Cloud seeding China Olympics | Salon

Such climate engineering could be the next hot topic among atmospheric scientists. "We may have no choice," Cotton says. "Twenty years down the road, if the warming trend has increased enormously and half of Florida is underwater, politicians will say, 'Do climate engineering.' Doing something is better than sitting on your hands. If, at that point, we don't have the scientific knowledge, and we introduce the technology, we could find ourselves in the middle of an ice age. We won't be able to figure this out that fast."