In a paper published in the Journal of Geophysical Research–Atmospheres, scientists from North America, Europe, and Japan explored one scheme touted by proponents of geoengineering, seeding the atmosphere with tiny reflective sulfate or metallic particles, enough to bounce a portion of the sun’s light back into space and keep temperatures from climbing.

The theory is that these methods, while expensive, would still be cheaper than the economic chaos real changes in civilization would require. …

One of them, he said, is that once the process is started, people might lack the means or the will to continue. They might get blamed for a massive drought or some other natural disaster and be forced to stop. If they do, things would get worse.