You can get stories like this one straight to your inbox every Saturday morning by subscribing above.
It’s 2050, and for the first time in 100 years, the average global temperature actually went down during the last decade. In this future, the abrupt reversal of global warming is due to a massive solar geoengineering initiative that’s making Earth’s atmosphere more reflective — buying us time to finish the transition to a fully carbon-neutral …
