ABSTRACT
Some researchers argue that, as a supplement to cutting greenhouse gas emissions, societies could reduce climate risk (see also Risk society ) through geoengineering, the deliberate modification of Earth systems to counteract climate change. Some geoengineering methods, known as solar geoengineering or solar radiation management, would reflect sunlight into space before it warms the planet. Proposals to achieve this include, among others, releasing particles into the stratosphere or spraying salt into marine clouds to brighten them (Keith 2013; Reynolds 2019). The term geoengineering is sometimes taken (including in some international legal contexts) to encompass another way of modifying Earth systems known as carbon dioxide removal, which involves capturing carbon dioxide from the air and sequestering it (Talberg et al. 2018; Buck 2019). Reflecting the trend away from counting carbon dioxide removal as geoengineering, this entry focuses on solar geoengineering.
