Turns out The Onion's absurd top story this week ("Bush Calls for Development of National Air Conditioner") might not be very far from the truth. As Wall Street Journal science columnist Robert Lee Hotz tells us today, the future of global climate control could involve "stratospheric sprays of sulfur, trillions of orbiting mirrors, and thousands of huge off-shore saltwater fountains." The advocates of "geo-engineering," as it's called, are worried that "people can't cut greenhouse gas emissions quickly enough to make a difference." As a result, they're looking for ways to reduce the amount of sunlight that reaches the earth--inspired by a 1991 volcanic eruption that lowered the average world temperature by almost one degree because of sunlight-blocking sulfates ejected into the atmosphere. So what's not to like? The idea certainly seems like it could gain traction among conservatives. Not only would billions go flying into the hands of private contractors (Hotz says an artificial sulfate sunshade could cost $400 million annually), but the continuing need to reduce emissions would suddenly appear less pressing than it actually is. Yet scientists insist that geo-engineering is no substitute for cutting back on greenhouse gasses. And the idea to create a global sunshade is fraught with pitfalls--if something goes wrong, Hotz explains, we could be looking at global warming proceeding at a rate 10 to 20 times faster than today. But why worry about that now? After all, I'm sure we'll have come up with some other super-galactic workaround by then. --Anton Troianovski