In 1965, U.S. President Lyndon Johnson’s science advisors urged research into reflecting sunlight to keep the Earth cool amid projections of an alarming build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere as a result of burning fossil fuels.
Almost six decades later, "solar geoengineering” research has made scant headway.
It attracts less than 1% of climate science budgets, amid fears that tampering with the global thermostat could produce unexpected consequences — and distract from an overriding need for deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.
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