Geoengineering: Perilous Particles

摘要

The policy forum "end the deadlock on governance of geoengineering research" (E. A. Parson and D. W. Keith, 15 March, p. 1278) advances proposals for governmental regulation of geoengineering, the use of technologies to alter the climate in an attempt to mitigate the impacts of global wanning. This strategy includes injecting metallic nanopar-ticles (e.g., aluminum or aluminum oxide) into the upper atmosphere to scatter incoming sunlight back to space. The authors suggest a moratorium on large-scale geoengineering but argue in favor of small-scale field research as well as model and laboratory studies. We believe that even small-scale tests are risky.