Geoengineering: a destructive strategy or a technological solution?

As I begin writing this blog post, I question which stance I will take on this truly controversial management strategy. Geoengineering has so many signs of being a potential contender to solving (or at least aiding) our global climate change conundrum but at the same time, I wonder if further anthropogenic alterations can really benefit our fragile earth.

The simple truth is that at this very moment, I do not know. However, that alone is what makes this topic so interesting to me. Over 4 years ago, I stumbled across an article which spurred my interest in geoengineering. An article which for me, highlighted the true power of the human race, a species who can manipulate mother nature herself. It made reference to how China dispersed a total of 1,100 rockets around the olympic stadium to prevent it raining during the opening ceremony of the 2008 olympic games. Although expensive, the ceremony was without rain and the method was celebrated by Chinese officials as a successful management of small scale meteorological systems.

China's cloud seeding rocket launcher (Source: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com)

At the time of reading, as a young, naive, geography student I saw this to be a novel and technological answer to our climate change issue. Excited about this new stance, I blogged about geoengineering as a marvel invention in 2013- using examples from Abu Dhabi and how they managed to manipulate rainfall for a 52 day period over a desert. I wrote a blog post highlighting what topics will be of interest to geographers 100 years from now, with geoengineering being at the forefront of my argument.

Ionisers in Abu Dhabi inducing rain (Source: http://www.esquireme.com)

One small article spurred so much interest - yet my questions remained unanswered and my knowledge unsatisfied. Over the coming weeks, I hope to delve into the unknown, dig deep and find some real concrete evidence to build an opinion on. Through reviewing sources, peer reviewed articles and other blogposts I hope to explore the controversies of geoengineering and conclude it's viability in long term climate strategy.