Climate Hacking
Achieving substantive global reductions in carbon emissions would, at a minimum, be extremely difficult to achieve. Thus, it's not surprising that research organizations are exploring technologies which may be able to reduce the planet's temperature.

Geoengineering has been defined as the "intentional, large-scale manipulation of the environment by humans to bring about environmental change, particularly to counteract the undesired side effects of other human activities." Climate hacking is best defined as geoengineering experiments that haven't been approved by the "appropriate" international bodies.

The most significant geoengineering experiment underway is the Indo-German project known as LOHAFEX which "will spread 20-tons of iron sulphate particles over a 115-square-mile section of open ocean north of Antarctica" to find out "whether iron seeding can stimulate blooms of phytoplankton to take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and eventually sequester it at the bottom of the ocean."

The ETC Group, one of several NGOs which have been vehemently opposed to the German government's decision to approve the project, stated that they "are outraged that (Research Minister Annette) Schavan has given a green light to start dumping iron despite concerns expressed by the Environment Minister and a broad coalition of civil society organisations as well as scientists. This decision shows an astonishing disregard for the decision of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity...."

Since national and international climate change proposals involve substantial economic hazards, technological uncertainties and political speculations, the best approach to significantly lowering atmospheric CO2 levels may well be to stimulate a thousand phytoplankton blooms.

See Wired article