DESPERATE times call for desperate measures – particularly if the planet’s future is at stake. Perhaps that explains the raft of quick fixes to stop climate change heating up the Earth, unveiled at the international conference on macroengineering in Cambridge, UK, which ended on 9 September.
The list included plans to cool the planet by constructing giant sunshades in space, or spraying clouds with salt particles to make them shinier and better able to reflect the sun’s rays. Other researchers favoured catching carbon dioxide from power station chimneys and burying it underground, or “fertilising” the oceans with iron so that plankton…
