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Published online 31 October 2006 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news061030-6

Column

You can't do it all with mirrors

A costing for a giant sunshade in space shows that there are probably better ways to spend the money.

The leading economist Nicholas Stern has just handed us, in advance, the bill for the impacts of climate change: close to $4 trillion by the end of this century1.

And with perfect timing, astronomer Roger Angel of the University of Arizona has delivered the equivalent of a builder's estimate for patching up the problem using a cosmic sunshade2.

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