{"id":374776,"date":"2025-04-11T10:07:09","date_gmt":"2025-04-11T08:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=374776"},"modified":"2025-04-11T10:07:11","modified_gmt":"2025-04-11T08:07:11","slug":"climate-geoengineers-dismayed-they-have-to-hide-experiments-from-the-public","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=374776","title":{"rendered":"Climate Geoengineers Dismayed They Have to Hide Experiments from the Public"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From Watts Up With That?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Essay by\u00a0<\/strong>Eric Worrall<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Imagine a climate initiative so crazy even Californian greens reject it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

stratospheric sulfate aerosols could be crucial in the fight against climate change. But first scientists need to learn how to talk to the public about it<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3 APR 2025<\/strong>
2:00 PM ET<\/strong>
BY REBEKAH WHITE<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft, mayor of Alameda, California, scrolled through The New York Times on a Saturday morning in April 2024, a story about a controversial experiment caught her eye. Researchers from Washington state were trialing a machine that looked like a big snow cannon, which they hoped could one day be used to brighten clouds to reflect more of the Sun\u2019s rays. They\u2019d been spraying tiny salt particles into the air over the San Francisco Bay.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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At first, Ashcraft wondered which neighboring town was hosting the test. But as she read, she was shocked to learn that the researchers were conducting their experiment right there in Alameda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ashcraft texted her acting city manager, who was equally surprised. The story revealed that the researchers had kept the test a secret to limit protests<\/a>. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t just an oversight that they forgot to tell the city,\u201d Ashcraft says. \u201cThey chose not to.\u201d Concerned about the safety of the test, city staff investigated. Though a report concluded it was harmless, the council eventually voted to ban it, discomfited by the researchers\u2019 lack of transparency<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

FORGOING PUBLIC<\/strong>\u00a0engagement has already had fatal consequences for solar geoengineering projects\u2014with ramifications for the entire field.

\u2026Read more:\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.science.org\/content\/article\/geoengineering-fight-climate-change-if-public-can-convinced<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Geoengineering is wrong on so many levels. The side effects of many proposed schemes are so outrageous they should never see the light of day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Estimating global agricultural effects of geoengineering using volcanic eruptions<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Published: 08 August 2018<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jonathan Proctor, Solomon Hsiang, Jennifer Burney, Marshall Burke & Wolfram Schlenker<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nature (2018)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Solar radiation management is increasingly considered to be an option for managing global temperatures, yet the economic effects of ameliorating climatic changes by scattering sunlight back to space remain largely unknown. Although solar radiation management may increase crop yields by reducing heat stress, the effects of concomitant changes in available sunlight have never been empirically estimated. Here we use the volcanic eruptions that inspired modern solar radiation management proposals as natural experiments to provide the first estimates, to our knowledge, of how the stratospheric sulfate aerosols created by the eruptions of El Chich\u00f3n and Mount Pinatubo altered the quantity and quality of global sunlight, and how these changes in sunlight affected global crop yields. We find that the sunlight-mediated effect of stratospheric sulfate aerosols on yields is negative for both C4 (maize) and C3 (soy, rice and wheat) crops<\/strong>. Applying our yield model to a solar radiation management scenario based on stratospheric sulfate aerosols, we find that projected mid-twenty-first century damages due to scattering sunlight caused by solar radiation management are roughly equal in magnitude to benefits from cooling. This suggests that solar radiation management<\/strong>\u2014if deployed using stratospheric sulfate aerosols similar to those emitted by the volcanic eruptions it seeks to mimic\u2014would, on net, attenuate little of the global agricultural damage from climate change<\/strong>. Our approach could be extended to study the effects of solar radiation management on other global systems, such as human health or ecosystem function.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read more (paywalled):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41586-018-0417-3<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Plants need sunlight. Any alleged benefit of cloud brightening to reflect more sunlight into space would be more than overshadowed by the negative impact of depriving plants of sunlight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We don\u2019t need a scientific study to confirm this, because it has already happened. In the year 536 AD, a catastrophic volcanic eruption caused widespread crop failures in the Mediterranean, because the cloud brightening effect of the volcano disrupted weather and weakened plant growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Roman historian Procopius<\/a> recorded in AD 536 in his report on the wars with<\/a> the Vandals<\/a>, \u201cduring this year a most dread portent<\/a> took place. For the sun gave forth its light without brightness\u2026 and it seemed exceedingly like the sun in eclipse<\/a>, for the beams it shed were not clear\u201d.[5]<\/a>[6]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 538, the Roman statesman Cassiodorus<\/a> described the following to one of his subordinates in letter 25:[7]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n