Clouded Out

Since our lords and masters have decided that the climate catastrophe will prove most profitable if allowed to run its course, they are naturally concerned, after their moderate and sensible fashion, to protect themselves from the worst of its consequences. In this regard, spraying clouds with reflective substances has several advantages. It can reduce temperatures in a particular locality, thereby reducing the risk of spreading the benefits to people who haven't paid for them; and fortunately for a civilisation powered by built-in obsolescence, the benefits are short-lived and the technique will lose its effectiveness the more global weather patterns are relegated to the status of a price worth paying. By mid-century, the use of the technique may even have the "unintended" (sic) result of heating up yet further those parts of the globe occupied by one's rivals for said globe's ever more rapidly diminishing resources. Mere scientists seem to regard this entrepreneurial incentive with trepidation, and even suggest regulating the process, thereby demonstrating yet again the ivory-tower ingenuousness of the breed.