Dimming the Sun: The Urgent Case for Geoengineering

(Hardback)

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Earth stands at a tipping point. As we fail to curtail emissions fast enough, our planet stares down a cascade of imminent, catastrophic, and irreversible disaster triggered by climate change. Yet a potent technology already exists to buy us more time: solar geoengineering. Through methods such as atmospheric aerosols, human-generated cirrus clouds, and solar sails, we humans canat least in the short termslow the Earths warming. Should we

Award-winning science writer Thomas Ramges Dimming the Sun is his provocative, informative, urgent, and necessary exploration of this intriguing stopgap solution. Ramge shows us how the science works, what the risks areboth geophysical and politicaland how the international community might come together to agree on and regulate a safe and effective plan for geoengineering. And while he identifies the unknowns about the technology that remain, he believes this very uncertainty demands our full attention. With time to avert the worst of climate change rapidly running out, he makes a forceful case that the most responsible course of action is to dramatically increase research on solar geoengineering nowbefore its too late.

Reviews

"A Next Big Idea Club Must Read

"A thoughtful look at a high-tech effort at delaying global warming. . . . Sober arguments for a still-controversial approach." -- Kirkus Reviews
"Thomas Ramge opts for a variant of climate engineering in a clear and sober manner. . . . Interesting and perhaps convincing even for some instinctive opponents." -- Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Christian Schwgerl
"Ramge argues that it's an idea whose time has come, but urges caution. . . [as there is] an urgent need for better understanding and regulatory framework." -- Booklist

Author Bio

Dr. Thomas Ramge thinks and writes at the crossroads of technology and economics, sustainability and society. He has published more than twenty nonfiction books, selling more than two million copies worldwide, including Whos Afraid of AI, On the Brink of Utopia, Reinventing Capitalism in the Age of Big Data, and The Global Economy as Youve Never Seen It. His essays and articles appear in The Economist, Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, and Foreign Affairs. He holds a PhD in sociology of technology and is an Associated Researcher at the Einstein Center Digital Future. His work has been translated into twenty languages and has received numerous publishing awards, including the German Essay Prize 2022, the Axiom Business Book Award 2019 (Gold Medal, Economics), and the getAbstract International Book Prize 2018.