How far would we go to stop runaway climate change?

Researchers at Harvard University hoped this summer to carry out a very small-scale test of technology to dim the amount of sunlight reaching Earth.

Using a balloon floating miles high above Sweden's Arctic, they planned to release reflective particles into the planet's upper atmosphere to mimic the cooling effect of big volcanic eruptions. The technology, supporters say, could be an eventual backstop to stave off catastrophic impacts of planetary heating.

But Sweden's space agency has cancelled the planned "geoengineering" test, under pressure from Nordic indigenous people and Swedish environmental activists, who say the technology could shift rainfall patterns and undermine emissions-cutting efforts, and is too risky to ever be used.

Such technological fixes for climate change are "completely against what we need to do now - transform to zero-carbon societies in harmony with nature", said Åsa Larsson Blind, vice president of the indigenous Saami Council.

In Cambodia, a different kind of technology is set to challenge environmental campaigners - a new Chinese-style internet firewall that activists say threatens their privacy and freedom of expression.

"One hundred percent, (the government) can disrupt and track us," one activist working to protect the Mekong River said of the National Internet Gateway, which would allow all online traffic to be monitored and controlled.

Cambodia's government says the new system, set to take full effect by February 2022, is no more onerous than in some other countries - but activists say the firewall's use is likely to lead to further arrests of environmental defenders.

In Pakistan, it's not technology but boots on the ground that are slowing rampant deforestation in the country's northern mountains. 

Members of a new paramilitary Frontier Constabulary are monitoring roads in the remote valleys of Gilgit-Baltistan, choking off the flow of illegally cut timber from the region - something the understaffed and underfunded regional forest department had previously struggled to stop.

But with mountain residents still reliant on timber for cooking and heat, cutting forest losses even further will require helping them acquire new sources of energy, including solar power.

See you next week!

Laurie

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