Can geo-engineering rebuild the planet?
In the 1960s, two Russian scientists set out ambitious plans to reshape the world around us: to reverse the flow of rivers, shoot tiny white particles into space to illuminate the night sky, and melt the Arctic to water fields of Soviet wheat. “If we want to improve our planet and make it more suitable for life,” wrote NP Rusin and L Flit, “we must alter its climate.” Four decades later, we have done plenty to alter the climate, but not for the better. And as we grapple with the problems of global warming, the standard prescription – cutting greenhouse gas emissions – is proving problematic. “I cannot see that we will be able to keep carbon levels low enough to prevent catastrophe,” says Professor Brian Launder, of the University of Manchester. “Over the past five years, emissions have gone up, not down.
