Geoengineering is an exceedingly controversial scientific field.

Here a quick video on it by Sabine Hossenfelder: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-2FUXShYQQ

We are already doing it (mostly by accident):

• Since the dawn of civilization we have influenced the Landscapes of the earth, which in turn influences the atmosphere sitting atop it.

• In most of Southeast-Asia countless rice-fields get burned every year after the harvest. This creates dust- and ash-clouds for weeks on end over the entire region. These impact the health of the locals, the environment and so much more. But the burning of the rice fields has several immediate benefits as well as some science may not have studied fully yet. For example the rice husks, if unburnt will fly around everywhere and become litter and even hazards, as they are slippery. I am also conjecturing that it helps in fertilizing the fields for the next growing season and helps killing off potential harmful lifeforms, such as fungi. These would need to be controlled through the use of poisons, which by definition are also not harmless and are more expensive.

• By burning coal and oil we not only produce poisonous ash, air pollutants but also greenhouse gasses. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste/ https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy however! Some of these pollutants travel into the farthest reaches of our atmosphere and reflect light, not inward, but outward. If we estimate the pollution to reduce the solar light entering the atmosphere by about a percent and the human-made greenhouse gasses to retain about 2% more radiation Energy, then we have a net-gain of only about 1%. This was the situation perhaps a few years ago. Now the Shipping industry uses cleaner fuels, the coal plants have better filters in them… The old pollution is continuously washing out of the atmosphere, raining down slight devastation everywhere also lowering the reflectivity of our atmosphere. The carbon dioxide levels meanwhile have only increased.

• As Sabine Hossenfelder mentions in the video above, India, China and others are already manipulating their weather. If we knew what we were doing many side-effects of such actions may be lessened.

There are countless yet unknown possible side-effects to any action.

• Increasing the reflectivity of our atmosphere will probably lower the efficiency of our solar generators, plant-life, and possibly have negative consequences upon animals as well.

• Releasing chemicals (CO2, Aluminium, Copper, sulphurous compounds…) into the environment always has consequences, some of these may be negligible, semi-natural (think volcanoes), or even beneficial.

• These potential side-effects are, I think, the reason for opposition of study.

We should study it.

• We should. Small-scale experiments, papers, training of experts and simulations hinder little and will no-doubt be irreplaceable just a few years into the future.

• Even if we decide to do nothing permanent on a global scale we could help out ourselves and others in emergency situations.

• Failing even that, scientific advancements are never a waste.

I think it is stupid that people cry about planned, scientific use of Geoengineering, yet to not oppose classical sources of incidental Geoengineering (burning of Fossil fuels…) to the same extent.