This Bill Gates-funded chemical cloud could help stop global warming PUBLISHED SAT, SEP 7 2019 9:30 AM EDTUPDATED SAT, SEP 7 2019 9:39 AM EDT Katie Schoolov https://www.cnbc.com/video/2019/09/...eoengineering-could-help-cool-the-planet.html Fires burning across the Amazon rainforest have renewed the debate about solutions to climate change. Bill Gates is backing the first high-altitude experiment of one radical approach called solar geoengineering. It’s meant to mimic the effects of a giant volcanic eruption. Thousands of planes would fly at high altitudes, spraying millions of tons of particles around the planet to create a massive chemical cloud that would cool the surface. “Modeling studies have found that it could reduce the intensity of heat waves, for instance, apparently it could reduce the rate of sea level rise. It could reduce the intensity of tropical storms,” said Andy Parker, project director at the Solar Radiation Management Governance Initiative. The technology is not far from being ready and it’s affordable, but it could cause massive changes in regional weather patterns and eradicate blue sky. “These consequences might be horrific. They might involve things like mass famine, mass flooding, drought of kinds that will affect very large populations,” said Stephen Gardiner, author of “A Perfect Moral Storm: The Ethical Tragedy of Climate Change.” Watch the video to learn how it would work and hear the debate around the ethics and efficacy of solar geoengineering. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/07/bil...gineering-could-help-stop-global-warming.html Just like cloud seeding, only bigger. Mods, Bear Pit if required.
I saw a VICE story about this. They also talked about seeding clouds with salt water mist to increase reflectiveness, using existing shipping fleets to get the job done. Another was spreading some sort of silica compound over arctic ice.
It's a pretty drastic response for sure. But part of me suspects we will see a future where the earth's energy balance is "controlled" as much as we can. Carbon sequestration is the first step, and we have a good handle on what optimal conditions look like.
This dances very close to a CC debate, but as such a proposal could potentially directly impact weather as a climate driver let’s keep it on topic with the how’s and what’s of the hypothetical plan. Be warned, any discussions on the why’s and what’s of CC and off to the Bear Pit this one goes.
