Technology Review: Using smoke, mirrors and faux trees to tackle global warming, geoengineers offer far-out ideas

Link: Technology Review: Using smoke, mirrors and faux trees to tackle global warming, geoengineers offer far-out ideas.

WASHINGTON (AP) – Crazy-sounding ideas for saving the planet are getting a serious look from top scientists, a sign of their fears about global warming and the desire for an insurance policy in case things get worse.

How crazy? (((Crazy enough to be grimly plausible.)))

There's the man-made volcano that shoots gigatons of sulfur high into the air. The space ''sun shade'' made of trillions of little reflectors between Earth and sun, slightly lowering the planet's temperature. The forest of ugly artificial ''trees'' that suck carbon dioxide out of the air. And the ''Geritol solution'' in which iron dust is dumped into the ocean.

''Of course it's desperation,'' said Stanford University professor Stephen Schneider. ''It's planetary methadone for our planetary heroin addiction...."