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https://worldhistory.medium.com/move-fast-and-break-the-planet-595fe0233e18>
"Over the holidays, you may have missed a small but potentially momentous news
item. On Christmas Eve, a story popped up on
MIT Technology Review about an
obscure startup called Make Sunsets. The company was announcing that it had
carried out some small experiments, releasing sulfur particles into the
atmosphere via weather balloons.
This doesn’t necessarily sound like a potentially earth-shattering event, but
it could be. As far as I can tell, Make Sunsets is the first entity to actually
carry out geoengineering experiments in the real world.
If you’re not familiar with geoengineering, here’s a brief primer: it’s a
last-ditch measure to control climate change by altering the composition of the
atmosphere. The technique is meant to replicate the effects of volcanic
eruptions, which spew sun-blocking particulates and sulfur into the sky. Really
big eruptions can alter weather far from the volcano itself; the biggest ones
can put enough material into the atmosphere to cool the world’s climate for a
couple of years. The Tambora eruption of 1815, the biggest in modern memory,
caused June snowstorms in North America, crop failures in many countries, and
famines all over the world. Germans called 1816 and 1817 Die Hungerjahre — the
hunger years.
Geoengineering advocates argue that humans should address global warming by
creating a controlled, steady artificial volcanic eruption. They argue that
it’s necessary to do so because there’s no plausible path for humanity to
reduce carbon emissions quickly enough to stave off the worst effects of
climate change."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
