In the 2020 science-fiction novel The Ministry for the Future, author Kim Stanley Robinson imagines a near-future climate catastrophe in which a deadly heat dome stalls over India, killing millions of people. Its government, in defiance of the United Nations, launches fleets of aircraft to seed the stratosphere with cooling sulfate aerosols, despite a dearth of knowledge on geoengineering risks. An international taskforce is hurriedly formed to deal proactively with the out-of-control climate crisis. Throughout the book, this body, dubbed the Ministry for the Future, races to recover from three decades of failed international climate policymaking. Elsewhere, geoengineering researchers hurriedly launch studies to save Antarctica from melting, and the world from cataclysmic sea level rise. The novel received worldwide attention, with entrepreneur Bill Gates calling it “harrowing” for its depiction of near-future events. But it’s a tome that would likely be beyond the realm of possibility if only world leaders had long ago set humanity on a glide path to deep carbon cuts and an energy transition. Now, with every passing year and each failed U.N. climate summit (this year will mark COP29), policymaker discussions have increasingly turned to a desperate Hail Mary pass that might yet buy humanity some time before climate catastrophe strikes: geoengineering. Today, decision-makers are considering strategies that range from redirecting solar energy back into space using giant orbiting mirrors to releasing reflective aerosols into the stratosphere and dumping various things into the ocean or on croplands to suck carbon out of the sky. But it’s…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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