Can for-profit geoengineering put a pause on climate change?

Blotting out the sun might not fix climate change, but it could pause the warming process. The idea of using planes to “geoengineer” the climate by spreading sunlight-reflecting aerosols throughout the earth’s atmosphere is controversial. It is also becoming closer to reality.

Stardust Solutions, an Israel-based company, wants to “do nothing less than dim the sun” with a plan “modeled on volcanoes,” said The New Yorker. Average global temperatures dropped in the aftermath of the Mount Pinatubo eruption in the Philippines in 1991. Stardust wants to “market eruptions of its own” using “highly reflective particles” sprayed across the stratosphere.

The plan comes with likely tradeoffs, with possible side effects including “shifts in regional weather patterns” that people depend on for crops. But continued warming may force a radical solution. The planet’s “climate and nature are already passing tipping points,” researchers said in a recent report.

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Can geoengineering work?

Maybe. Until now, the idea of geoengineering the climate has been the province of “research papers, backyard debates and science fiction novels,” said Politico. Stardust’s pitch now means the idea is “effectively for sale.” The company has raised more than $60 million from investors, “far larger than any previous investment in solar geoengineering.” Scientists who warn of potential “environmental and geopolitical turmoil” from attempts to alter the earth’s climate are unsettled.

Using aerosols to dim the sun would be a “painkiller, not cure, for the climate crisis,” said Lara Williams at Bloomberg. Blanketing the stratosphere “masks the impact of greenhouse gas concentrations” instead of reversing them. There are concerns the technology could “cause acid rain, bring on asthma attacks” and “damage the ozone layer.”

But the temptation for a quick fix may win. Two-thirds of climate scientists said in a recent poll they expect “large-scale” geoengineering efforts by 2100, and more than half believe it will be the result of a “private company, billionaire or nation state going it alone.” Some say it is time for governments to get involved because Stardust “won’t be the last” company to offer a solution.

Why is geoengineering controversial?

“The political opposition in the U.S. is growing” just as geoengineering looks to become reality, said Alexander C. Kaufman at The Atlantic. The left side of the debate argues the “world should be talking only about mitigating emissions” and curbing fossil fuel use, while some on the right are using the prospect to play into “conspiracy theories about government manipulation of the atmosphere.” Florida and Tennessee have passed laws to block Stardust-style efforts. “The real fight over geoengineering is beginning.”

But if the U.S. does not act, other countries might. “Other powers may forge ahead” with geoengineering and other climate mitigation efforts, said the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The European Union is taking a close look at the “social, engineering and climatological challenges” posed by such technologies. EU scientists, however, are “pessimistic about its potential” to pause climate change without adverse effects. Despite that, geoengineering could proceed, and America “could end up watching from the sidelines.”