Mexico Cracks Down on Solar Geoengineering, Forcing Startup To Pause Operations 47
An anonymous reader shares a report: The tiny startup Make Sunsets, which had been experimenting with releasing sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight in order to cool the earth, said Wednesday it would cease operations for the time being and review its approach after the Mexican government cracked down on solar geoengineering. The idea of releasing aerosols into the atmosphere to cool the earth has been around since the 1960's, but it had largely been relegated to science fiction until recently, as the urgency of climate change has become more apparent. The White House is currently coordinating a five-year research plan to study the idea, which is colloquially known as "solar geoengineering," and the quadrennial U.N.-backed Montreal Protocol assessment report for the first time included an entire chapter it.
Luke Iseman, a serial inventor and the former director of hardware at Y Combinator, believed all of that research was not happening fast enough. So he started tinkering with releasing sulfur dioxide particles into the atmosphere with balloons, raised venture capital to fund the startup, and brought on co-founder Andrew Song to manage sales. Make Sunsets was planning to launch three latex weather balloons that would release anywhere between 10 and 500 grams of sulfur dioxide in January. But many industry watchers criticized its plans for being hasty and lacking sophistication. On Friday, the government of Mexico issued a statement that it plans to "prohibit and, where appropriate, stop experimentation practices with solar geoengineering in the country."
Luke Iseman, a serial inventor and the former director of hardware at Y Combinator, believed all of that research was not happening fast enough. So he started tinkering with releasing sulfur dioxide particles into the atmosphere with balloons, raised venture capital to fund the startup, and brought on co-founder Andrew Song to manage sales. Make Sunsets was planning to launch three latex weather balloons that would release anywhere between 10 and 500 grams of sulfur dioxide in January. But many industry watchers criticized its plans for being hasty and lacking sophistication. On Friday, the government of Mexico issued a statement that it plans to "prohibit and, where appropriate, stop experimentation practices with solar geoengineering in the country."
Yeah, right, release SO2 into the atmosphere... (Score:3)
What could possibly go wrong??
By the way, we were noticing some drops in rainfall pH, we don't know why would that be...?
Re: Yeah, right, release SO2 into the atmosphere.. (Score:2)
Humanity never learns. They should ask the aussies how well the introduction of the cane toad as pest control went,
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Ask them about camels or foxes.
When you arrive at Sydney airport and get a fine for failing to declare that fruit you bought with you, don't complain. You'll get no sympathy from the locals.
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Move them to Mars (Score:1)
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Enough with experimenting with the planet's natural balance
Liker dumping billions of tonnes of CO2 into the air?
Yeah, we should probably stop doing that...
Pedantic legal question... (Score:4, Interesting)
In Mexico, or in the US, would this ban be based solely on intent? Let's say I created a company to geo-engineer the planet to be *warmer* by releasing large amounts of methane. How am I different from an industrial company releasing the same amount of methane as a byproduct of its industrial processes? Would they technically fall under a "geoengineering ban"?
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Let's say I created a company to geo-engineer the planet to be *warmer* by releasing large amounts of methane.
Large methane releases are already illegal almost everywhere. That's why you see flare stacks. In particular with respect to this story, it is definitely already illegal [reuters.com] in Mexico.
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A good example is that we gave up walkable cities and public transportation for perso
These are all scams (Score:3, Insightful)
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You have evidence to tie this project to oil companies?
chicken (Score:2)
Obviously, they should be doing their experiments in the US. Its the American way.
https://www.popsci.com/article... [popsci.com]
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It's not like there's a shortage.
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500 grams? (Score:4, Insightful)
They're going to release 500g of sulfur dioxide and measure -- um -- nothing?
If you're good at math that's like 18oz... roughly a beer and a half worth.
The only likely difference to be measured is how much they take their investors for.
This is a nothingburger, a no-story, and "Mexico's Government" caring about the environment
is just a tad funnier than them "fighting crime and the cartels."
Color me laughing.
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yep, a big vulcano release many tons of hash and S02 to atmosphere to make a impact... 500g is just a small umbrella
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yep, a big vulcano release many tons of hash and S02 to atmosphere to make a impact... 500g is just a small umbrella
Won't cause enough cooling to measure the temperature effect, but it would be a good calibrated measurement of sulfate aerosol scattering properties.
Volcanic aerosols are a mix of different stuff.
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ok, if this was just a test ... even so, dunno exactly how they would measure 500g of SO2 at high altitude and how much that is different from high altitude plane trails
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ok, if this was just a test ... even so, dunno exactly how they would measure 500g of SO2 at high altitude
Look at the reflectivity and the transmission of the resulting clouds in the visible and IR. Hard measurement, but optical measurements are pretty well established, so it should be doable.
and how much that is different from high altitude plane trails
Those are water-ice crystals. Different scattering properties.
great (Score:2)
Underqualified Silicon Valley tech bros trying to modify climate, can't see how that will go wrong.
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The problem here is he's not poisoning Mexico, he's poisoning everywhere.
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His personal website for instance lists the various jobs he's had, and schemes he has cooked up and includes stuff like:
Wetique: Co-founder. Built a website to rate your friends and receive better media recommendations. Outcome: went from idea to working product in 3 months by teaching ourselves everything we needed to build an MVP. Realized we hadn't made something people wanted.
which at least includes a useful insight.
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The problem is none of his jobs or educational qualification have anything to do with this scheme.
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When I saw the term "serial inventor" the first word association that popped into my head was "crackpot". When I saw that he had been at Y Combinator I changed that to "rich crackpot".
Mexico protests (Score:2)
Rumors about spraying anything over cartel fields might scare away US customers.
Lots of Sulphur (Score:2)
These guys need to get with these guys:
https://www.extremetech.com/ex... [extremetech.com]
and get out of Mexico to someplace less restrictive. Throw tons of sulphur into the atmosphere, bring the temp down while we work on permanent solutions. This approach is why the chance of actually "burning up" from climate change won't happen, we'll delay that with this simple approach until we've converted 100% to electric everything, and emitting electric nothing, and we'll be as clean as possible. If the temp still goes up, then
Relegated to science fiction? (Score:4, Insightful)
The ongoing reduction in SO2 emissions -- such as the required change in sulfur content in ocean freight carriers -- is going to cause global warming to accelerate over the next couple decades.
Geoengineering to cool is dangerous (Score:1)
If you want to kill all life on the planet, I cannot think of a better way than to purposefully introduce cooling and wildly overshot your target - as a side effect greatly reducing the ability of life to survive across the planet.
We are already kind of due for an ice age, PLEASE do not push us into one trying to reduce global warming.
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Primary risks of geoengineering initiatives to ward off planetary heating are:
1) They mask the problem, allowing irresponsible continued increase of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere.
2) Until they don't mask the problem, due to a technical, managerial, financial, or political failure of the geoengineering programme,
which is practically a cert
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That's not the risk at all. There is no imminent danger of global cooling.
Of course there is not, I said that was a danger of a geoengineering effort, not currently.
Triggering an ice age is vastly more dangerous than any current warming model. No we are not near to triggering an ice age (so far as we know) but we should not encourage any geoengineering as it may well have that effect if we go too far with it.
Again, I am only speaking of potential, not current, dangers.
With the change in spin of the core we might very well see magnetic effects that change things radically. For all we know there might be cycles of ice ages directly related to changes in core spin and pole shift. If there is then the period of rapid change would include a huge extinction event because humans could not adequately cope with the rapid radical change. We have only been increasing rapidly in population as a species for 13,000 years which in terms the earth is a few seconds on the clock. Indeed a
Mexico won't permit something like it (Score:1, Troll)
So it's come to this: (Score:2)
...the Mexican government is the sober and rational party in this discussion.
WTF.
Snowpiercer... (Score:2)
... isn't mentioned nearly frequently enough in this discussion. Until we have a giant-ass globe-circling train for all of us elites to hide in, this pause is for the best.
The US geoengineering in their backyard (Score:2)
with all the Nimbys in the US, Mexico was the most likely place to do these experiments.
Canada is cold as f*** most times of the year so no point in polluting the atmosphere there.
Blows my mind (Score:2)
I guess if I had been born a douchebag I could be rich too, but I'm actually fine remaining relegated to the middle class if that is the tradeoff.
Plausible (Score:1)