A startup called Make Sunsets has caused controversy by attempting to commercialize the field of geoengineering, which involves manipulating the climate by reflecting sunlight back into space, MIT Technology Review reports.
Make Sunsets claims to have launched weather balloons that may have released reflective sulfur particles into the stratosphere, a layer of the atmosphere above the Earth’s weather systems.
While injecting such particles into the stratosphere is technically possible, most scientists have avoided outdoor experiments due to concerns about unknown impacts and potential conflicts between regions that could be affected differently.
“The current state of science is not good enough … to either reject, or to accept, let alone implement” solar geoengineering, wrote Janos Pasztor, executive director of the Carnegie Climate Governance Initiative, which is calling for oversight of geoengineering and other climate-altering technologies by governments, international accords, or scientific bodies.
“To go ahead with implementation at this stage is a very bad idea,” he added.
Make Sunsets has faced criticism for moving forward with launches in Mexico without public engagement or scientific scrutiny, as well as for attempting to sell “cooling credits” for future balloon flights.
Make Sunsets CEO Luke Iseman acknowledges that the effort is partly a provocation, but argues that so-called “climate change” poses such a grave threat that more radical interventions are necessary.
“It’s morally wrong, in my opinion, for us not to be doing this,” he said. “What’s important is to do this as quickly and safely as we can.”
However, Shuchi Talati, a scholar at American University, warned that solar geoengineering could disproportionately benefit some countries at the expense of others.
“Geoengineering must not become another way for the global north to export its pollution to the global south,” she said.
