Unorthodox solutions to climate change

There have been put forth several radical solutions for climate change, that instead of getting to the root of the problem, address global warming in other ways.

One is to sprinkle the ocean with iron, which would then act as a fertilizer for the algae and cause their population to explode. The amount of algae created would absorb tons of carbon dioxide from the air and convert it into oxygen, thus lowering the average temperature of the planet. An attractive idea, but one to be taken with caution.

Another proposal is to increase the amount of rainfall in certain regions by dispersing substances (such as common salt) in the clouds, which act as condensation nuclei and increase precipitation, in order to change the climate of particular areas in a premeditated manner.

A final, even more futuristic proposal is to use a sunshield. A kind of space sunshade orbiting at a Lagrange point, that filters or deflects the sun’s rays, thus reducing the amount of heat reaching the Earth and artificially decreasing its temperature.