Climate change is real, and it’s accelerating faster than we’d like to admit.

Scorching summers, intense storms, rising sea levels, and raging wildfires—these are all happening around us, while some sit in air-conditioned rooms and don’t even notice.

But the point is, we can’t just sweep these events under the rug and continue to heat the world as if there are no consequences. If we do, we risk reaching climate tipping points or critical environmental thresholds that we can’t cross. At these points, major environmental changes can become irreversible, turning into a self-perpetuating cycle that could put climate disruption on autopilot.

Consider how disappearing coral reefs could threaten fish species and marine life. These underwater animals build massive, colorful structures that house nearly a quarter of all marine fish. They also help create sand for islands and protect coastlines from storm surges. But rising temperatures and pollution are causing coral to die rapidly. At this rate, reefs could disappear by 2050, taking with them their vital ecological benefits.

Then there’s the melting permafrost, which could make global warming worse.

If you’re wondering what that is, it’s just a layer of soil, rock, and sediment that acts as the Earth’s freezer in Siberia, Alaska, and Canada. It stores carbon from ancient plants and animals that have decomposed over thousands of years. As it melts, microbes break down this trapped organic matter, releasing carbon dioxide and methane. This melting creates a vicious cycle of more warming and more greenhouse gases, worsening global temperature increases.

But melting permafrost isn’t the only thing that could push our planet’s climate into a tipping point. Ice sheets are melting, too. Greenland’s ice melts when it’s directly exposed to warmer air, while Antarctica’s ice is eroded from below by warmer ocean currents. If any of these ice sheets cross a tipping point, we could see significant sea level rise that could inundate coastal cities around the world.

That’s not all. Freshwater from melting glaciers could disrupt the Atlantic Meridional Circulation (AMOC), a global heat distribution system in our oceans. The AMOC redistributes heat throughout Earth’s climate system, but freshwater runoff from melting ice can interfere with the flow. If the AMOC slows too much, we could see profound weather changes across Europe, Africa, and beyond, affecting everything from rainfall patterns to agriculture.

Each of these turning points poses a serious and irreversible risk. Research shows that the warming we’re already experiencing is pushing us closer to these thresholds. If global warming exceeds the 1.5°C to 2°C target set by the Paris Agreement, we could trigger multiple turning points at once.

Reducing greenhouse gases is part of the solution, but it may not be enough to deliver on our promise to control global temperature rise.

That’s why scientists are constantly looking for innovative ways to cool the Earth. One of their latest ideas is to inject diamond dust into the atmosphere to lower temperatures.

This isn’t just some random idea they came up with. It’s actually something they learned from the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines. At the time, it was one of the largest volcanic eruptions of the 20th century. But scientists soon realized it was also having a cooling effect on Earth, and that year it dropped the planet’s temperature by 0.5°C.

The sheer amount of sulfur dioxide released into the atmosphere is magic. It combines with water vapor to form sulfate particles that reflect sunlight back into space, reducing the amount of heat reaching Earth.

This got the scientists thinking, “What if we could mimic the cooling effect of a volcanic eruption by spraying sulfur dioxide-like particles into the atmosphere?”

They got to work! Over the years, they’ve experimented with a bunch of materials for this process called stratospheric aerosol injection (or SAI), which is a fancy way of saying “spraying particles into the sky to reflect sunlight.” They looked at different options like calcite, aluminum, silicon carbide, and of course sulfur dioxide.

Guess what turned out to be the most effective?

Diamond dust!

Because these tiny diamond particles don’t stick together and trap heat, they can reflect a ton of light and heat back into space. They stay suspended in the air long enough to be a safer option than sulfur dioxide, which can cause problems like acid rain and ozone layer damage. Plus, diamond dust is chemically inert, meaning it doesn’t react with other substances in the atmosphere, making it a more environmentally friendly option.

So, shooting about 5 million tons of diamond dust into the stratosphere (the layer of the atmosphere where airplanes fly) every year for 45 years could cool the planet by about 1.6ºC.

But wait... It’s not that simple to mine that many diamonds! Diamonds are formed hundreds of kilometers deep inside the Earth, where intense heat and pressure transform carbon atoms into beautiful crystals. This process takes between 1 and 3 billion years, which is about 25% to 75% of the Earth’s age! So, for this cooling idea to work, we’ll have to rely on synthetic or lab-made diamonds.

And that could come at a hefty cost. We’re talking about $200 trillion! At about $500,000 per ton, synthetic diamond dust would be 2,400 times more expensive than commonly available, much cheaper sulfur. This simply means that even if we started spraying diamond dust into the air by 2035 to 2100, we would still be faced with that astronomical cost.

It doesn’t end there. Creating synthetic diamonds requires a lot of energy and water for cooling systems. Of course, they are considered more environmentally friendly because they emit only a few grams of carbon per carat. In comparison, mined diamonds pump out a jaw-dropping 57 kg of carbon per carat!

But here’s the kicker. The environmental impact of synthetic diamonds depends on how they are made and the energy sources they rely on. So it’s not as simple as it seems. And unless we’re using entirely renewable energy to create them, the idea of ​​spending money on diamond production just to spray it into the atmosphere could be a waste and could take us back to square one.

So, scientists may need to come up with a better solution. If we have a chance by then, that is!