As atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide soar and political efforts to control emissions stagnate, one scientific academy says that it is time to consider radical intervention.rnOn 1 September, the Royal Society, Britain's premier scientific organization, released its first analysis of a host of controversial methods for intentionally altering Earths climate. Such approaches, known broadly as geoengineering, could slow or halt climate change by either restricting the amount of sunlight heating Earth's surface or reducing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.rnBut they could also have disastrous side effects, such as stifling the Asian monsoons or altering the oceans' oxygenation or pH. For these reasons, the society is calling for international regimes to review even preliminary research projects. Further work, it says, must also go into developing rules for how and when geoengineering might be used.
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