This week, we have another special offering—near-future fiction specifically about our atmosphere, courtesy of Arizona State University's Center for Science and the Imagination. Read more about CSI below, but I was excited to share this story from its Overview project, both because it's poignant and thrilling, and because it's about the price we might pay for using technology to indefinitely cool the planet—to embark on permanent planetary geoengineering, basically. It's one of the best fictional treatments about the nitty gritty of geoengineering the future I've ever seen. Enjoy. -the Ed. Now a word from ASU's CSI:

"This story is part of Overview: Stories in the Stratosphere, a collection of science fiction stories, art, and speculative timelines exploring the near future of the stratosphere, published by ASU's Michael G. Bennett, Joey Eschrich, and Ed Finn. From Star Trek and 2001: A Space Odyssey to The Martian, great science fiction stories have shaped how we think about voyages into deep space — but what kinds of gripping confrontations and adventures might unfold in near space, above the clouds? Overview provides several compelling answers to that question, created by renowned science fiction authors, working in collaboration with designers, illustrators, and experts in fields ranging from human spaceflight and signal processing to law and tourism. The book is free to download in EPUB and MOBI formats, as well as through Apple's iBooks Store. Learn more here."