Geoengineering proposes to take much more proactive measures such as injecting aerosol into the stratosphere to increase solar reflection.
Balloons or aircraft would release tiny sulfur dioxide or calcium carbonate particles into the stratosphere to reflect solar radiation.
Geoengineering is the deliberate large-scale interventions in the Earth's climate system intended to counteract human-caused climate change.
In our civilization’s effort to slow down and stop Climate Change and reverse Global Warming, geoengineering should not be considered the only solution, but rather an important part of a comprehensive, integrated, international program that mitigates the effects of Global Warming, restores our biosphere and addresses the root causes of Climate Change (i.e., the use of fossil fuels and carbon dioxide emissions, human population growth, consumptive lifestyles, unsustainable practices, degradation of natural ecosystems, etc.). An IPCC Special Report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty [Masson-Delmotte, V., P. An IPCC Special Report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty [Masson-Delmotte, V., P.
Methods range from sucking carbon straight out of the air to the large-scale burning of trees for energy, capturing and storing the emissions,
However, research shows that using solar geoengineering could indirectly lower the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere by stemming permafrost melt, reducing energy-sector emissions and causing changes to the carbon-cycle feedback. Aerosol injection could have an edge on other proposed forms of solar geoengineering because it would not require a large technological leap to become a reality, Jones says:. These brighter clouds would reflect away more sunlight, says Prof Douglas MacMartin, an engineering researcher from Cornell University, who contributed to the US House of Representatives’ hearing on geoengineering. Earlier this month, MacMartin, Keith and Prof Katharine Ricke, a climate scientist from the University of California, San Diego, published a research paper exploring how solar geoengineering – via releasing aerosols into the stratosphere – could be used as part of an “overall strategy” for limiting global warming to 1.5C, which is the aspirational target of the Paris Agreement. However, the researchers point out that using solar geoengineering to hold global warming to 1.5C would not have the same environmental effect as reaching the target using mitigation.
# Geoengineering 101. One characteristic that is common to the geoengineering approach is the belief that we can use technology to reverse or detain climate change without having to cut carbon emissions by eliminating fossil fuel use. ## **Geoengineering Experiments**. Several dangerous geoengineering experiments are already underway, with potentially dire consequences for the earth. In May 2020, a small group of Australian geoengineers3 carried out a risky geoengineering technique – brightening clouds to reflect solar energy back into space – and presented it as a plan to save the Great Barrier Reef. The experiment contravenes the UN Convention on Biodiversity, which in 2010, established a moratorium on geoengineering activities until “a global, transparent and effective control and regulatory mechanisms… in accordance with the precautionary approach can be put in place.”5. The proposed Ice911 Project wants to experiment on Inupiaq and Gwich’n territories in the Arctic region by polluting the ice and oceans with tiny glass beads.
It's manipulation with an eye toward either pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere or reflecting solar radiation (heat) off the Earth to cool it.