National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine urged the federal government to fund research into geoengineering efforts in a report issued Thursday. Specifically, scientists focused on technology to cool the planet by shooting aerosols into the atmosphere to reflect the sun’s rays. “Climate engineering is a really dumb idea, but it might not be as dumb as doing nothing at this point or continuing to do what we’ve been doing,” Scripps Institution of Oceanography atmospheric chemist Lynn Russell, a report co-author, told the AP. “It has a lot of risks and those are important to learn as much as we can about.” (AP, New York Times $, HuffPost, New Scientist, Politico Pro $, Earther, Reuters, E&E $)