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In the early 70s, a Russian scientist named Mikhail Budiko wrote a book predicting two things. He said people weren't going to stop using fossil fuels and we were going to have to consider ways to counteract climate change. The idea that he floated at that point was we could imitate volcanoes, which have a cooling effect. Dimming the sun on purpose with gases like sulfur dioxide, it's called solar geoengineering. Other people say, have you seen Snowpiercer?

Solar geoengineering — the idea of cooling the planet by deflecting the sun’s rays — is so risky that scientists and policy experts can’t even agree on whether to research it.

This episode was produced by Avishay Artsy, edited by Matt Collette and Amina Al-Sadi, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Paul Robert Mounsey, and hosted by Noel King.

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