January/February 2010
The Geoengineering Gambit
For years, radical thinkers have proposed risky technologies that they say could rapidly cool the earth and offset global warming. Now a growing number of mainstream climate scientists say we may have to consider extreme action despite the dangers.
By Kevin Bullis
Rivers fed by melting snow and glaciers supply water to over one-sixth of the world's population--well over a billion people. But these sources of water are quickly disappearing: the Himalayan glaciers that feed rivers in India, China, and other Asian countries could be gone in 25 years (after this story appeared in print this claim was retracted by scientists: see correction). Such effects of climate change no longer surprise scientists. But the speed at which they're happening does. "The earth appears to be changing faster than the climate models predicted," says Daniel Schrag, a professor of earth and planetary sciences at Harvard University, who advises President Obama on climate issues.
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology