Mr. Burns' Plan To Block The Sun May Yet Come to Fruition

Drastic measures like geoengineering are seen as a last resort for heading off the impacts of climate change, but scientists are beginning to look seriously at the possibility that the time for such techniques will inevitably come.

For a few decades now, we’ve been hearing from scientists and others, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, that global greenhouse gas emissions need to be reduced drastically to avoid the worst impacts of a warming planet, such as rising sea levels, heat waves and extreme weather. Yet for the past 25 years, emissions have only grown, and NOAA and NASA recently declared 2014 likely the warmest overall year ever measured, while other scientists say it may have been the hottest annum seen since the time of Christ.