The Climate Change Solution That Could Spark Global War

Superpowers will control geoengineering and all the damage that comes with it

Alexander C. Kaufman
OneZero

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Photo: Pall Gudonsson/Moment/Getty

It could be any country, but let’s say it’s Vietnam.

The year is 2069. World governments failed to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 — the deadline set in a 2018 United Nations report — setting off a chain of rapid warming. Megastorms and wildfires regularly kill hundreds and displace tens of thousands, and coastal cities are abandoning low-lying neighborhoods to the rising sea. Freshwater and food are in short supply as drought dries wellsprings and parches the Mekong Delta’s rice basket.

In an effort to provide some relief and rein in the chaos, global superpowers decide to block out the sun.

The world’s most powerful militaries take the lead, deploying aircraft to soar 32 miles upward into the stratosphere and spray particles that reflect sunlight. The technique mimics one of the planet’s most awesome natural functions: the cooling effect that comes from volcanoes erupting and filling the atmosphere with reflective gas that bounces energy from the sun back into space.

A new world order emerges that is defined by those who shape the climate.

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Alexander C. Kaufman
OneZero

Alexander Kaufman is a national reporter at HuffPost, where he writes about climate change and environmental policy. Reach him at alexanderckaufman@gmail.com.