If you think pumping the sky full of chemicals sounds like a weird way to fight climate change, you’re not alone. Solar geoengineering — the idea of injecting aerosols into the high atmosphere to reflect sunlight back into space and make for a cooler planet — is very controversial. And not just because it seems so offbeat.

Although geoengineering is not yet being deployed in the real world, past computer modeling studies have suggested it could produce unintended effects like droughts. Some have worried that it might create new climate inequities, worsening the weather in some…