"...[A]ttention is turning to solar geoengineering, also known as solar radiation management. Although the concept of injecting sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere has so far been tested only using computer simulations, there's high confidence that it would work to cool the Earth because it would mimic the well-understood cooling effect of large volcanic eruptions."

In his State of the Union address on January 28, 2014, President Obama told the nation, “The debate is settled, climate change is a fact.”

Faced with this reality, scientists and policymakers continue to look for ways to limit climate change and to counteract it, and some have started to look seriously at technologies like geoengineering.

Solar engineering and other exceptionally ambitious new technologies to deal with the reality of rising global temperatures come riddled with uncertainties. To illustrate how complex the problem is and what kind of challenges lie ahead, here are three contrasting, and somewhat fantastical, scenarios.

Working from a mandate from the 2010 Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), this report compiles and synthesizes available scientific information on the possible impacts of geoengineering techniques on biodiversity, including preliminary information on associated social, economic, and cultural considerations.