A University of Nebraska-Omaha professor is across the border pitching an idea to politicians: a geo-engineering regulatory body. She said as climate change increases, some countries may look at developing extreme technology to try and fight back, but it could have big impacts on countries that don't have the means to develop that technology.Beth Chalecki is in Canada on a Fulbright scholarship at a renowned school of international affairs.She's an assistant political science professor at UNO on a mission to make the country take a hard look at the future of climate change.“I’m trying to recommend the results of my research, that Canada should the lead in forming the sort of regime that the world can govern geoengineering before we actually have to put it into practice,” said Beth Chalecki.So what is geo-engineering?It's climate manipulation technology and right now, there are two major focuses."Solar geo, or solar radiation management, and this basically involved bouncing sunlight out of the atmosphere before it has a chance to reach the ground to become heat. So, this could be a sunshade, this could be particles in the atmosphere, this could be increasing the number of clouds in the atmosphere, anything that bounces sunlight away from the earth,” Chalecki said.The second type is called carbon dioxide removal, but it really means sucking any greenhouse gas out of the atmosphere and sequestering it somewhere, like in trees, rocks, or the ocean. "We dug it out of the ground to burn it and put it up into the atmosphere and now we're taking it out of the atmosphere and putting it back underground,” Chalecki said.Chalecki said many of these technologies haven't been invented yet but the wheels are turning."Tree planting is like the simplest it could get versus very sci-fi types of stuff involving mirrors in space types of stuff and a lot of this we can't do in scale right now,” Chalecki said.But, there are concerns with this technology."Given that climate change is increasing and we're feeling the effects more and more, then it's only a matter of time before a government or a non-state actor attempts this type of technology. And this is why we need to get governance out in front of it so it's not just a wild west in the atmosphere,” Chalecki said.Her work involves pitching this political regime to Canada in hopes countries will have to work together under an umbrella organization.Otherwise, she said some countries' decisions could have harmful impacts on others that don't have the technology. "They would certainly be taking their own national interests into considerations over and above the greater good,” Chalecki said.She used acid rain from volcanoes as an example of atmospheric changes that affect more than just one place.Chalecki stresses that climate manipulation technology is a last resort and wants people to push their politicians to look at renewable energies on a large scale.She said on the individual level, you can help by walking more, driving and flying less, and eating fewer processed foods."This is not the savior we think it is. This is not going to be the thing that fixes the problem with climate change. What’s going to fix it is our own mitigation efforts,” Chalecki said.