Q&A: Aerospace engineer discusses the design challenge of solar geoengineering

Solar geoengineering--artificially reflecting sunlight back into space--is a double-edged sword. It would cool the rapidly warming planet, but is it too risky to consider as a viable option? Douglas MacMartin, an aerospace engineer and visiting scholar at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, thinks of solar geoengineering as a design problem. His research is dedicated to understanding how to most effectively optimize the cooling effects from climate engineering while minimizing the ...