They war-gamed dimming the Sun. It went worse than you think

A good read on this from Neil Stephenson is Termination Shock. It's fiction, but covers some of the possible geopolitical fallout here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Termination_Shock_(novel)

I don’t entirely understand the war-gaming aspect here. Is this just Model UN for adults?

"Simulations like this one are not supposed to predict the future. The outcomes depend on the design of the game and the relative personalities and experience of the players. Many of those in the room lacked first-hand diplomatic and national security experience. The UN forum, which organizers selected as the game’s setting, may also not be as effective as talks between smaller groups of major countries."

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This paragraph deserves emphasis to balance out the doomer linkbait headline.

The players of this game largely ignored scientific opinions and played politics like it was a fun board-game. Presumably, they did have fun. Notably missing from this wargame was the kind of pressure that real leaders and diplomats would face to swallow their pride, eschew fun, understand the science, and get the solution right. It's just our planet and civilization on the line, right?

It would be deeply foolish to use this wargame to discount or disparage the UN. Under more realistic conditions they could get it right, and they might be our best hope for preventing one or a small number of governments from acting unilaterally and getting it tragically wrong.

What other options are on the table if we REALLY want to limit warming below the 2 deg C target? It's already 1.5+, and control systems theory says that the inertia of various mechanisms (ocean warming, ice/permafrost melt, ...) will cause a lag between the emissions being produced and the actual warming happening. So even if we immediately switch off all human sources NOW, everything that's already in the air will stay there, and the temperature will keep increasing for some time. Under the assumption that the "residual warming" will overshoot 2 C, aerosols are the only industrially feasible way I know of. Mass production of engineered particles certainly sounds more reasonable than mass producing carbon capture machines in the volumes required.

Of course, we are too busy arguing about how important it is to fully commit to any path.

There was an old lady who swallowed a fly. I don't know why she swallowed the fly. I guess she'll die.

Those dam solar panels are sucking up all the sun rays and theres gonna be none left for YOU - Oil and Gas company

The past couple of years the Sun has been low-single-digit-percent amounts brighter because it's the first actual solar maximum that's done anything for 40 years.

It's been heatwaves and droughts and stuff unlike anything we've seen since I was in primary school.

So yeah any attempt by us to dick about with the Sun's output is going to be utterly catastrophic, because it's not going to be even as small as a 3% increase or decrease.