I’LL TAKE HEADLINES FROM 2009 FOR $500, ALEX: Can we reflect sunlight to fight climate change? Scientists eye aerosol shield for Earth.

Could we slow down global warming by creating an aerosol reflector to deflect the sun’s rays away from Earth?

This strategy — which is at an early phase of research — is being investigated by the Climate Intervention Biology Working Group. It is co-led by Michigan State University and Stony Brook University in New York, supported by the National Science Foundation, and describes itself as “a team of internationally recognized experts” who study ecology and climate science.

The group has been meeting remotely every month since September 2019 to discuss the aerosol idea, called “solar radiation modification.” While there are a few ways to reflect the sun’s rays back into space, the group suggests focusing on a method that would involve creating an artificial cloud of aerosols in the stratosphere. In theory, engineers could replenish the cloud and change its location to hit a temperature target, although how this would happen is still being figured out.

The article in the third link discusses burning through “a total of about $3.5 billion over the course of the next 15 years to develop the technology. (Most of those funds would go into building planes able to carry big tanks of aerosol spray into the stratosphere, about double the cruising altitude of a Boeing 747.) Once the tech is ready, the researchers found, the project would then cost another $2.25 billion or so each following year (assuming the effort would run for the next 15 years).” But John Holdren, Obama’s Dr. Strangelove-esque “science” “czar” explored the same process using rockets as a delivery mechanism with an “unexpectedly” nonplussed AP back in 2009:

Apparently, despite being told that he only had four years to save the planet, even Obama wasn’t crazy enough to let Holdren go for it, a warning others might want to keep in mind.