Bill Gates Will Have to Wait a While to Block the Sun
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A controversial, Bill Gates-backed
sun-blocking experiment has been postponed for ethical
reasons.
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Concerned groups want a clearer understanding of consequences
before the launch.
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The test was originally scheduled for June 2021, but will be
delayed until at least 2022.
Just as quickly as it was announced, a controversial solar geoengineering
experiment backed by Bill Gates has been postponed until at
least 2022.
Gates and other private donors are supporting Harvard University’s Solar Geoengineering Research Program,
which had planned to launch a new study based in Sweden in June researching the
efficacy of blocking sunlight from reaching Earth’s surface.
The Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment (SCoPEx) aimed to see how a tiny amount of
aerosol in a trial would influence the immediate surroundings. But now, Harvard
says it’s delaying the study to examine the impact
on Sweden itself, as well as the indigenous Sami people who live in the region.
Geoengineering is
the term for technologies that try to alter Earth’s physical qualities on the
largest scale possible. One example is cloud seeding,
where airplanes flush clouds with particulate matter in order to coalesce into
rain. Carbon capture,
where emissions are taken and sequestered beneath Earth’s surface, is another
major form of geoengineering.
Scientists have devised multiple ways to block sunlight from
reaching Earth’s atmosphere or surface. These are gathered under the umbrella
term “solar geoengineering.” The most common and studied method is to reflect
sunlight away from Earth using aerosol particles in the atmosphere, but until
now, this has been seen as more of a fringe idea.
SCoPEx planned a small pilot experiment, with the rationale that we
need to scrutinize and consider the idea of solar geoengineering today so we don’t
end up relying on a totally untested technology in the future. The SCoPEx
experiment sought to release just a small amount of aerosol material into the
sky in a specific location, but now, Harvard says even this must be considered
in more detail and with ethical implications in mind.
The Harvard scientists had planned to launch a high-altitude
balloon from Esrange Space Station in Kiruna, Sweden to “test whether it could
in future carry equipment to release solar radiation-reflecting particles into
the Earth’s atmosphere,” AFP reports. But
late last month, a Harvard advisory committee that was set up to study the
project’s ethical implications recommended pushing back the test “until a more
thorough societal engagement process can be conducted to address issues related
to solar geoengineering research in Sweden,” Harvard wrote.
“This will likely postpone the platform launch until 2022,” the committee said.
So what does this mean for SCoPEx, and for solar geoengineering in
general? One goal of the project has always been to explore the real
implications of this technology before we need it, because it’s never a good
idea to launch an untested mechanism at a time of crisis. But the same factors
that make solar geoengineering a radical idea make it almost impossible to
test, even on the small scale.
Hopefully, the different groups involved can come to an
understanding and develop a pilot experiment that more people feel is ethically
sound. With everyone from investors to indigenous groups involved in the
process, SCoPEx will never get off the ground without a lot of diplomacy.
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