> Everyone studying solar geoengineering seems to agree that it’s a terrible thing. “The idea is outlandish,” Parker told me. Mohammed Mofizur Rahman, a Bangladeshi scientist who is one of Degrees Initiatives’ grantees, noted, “It’s crazy stuff.” So did the veteran Hungarian diplomat Janos Pasztor, who runs the Carnegie initiative on geoengineering governance, and said, “People should be suspicious.”

The biggest threats from a slightly warmer planet are the unknowns. Such a drastic plan comes with perhaps more such unknowns. Sometimes I am comforted by human laziness and our default "do nothing" approach. At least then we will wait for tragedy to respond. This is not so horrific when an overzealous attitude might result in far more and greater tragedies.