Some Scientists Want to Try Blocking Sunlight to Combat Global Warming
As science-fiction as it sounds, it’s very much a reality and in need of discussion
Have you seen the 2013 dystopian movie Snowpiercer? In it, Earth is going through an Ice Age caused by a failed climate-change experiment. To combat global warming, scientists launched chemicals into Earth’s atmosphere to block sunlight and cool the planet. But they overcalculated and blocked too much sunlight, plunging the planet into a rapid Ice Age. The survivors live aboard a never-stopping super train that spans the globe.
When I watched the movie, I thought the premise was tantalizing, but just over a decade after its release, it’s become far scarier because there are now correlations to real-life events.
The narrative or train may never play out, but scientists today are engaged in a very real and heated debate about whether to embark on a similar climate path as the scientists in the film. Some organizations are formulating different ways to artificially alter Earth’s atmosphere with the goal of blocking sunlight to slow climate change.
Science-Nonfiction
I came across an opinion piece in Scientific American by Chandra Bhushan, the president and CEO of the…
