Within the past few decades, there has been no political or public discussion as heated and controversial as the debate over climate change. Climate disputes can be traced back all the way to 1837, when Louis Agassiz proposed a theory claiming that Switzerland had once been covered with large ice sheets, and have become a big part of the international scientific community since then (Archer and Rahmstorf 2010). Today, climate change is not only a scientific issue, but it has grown into an economic and political issue as well. The rising amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, most of which has been added through human activities, has caused a climb in the average temperatures around the planet. This can have huge effects on the future …show more content…

In concluding the section of the report devoted to climate, the sole suggested response to the ‘deleterious impact of [carbon dioxide]-induced climate change is geoengineering: ‘The possibilities of deliberately bringing about countervailing climactic changes therefore need to be thoroughly explored’” (420, Keith 2000).
This writing put forward by Johnson’s Science Advisory Committee brought about the concept of geoengineering to help counteract the effects of carbon dioxide emissions on the climate. Over the years this concept has grown into the many innovative and high-tech geoengineering ideas that we have today. Geoengineering has come a long way since the beginning of the twentieth century. As was stated before, almost all modern geoengineering prototypes are made with the sole purpose of counteracting the greenhouse effect that is warming the planet, but not all of them seek to do so in the same manner. There are two categories for geoengineering ideas: Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) and Solar Radiation Management (SRM). CDR includes geoengineering techniques aimed at counteracting climate change through methods that take out the carbon dioxide that humans have emitted into the atmosphere. SRM, on the other hand, reflects a percentage of the sun’s rays back into space in order to decrease the amount of energy being caught in the atmosphere by carbon dioxide and other