Climate control - a dusting of sci-fi or billionaire boys club?

As Bill Gates' plan for filling the atmosphere with dust particles to  in order to combat climate change moves another step closer to reality, it continues to draw attention [and some alarm] from the scientific community. Now, more of the world's top tech moguls are generating their own noise for the latest in geo-engineering, with a project set to reduce the acidity of the world's oceans.

Terraforming worlds to make them habitable for humans is a firm sci-fi staple, when intrepid adventurers arrive on alien planets and want to set up homes. But just as these efforts are usually doomed to fail, the question is; when terraforming (or geoengineering) on a planet that is already home to the entire human race, who gets to decide what techniques are used and how they are deployed?

For new ventures on far-away planets the risks to life are relatively small; those willing to put their lives on the line for a shot at an extra-terrestrial future - and of course a whole heap of money; but for our own planet we don’t get a do-over. While marches for preventing climate change hang banners emblazoned with "there is no PLANet B", the statement is just as important to drive home when looking at “climate solutions”.

Installing / deploying something that could have such and impact on the global climate must be considered very carefully and with so many variables at play there is no way to predict what the "unknown unknowns" might be, so what can we look to? Let's start with the Five Ws;

Who?

Who is the proposed owner of any such geoengineering system; Will this sit with the companies that build them, with shareholders to answer to and profits to be made? It seems that such a service that will be potentially covering vast areas of any country / region that there should be some shared ownership from those authorities / governments that will be affected by it.

What?

What will the effects be; Both on the areas that the system[s] are deployed to but also on the rest of the region / globe? The "dust veil" may sound like a solution to a hole in the ozone, but what are the unintended consequences that may reveal themselves down the line?

Where?

Where will the technology be deployed; With some of the systems there are specific areas that are looking to be helped out - such as the atmosphere cover being targeted at a hole in the Southern hemisphere - are these to be only localised issues that will be remedied, or are there global issues that could be introduced the world over? With global solutions there is another concern that they would be deployed in areas where the companies / governments feel they can gain, rather than a truly altruistic view.

When?

When will these changes start and when will we know the consequences; perhaps the biggest red flag to raise is the question "when will we know if it worked?". This concern falls in line with the unintended consequences that simply cannot be predicted, even with modelling as nothing like this has ever been done and once something is implemented, the planet you are modelling has already changed. Now maybe it's no more a risk than the industrial revolution was, which helped turbo-charge global warming, but unlike the late 1700s we are in a more informed position and consequences must be considered and put to the global community.

Why?

Finally, Why; Why one solution over another? With a slew of green tech options popping up, why should one solution be chosen over another and will there be something else that emerges in years to come that can encompass multiple options currently being worked on? It is likely to be a lot more difficult to dismantle an "Atmosphere Veil" as it's now surpassed by the "Green-Dome" than it would be to switch from a coal power plant to a wind farm. Especially when projecting hundreds of years into the future where all life in a region / on the planet is now solely dependent on the technology being replaced.

We aren’t yet at the point where these technologies are being trialled, but the clock is ticking and with the absence of informed debate we risk things getting pushed through without due diligence. There have been far too many movies depicting these kind of scenarios and now that we are catching up to the reality of planet manipulation we must consider the worst case scenario.