Abstract

Our planet is warming, largely from the ever-increasing burning of fossil fuels. If this continues, serious consequences to our planet are likely to occur within the second half of this century. The objective of Climate Engineering (hereafter CE, but also referred to as ‘Geoengineering’, and some... Show moreOur planet is warming, largely from the ever-increasing burning of fossil fuels. If this continues, serious consequences to our planet are likely to occur within the second half of this century. The objective of Climate Engineering (hereafter CE, but also referred to as ‘Geoengineering’, and sometimes as ‘Solar Radiation Management’) is to offset the warming and some other climate consequences that would otherwise result from increasing greenhouse gas concentrations by reducing the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth's surface or by increasing the outward transmission of long-wave radiation from the Earth. These strategies might be used throughout the period required to replace fossil-fuel burning with globally distributed clean energy and even be continued while CO₂ concentrations remained too high. Show less