https://sputnikglobe.com/20230212/blot-out-the-sun-company-wants-to-pump-sulfur-dioxide-into-the-sky-to-cool-the-planet-1107359834.html
Blot Out The Sun: Company Wants to Pump Sulfur Dioxide Into the Sky to Cool the Planet
Blot Out The Sun: Company Wants to Pump Sulfur Dioxide Into the Sky to Cool the Planet
Sputnik International
Banned in Mexico and kicked out by Sweden’s Sami people, so-called ‘solar geoengineers’ are still pushing ahead with plans to limit the amount of light received by the people of Earth.
2023-02-12T23:34+0000
2023-02-12T23:34+0000
2023-02-12T23:34+0000
science & tech
geoengineering
solar
experiments
scientific experiments
climate change
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There’s nothing new about another cheerful venture capital-backed firm promising to make the planet a better place. But “Make Sunsets,” a newly-formed company promising to help “prevent catastrophic global warming,” is not a typical startup.Rather than aiming to come up with a viral app or figure out a new way to monetize consumer data, Make Sunsets has a different goal in mind: fill the stratosphere with sulfur dioxide and darken the sun.Marketing its wares as “reflective, high-altitude, biodegradable clouds” that “cool the planet,” the company promises that its sulfur-dioxide based “shiny clouds” actually "mimic natural processes."“We release a natural compound via reusable balloons to create reflective clouds in the stratosphere,” Make Sunsets’ online promotional materials claim.“After ~2 years, our clouds compost and settle back to Earth.”There is reportedly some evidence that naturally-occurring sulfur dioxide produced by volcanoes does serve to lower global temperatures by reflecting light away from the sun back into space and away from the earth.Simulations carried by researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder indicate that “the sulfur dioxide blasted into the upper atmosphere” due to volcanic activity “exerts a significant global-cooling influence” that has the effect of “canceling out about 25 percent of the worldwide warming that would otherwise have resulted from the accumulation of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses,” according to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ magazine, IEEE Spectrum.But the consequences of intentionally releasing large amounts of sodium dioxide into the stratosphere are largely unknown. It’s one of a number of tactics, making up a field referred to as “solar geoengineering,” which could lead to changes in atmospheric chemistry and the disruption of regional weather patterns.Outside the US, the prospect of the man-made sulfuric clouds have alarmed large parts of the global population. When Harvard University researchers attempted to test a high-altitude balloon in Arctic Sweden in 2021, they were forced to abandon their efforts following an outcry among local Indigenous Sami people, whose leadership warned in a letter that solar geoengineering “entails risks of catastrophic consequences.”After Make Sunsets released a literal trial balloon in Baja, the Mexican government issued a statement last month pledging to “prohibit and, where appropriate, stop experimentation practices with solar geoengineering in the country.”But the US government is pressing ahead with research into the controversial subject anyway. A portion of the $4 million allocated to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for stratospheric research in 2019 by Congress was intended for research into solar geoengineering. Last year, the Biden administration said it was launching a five-year research plan to explore the topic.In 2021, the National Academy of Sciences called for the US to spend as much as $200 million on researching the feasibility of solar geoengineering, its potential impacts on society, the environment, and public perceptions.
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geoengineering, solar geoengineering, company, tech and science, climate change, global warming, sulfur dioxide, us, sweden, mexico
geoengineering, solar geoengineering, company, tech and science, climate change, global warming, sulfur dioxide, us, sweden, mexico
Blot Out The Sun: Company Wants to Pump Sulfur Dioxide Into the Sky to Cool the Planet
Banned in Mexico and kicked out by Sweden’s Sami people, so-called ‘solar geoengineers’ are still pushing ahead with plans to limit the amount of light received by the people of Earth.
There’s nothing new about another cheerful venture capital-backed firm promising to make the planet a better place. But “Make Sunsets,” a newly-formed company promising to help “prevent catastrophic global warming,” is not a typical startup.
Rather than aiming to come up with a viral app or figure out a new way to monetize consumer data, Make Sunsets has a different goal in mind: fill the stratosphere with sulfur dioxide and darken the sun.
Marketing its wares as “reflective, high-altitude, biodegradable clouds” that “cool the planet,” the company promises that its sulfur-dioxide based “shiny clouds” actually "mimic natural processes."
“We release a natural compound via reusable balloons to create reflective clouds in the stratosphere,” Make Sunsets’ online promotional materials claim. “After ~2 years, our clouds compost and settle back to Earth.”
There is reportedly some evidence that naturally-occurring sulfur dioxide produced by volcanoes does serve to lower global temperatures by reflecting light away from the sun back into space and away from the earth.
Simulations carried by researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder
indicate that “the sulfur dioxide blasted into the upper atmosphere” due to volcanic activity “exerts a significant global-cooling influence” that has the effect of “canceling out about 25 percent of the worldwide warming that would otherwise have resulted from the accumulation of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses,” according to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ magazine, IEEE Spectrum.
But the consequences of intentionally releasing large amounts of sodium dioxide into the stratosphere are largely unknown. It’s one of a number of tactics, making up a field referred to as “solar geoengineering,” which could lead to changes in atmospheric chemistry and the disruption of regional weather patterns.
And as the gas makes its way into the troposphere, it often reacts with other compounds to form sulfuric acid – known, when it falls to the ground, as acid rain.
Outside the US, the prospect of the man-made sulfuric clouds have alarmed large parts of the global population. When Harvard University researchers attempted to test a high-altitude balloon in Arctic Sweden in 2021, they were forced to abandon their efforts following an outcry among local Indigenous Sami people, whose leadership warned in a letter that solar geoengineering “entails risks of catastrophic consequences.”
After Make Sunsets released a literal trial balloon in Baja, the Mexican government issued a
statement last month pledging to “prohibit and, where appropriate, stop experimentation practices with solar geoengineering in the country.”
But the US government is pressing ahead with research into the controversial subject anyway. A portion of the $4 million allocated to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for stratospheric research in 2019 by Congress was intended for research into solar geoengineering. Last year, the Biden administration said it was launching a five-year research plan to explore the topic.
In 2021, the National Academy of Sciences called for the US to spend as much as $200 million on researching the feasibility of solar geoengineering, its potential impacts on society, the environment, and public perceptions.
