FISM News, Bethany Roberts
Studies into possible ways to modify the amount of sunlight that reaches the earth are being conducted as a possible way to control the effects of climate change.
The White House recently released the idea of a five-year research plan to study these new techniques, commonly referred to as solar geoengineering or sunlight reflection. The plan will look into three ways of performing sunlight reflection: spraying aerosols into the atmosphere, marine cloud brightening, and cirrus cloud thinning.
While some scientists claim climate change is an urgent and existential crisis that demands we explore any possible solutions, others say solar geoengineering doesn’t address the root causes of climate change and could present serious threats to human health.
According to the Office of Science and Technology Policy, the plan will also include goals, what specifically needs to be analyzed in the atmosphere, and the possible impacts that these techniques could have on Earth. The research plan was produced in Congress’s spending plan for 2022 – which President Biden signed in March.
A report by the National Academy of Sciences recommends funding between $100-200 million over five years to better understand these possible interventions to sunlight. The three techniques work in different ways, but ultimately toward the same end goal: reducing the amount of sunlight that reaches Earth.
Spraying aerosols would inject tiny, reflective particles into the stratosphere to block sunlight as sulfur dioxide does after a major volcanic eruption. Marine cloud brightening uses salt particles to make low-hanging clouds over the oceans more reflective, thus limiting or offsetting some impacts of global warming. Thinning mid-level cirrus clouds would allow heat to escape more easily from the Earth’s surface.
Some of the interventions being studied are known to have harmful effects on human health as well as the environment. However, many scientists and climate leaders say research is an important first step. The stated goal is to learn how best to balance the risks against a rise in the Earth’s temperature.
The leading intervention, and most risky, is aerosol injection. Stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) is known to have negative effects on the ozone layer, deposit acid, and cause respiratory illness. Proposed particles include black carbon, metallic aluminum, aluminum oxide, and barium titanate, which could have devastating effects on crops, animal and human respiratory systems, as well as mental health.
The idea of SAI goes back at least to the 1970s. Various patents have been filed for the process of aircraft-transported aerosols used for weather and climate modification, also dating back at least as far as the 1970s. Many people claim that the U.S. government has, in fact, been spraying aerosols into the stratosphere via commercial jets for decades. This “chemtrails” claim has commonly been labeled a “conspiracy theory.”
Many mainstream climate scientists have shown in recent years that they aren’t shy about making “climate change” their top priority, even at the expense of human health, or even life.
“Yes, damaging the ozone is bad, acid deposition is bad, respiratory illness is bad, absolutely. And spraying sulfur in the stratosphere would contribute in the bad direction to all of those effects,” Edward A. Parson, a professor of environmental law at UCLA’s law school, told CNBC. “But you also have to ask, how much and relative to what?”
Parson also said the sulfur emitted due to the burning of fossil fuels is already causing environmental damage and harming human health. The argument is that humanity is already living with these risks. And, as climate activists in academia, the media, and the streets continuously claim, climate change is the existential crisis that humanity must fight by any means necessary, even if that means ruining or even ending millions of lives in the fight.
However, there are also scientists weighing the ethical issues of climate science and how these methods may affect humanity.
“Given the urgency of the climate crisis, solar geoengineering needs to be studied further,” said Professor Marcia McNutt, the president of the National Academies. “But just as with advances in fields such as artificial intelligence or gene editing, science needs to engage the public to ask not just can we, but should we?”
On top of the risks to physical health, mental health is also greatly impacted depending on the levels of sunlight in any given area. An Australian study measured levels of brain chemicals flowing directly out of the brain and found that people had higher serotonin levels on bright sunny days than on cloudy ones and the effect remained no matter the temperature. Higher levels of serotonin are linked with better moods and feelings of satisfaction and calmness, as well as lower levels of depression and anxiety.
Harvard professor David Keith, who first looked into sunlight reflection in 1989, said it’s a more serious topic to study now. Formal statements of support for researching sunlight reflection have come from the Environmental Defense Fund, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and the Natural Resources Defense Council.
While these are credible sources to pull from, there are comparable people and associations arguing against the idea as well.
“Solar radiation modification will never be a solution to the climate crisis,” said Janos Pasztor, executive director of the Carnegie Climate Governance Initiative.
A group of 60 scientists called for a moratorium on solar geoengineering last month. The group said stratospheric aerosol injection could make natural catastrophes worse. A volcanic eruption could naturally cool the Earth as plumes of ash block sunlight. However, if this happened while SAI was active, it would have to be urgently adjusted to keep from overcooling one hemisphere and producing extreme weather patterns as a result.
“Solar geoengineering is an extremely risky and intrinsically unjust technological proposal that doesn’t address any of the causes of climate change,” said Silvia Ribeiro, Latin America director for the ETC campaign group. “The report asking for more research into a technology we don’t want is essentially flawed.”