I suspect so, and I think that this will also create some interesting markets for affordable space transportation. It's a lot more economically plausible scenario than restricting carbon emissions.

One of my 'college talks' that I'm offering this year is on that very subject:

http://www.jamesoberg.com/climate_engineering.pdf

But so far, no takers!

Of course not, Jim. The campuses aren't interested in any solutions that don't involve stranglingly tight hair shirts. We must repent of our sinful ways.

I've been suggesting geoengineering is going to be the fallback solution for some time now (and that those advocating space exploitation should keep it in mind as a potentially very large market). The key observation is one that was recently made on Marginal Revolution: we're quite bad at delivering international public goods. Geoengineering, unlike CO2 emission limitation, does not require global cooperation to succeed -- it can be imposed on the world by subsets of the world's countries. Indeed, that's just what's happening now with geoengineering by CO2 release.

One day the TCS crowd are going to have to decide: either we don't know enough about the climate to make an attribution of climate change to humans, or we do know enough to engineer said climate.

I'll note that aerosols are one of the areas where we have the most uncertainty. I'll also note that TCS articles are always claiming incredible future energy demands while never addressing the potential for efficiency gains.

I'll also note that TCS articles are always claiming incredible future energy demands while never addressing the potential for efficiency gains.

We will likely have both dramatic efficiency gains AND incredible future energy demands. Efficiency often increases demand for a service, which partially cancels the energy saved. General increases in manufacturing productivity are reducing the non-energy costs of many goods and services. And, not least important, the rest of the world's standard of living is increasing rapidly, causing their demand to soar.