A recent startup that is being run ban an environmentalist that has been compared to a Bond villain is seeking to intentionally pollute the skies with sulfur in an odd attempt to try and block sunlight as a means to halt global warming, according to a top scientific journal.
Originally founded by a California man Luke Iseman, the startup Make Sunsets has been launching weather balloons for the purpose of releasing sulfur into the upper atmosphere in an attempt to try and deflect sunlight back out into space, as explained by the MIT Technology Review. However, critics state that the science behind Iseman’s scheme, which he labels geoengineering activism, is very dangerous and will end up backfiring.
“We joke slash not joke that this is partly a company and partly a cult,” explained Iseman, who previously created a now-dispersed company named Boxouse that crafted houses out of shipping containers, to the journal.
Critics are worried that the entire ordeal could have unpredictable consequences, and could really end up sparking intense stress and even “geopolitical conflicts” throughout the affected regions. The company is releasing its balloons out of Mexico, where the article reported that it can effectively dodge standard scientific oversight. Make Sunsets is attempting to monetize the operation by trying to sell “cooling credits,” as explained in a report.
Start-up @MakeSunsets releasing reflective sulphur particles into the atmosphere to cool the Earth.
Selling 'Cooling Credits' for $10 each, advertised as 'offsetting the warming from 1 ton of CO2 for a year year'. 1/https://t.co/FdG9EbFiBu
— Steve Milloy (@JunkScience) December 27, 2022
Iseman stated that he thinks he will be condemned and that “making me look like the Bond villain is going to be helpful to certain groups.” However, he claimed that such an insane practice for intervention is required to deal with the threat of global warming.
“It’s morally wrong, in my opinion, for us not to be doing this [and] to do this as quickly and safely as we can,” he stated.
Scientists explained to the article that Iseman does not know what he is thinking, with one of the scientists explaining that his efforts are in the same vein as one Chinese scientist’s choice to make use of CRISPR to alter embryonic DNA even as the ethics of such a step were still being talked about.
“The current state of science is not good enough … to either reject, or to accept, let alone implement” solar geoengineering, explained the executive director of Carnegie Climate Governance Initiative, Janos Pasztor, to MIT Technology Review. “To go ahead with implementation at this stage is a very bad idea.”
The insane idea from Iseman just may have been foreshadowed by an international relations expert at the University of California, SanDiego, David Victor, who issued a warning back in 2018 that some kind of rogue agent could try to singlhandedly geoengineer the climate.
“A lone Greenfinger, self-appointed protector of the planet and working with a small fraction of the [Bill] Gates bank account, could force a lot of geoengineering on his own,” explained Victor, making referring to the James Bond movie villain from 1964, “Goldfinger.”