Lauren Leffer
Thu, January 19, 2023
Stock photo of weather balloon floating above land
Luke Iseman released a photo of him supposedly launching a sulfur-filled weather balloon in Mexico, but the founder and his company didn’t respond to Gizmodo’s contact requests. So, here’s a stock substitute.
Mexico is cracking down on experiments in solar geoengineering. The controversial proposed climate solution, in which aerosol particles are released into the upper atmosphere to reflect the Sun’s heat, will no longer be allowed to take place in the country, the Mexican Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat) announced last week.
Both large-scale and in-development projects involving solar engineering are to be halted, via coordination between the Mexican environment ministry and the country’s National Council of Science and Technology, the news statement noted. The goal of the new policy is to “protect communities and environments.”
The nationwide ban comes on the heels of climate tech startup Make Sunsets’ claims that it released weather balloons filled with sulfur dioxide particles from an unspecified location in the Mexican state of Baja California Sur—without any sort of permission, dialogue, or approval from any Mexican regulatory agency or authority. The startup’s co-founder, Luke Iseman (formerly of Y Combinator and numerous other startups that seem to have floundered or been abandoned), said in a December interview with MIT Technology Review that he’d conducted two test balloon launches there in April 2022.
But Iseman has contradicted his own claims since then. In a follow-up report from The Wall Street Journal, published Thursday, Iseman changed his story to “a single weather balloon.” And in a Wednesday blogpost from Make Sunsets, the company floated the possibility that it never actually released any sulfur balloons at all. “Make Sunsets will share all information about its activities in Mexico to date (if any) with... responsible agencies,” the startup wrote. “Make sunsets will cease its operations in Mexico (if there were any),” the post continues.
Gizmodo reached out to Make Sunsets for more information but did not receive a response.
Regardless of whether or not Iseman and Make Sunsets actually did what they claimed, the alleged stunt drew widespread criticism and concern from scientists and policy experts alike. Though solar geoengineering is a simple enough concept, safe implementation of the theoretical climate change remedy is a complex issue.
Blocking out sunlight via sulfur particles could trigger rapid and significant global shifts in precipitation that could leave some parts of the planet flooded and others arid, according to past research. If not managed properly, solar geoengineering could lead to even more erratic and rapid changes in temperature than we’re currently experiencing under climate change. And the use of sulfur, specifically, would likely damage Earth’s crucial ozone layer.
Then, there’s the geopolitical implications of a country or rogue actor deciding to go ahead and change the stratosphere’s composition without international buy-in.
For all of these reasons and more, it’s probably not in Mexico’s favor to allow this sort of unregulated geoengineering experimentation on its soil. The ministry’s press statement cites a United Nations moratorium on geoengineering that Mexico and nearly 200 other countries (though not the U.S.) agreed to in 2010—as well as the risk of dangerous climactic consequences. “There are enough studies that show that there would be negative and unequal impacts associated with the release of these aerosols,” wrote the environment ministry.
All that said, Iseman’s experiment (if it happened) probably wasn’t enough to impact much of anything. From a scientific perspective, it wasn’t even much of an experiment. The Make Sunsets founder previously told MIT Tech Review that he doesn’t know if the balloons released made it high enough in the atmosphere to distribute their sulfur in the correct place. And Harvard geoengineering researcher David Keith said that such a small amount of particles would likely have no effect on the climate.
Iseman is reportedly disappointed by Mexico’s decision. “I expected and hoped for dialogue,” he told the Wall Street Journal. “I’m surprised by the speed and scope of the response,” he added. Prior to the ban, Make Sunsets indicated it planned to fly three more balloons from Southern Baja this month. Now, that presumably won’t happen. But the perpetual founder isn’t giving up. “One of my dreams is that we could, in some distant future, grow Make Sunsets legally and responsibility,” he said to the WSJ.
And maybe Iseman would have better luck back in the U.S., which hasn’t co-signed any pesky UN agreements to not block out the Sun. In 2022, the Biden Administration announced it’s developing a five-year plan for geoengineering research. If the ~$750,000 in venture capital money that Make Sunsets raised isn’t enough, perhaps in the near future, the company could apply for some federal funding.
Gizmodo
Why a Startup's Controversial Experiments to Cool the Earth Are on Pause
Alejandro de la Garza
TIME
Thu, January 19, 2023
Sunset with beautiful cloud formations at San Francisco
Sunset with beautiful cloud formations at San Francisco Island in the Sea of Cortez in Baja California, Mexico. Credit - Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket—Getty Images
Make Sunsets, a company behind a recent controversial effort to cool the earth by releasing particles of sulfur dioxide (SO2) into the upper atmosphere to reflect incoming heat, is canceling its upcoming experiments in Mexico, following a rebuke from the Mexican government.
“We have decided not to do launches in Mexico until we come up with a way to collaborate with the Mexican government,” Luke Iseman, the company’s founder, tells TIME in reaction to Mexico announcing on Jan. 13 plans to ban geoengineering. “We want to be working hard with government partners to buy us time for others to solve the shared challenges that we have to prevent catastrophic warming.”
The two-person company made news in the climate world last month when the MIT Technology Review reported that they had launched weather balloons containing helium and SO2 in the Mexican state of Baja California last spring—the first recorded attempt to alter the stratosphere in the name of climate action.
The intent was that the balloons would burst when they reached the upper atmosphere and release the SO2, which would theoretically reflect solar radiation back into space. Such methods, known as stratospheric solar geoengineering, are one of the most controversial areas of study in the climate world, due to the possibility of large-scale SO2 releases affecting global weather and agriculture in unpredictable ways. Many environmental activists are also opposed to the possibility, arguing that geoengineering constitutes a moral hazard, since polluters could conceivably argue that it gives them license to continue emitting planet-warming greenhouse gasses.
Following news of the Make Sunsets launch, the Mexican government issued a press release saying that it would “prohibit and, where appropriate, stop experimentation practices with solar geoengineering,” citing a lack of international agreements and a 2010 UN moratorium on the practice. The announcement also noted that the startup had not consulted authorities before it carried out the experiments.
“It was surprising that people feel like we’re trying to sneak around some law when that is not the intent,” Iseman says. “There doesn’t appear to be some permit that I should have filed for and did not.”
Experts say that Make Sunsets’ SO2 release was small enough not to constitute an environmental danger, but many have criticized the company for attempting to profit off largely untested science. Make Sunsets sells $10 “Cooling Credits” on its website in exchange for releasing a gram of SO2 into the stratosphere, which it claims will correspond to eliminating the warming effect on one ton of carbon dioxide emissions for one year.
One of the concerns about geoengineering is the possibility that individual countries or even lone actors might take up the practice of their own accord, attempting to alter the climate without global buy-in or robust scientific support, a possibility that Make Sunsets might seem to illustrate.
Iseman, for his part, argues that there is no time to wait to pursue last-ditch climate efforts. He is hopeful that he can find another country more supportive of his work. “If someone, somewhere in the world wants to launch a balloon with us, I hope they reach out,” he says. “And if they are a government, I will bend over backward to be on the next plane to visit them.”
Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering, forcing startup to pause operations
Ralf Geithe
Catherine Clifford
Thu, January 19, 2023
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.
Last 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.”
The statement said, “The opposition to these climatic manipulations is based on the fact that there are currently no international agreements that address or supervise solar geoengineering activities, which represent an economically advantageous way out for a minority and risky for the supposed remediation of climate change.”
The lack of an international governance structure surrounding global geoengineering was a big concern for industry watchers in regard to what Make Sunsets was doing.
In a mea culpa blog post published on Wednesday, the startup acknowledged it had barged forward.
“We appreciate the Mexican government’s concern for protecting communities and the natural environment and support their call for scientific expertise and oversight of climate intervention activities. We also appreciate their concern for national and local engagement and regret that we had failed to take this into consideration sooner,” Make Sunsets said.
Brayton Williams, a co-founder of San Mateo-headquartered venture capital firm BoostVC, who previously told CNBC the firm invested $500,000 in Make Sunsets, told CNBC the startup was “definitely not shutting down.”
“When you work with super early stage startups you get very accustomed to roadblocks and naysayers. Not sure we have seen a success yet that didn’t have to overcome massive hurdles early in the process,” Williams told CNBC. “Onwards!”
Kelly Wanser, the executive director of SilverLining, an organization promoting research and governance of climate interventions, supports the move by the Mexican government.
“The Mexican government is right to halt irresponsible activity and emphasize the importance of scientific examination and science-based governance for solar climate intervention,” Wanser said in a statement shared by a press officer. “Irresponsible activities and unfounded claims are an example of why society needs publicly supported research, scientific assessment, and the expansion of governance mechanisms like the Montreal Protocol, to help ensure a safe climate.”
Both Wanser and Make Sunsets both indicated their support for thorough and detailed study of sunlight reflection technologies.
That’s because sunlight reflection technology would be one of the fastest and cheapest options for bringing down the temperature of the globe, and there’s already evidence it works: The 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines released thousands of tons of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, temporarily lowering average global temperatures by about 1 degree Fahrenheit, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
But it’s not known whether the damage caused by sunlight reflection technology — possibly including damage to the ozone layer, increased respiratory illness, and acid rain — could be worse than the future effects of global warming.
“We agree that there are no alternative technologies that replace the need to reduce emissions to remediate climate change. We also see that the negative and unequal impacts of climate change are growing, and we hope to encourage the world to consider whether technological interventions have the potential to help,” Make Sunsets wrote in its blog post.
Wanser echoed that sentiment. “Increasing the reflection of sunlight from the atmosphere is one of the only means that scientists have identified to significantly reduce global warming within the next few decades. Understanding its risks and benefits through research is critical for the world’s most climate-vulnerable people,” she said in a statement.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
Thu, January 19, 2023
Sunset with beautiful cloud formations at San Francisco
Sunset with beautiful cloud formations at San Francisco Island in the Sea of Cortez in Baja California, Mexico. Credit - Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket—Getty Images
Make Sunsets, a company behind a recent controversial effort to cool the earth by releasing particles of sulfur dioxide (SO2) into the upper atmosphere to reflect incoming heat, is canceling its upcoming experiments in Mexico, following a rebuke from the Mexican government.
“We have decided not to do launches in Mexico until we come up with a way to collaborate with the Mexican government,” Luke Iseman, the company’s founder, tells TIME in reaction to Mexico announcing on Jan. 13 plans to ban geoengineering. “We want to be working hard with government partners to buy us time for others to solve the shared challenges that we have to prevent catastrophic warming.”
The two-person company made news in the climate world last month when the MIT Technology Review reported that they had launched weather balloons containing helium and SO2 in the Mexican state of Baja California last spring—the first recorded attempt to alter the stratosphere in the name of climate action.
The intent was that the balloons would burst when they reached the upper atmosphere and release the SO2, which would theoretically reflect solar radiation back into space. Such methods, known as stratospheric solar geoengineering, are one of the most controversial areas of study in the climate world, due to the possibility of large-scale SO2 releases affecting global weather and agriculture in unpredictable ways. Many environmental activists are also opposed to the possibility, arguing that geoengineering constitutes a moral hazard, since polluters could conceivably argue that it gives them license to continue emitting planet-warming greenhouse gasses.
Following news of the Make Sunsets launch, the Mexican government issued a press release saying that it would “prohibit and, where appropriate, stop experimentation practices with solar geoengineering,” citing a lack of international agreements and a 2010 UN moratorium on the practice. The announcement also noted that the startup had not consulted authorities before it carried out the experiments.
“It was surprising that people feel like we’re trying to sneak around some law when that is not the intent,” Iseman says. “There doesn’t appear to be some permit that I should have filed for and did not.”
Experts say that Make Sunsets’ SO2 release was small enough not to constitute an environmental danger, but many have criticized the company for attempting to profit off largely untested science. Make Sunsets sells $10 “Cooling Credits” on its website in exchange for releasing a gram of SO2 into the stratosphere, which it claims will correspond to eliminating the warming effect on one ton of carbon dioxide emissions for one year.
One of the concerns about geoengineering is the possibility that individual countries or even lone actors might take up the practice of their own accord, attempting to alter the climate without global buy-in or robust scientific support, a possibility that Make Sunsets might seem to illustrate.
Iseman, for his part, argues that there is no time to wait to pursue last-ditch climate efforts. He is hopeful that he can find another country more supportive of his work. “If someone, somewhere in the world wants to launch a balloon with us, I hope they reach out,” he says. “And if they are a government, I will bend over backward to be on the next plane to visit them.”
Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering, forcing startup to pause operations
Ralf Geithe
Catherine Clifford
Thu, January 19, 2023
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.
Last 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.”
The statement said, “The opposition to these climatic manipulations is based on the fact that there are currently no international agreements that address or supervise solar geoengineering activities, which represent an economically advantageous way out for a minority and risky for the supposed remediation of climate change.”
The lack of an international governance structure surrounding global geoengineering was a big concern for industry watchers in regard to what Make Sunsets was doing.
In a mea culpa blog post published on Wednesday, the startup acknowledged it had barged forward.
“We appreciate the Mexican government’s concern for protecting communities and the natural environment and support their call for scientific expertise and oversight of climate intervention activities. We also appreciate their concern for national and local engagement and regret that we had failed to take this into consideration sooner,” Make Sunsets said.
Brayton Williams, a co-founder of San Mateo-headquartered venture capital firm BoostVC, who previously told CNBC the firm invested $500,000 in Make Sunsets, told CNBC the startup was “definitely not shutting down.”
“When you work with super early stage startups you get very accustomed to roadblocks and naysayers. Not sure we have seen a success yet that didn’t have to overcome massive hurdles early in the process,” Williams told CNBC. “Onwards!”
Kelly Wanser, the executive director of SilverLining, an organization promoting research and governance of climate interventions, supports the move by the Mexican government.
“The Mexican government is right to halt irresponsible activity and emphasize the importance of scientific examination and science-based governance for solar climate intervention,” Wanser said in a statement shared by a press officer. “Irresponsible activities and unfounded claims are an example of why society needs publicly supported research, scientific assessment, and the expansion of governance mechanisms like the Montreal Protocol, to help ensure a safe climate.”
Both Wanser and Make Sunsets both indicated their support for thorough and detailed study of sunlight reflection technologies.
That’s because sunlight reflection technology would be one of the fastest and cheapest options for bringing down the temperature of the globe, and there’s already evidence it works: The 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines released thousands of tons of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, temporarily lowering average global temperatures by about 1 degree Fahrenheit, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
But it’s not known whether the damage caused by sunlight reflection technology — possibly including damage to the ozone layer, increased respiratory illness, and acid rain — could be worse than the future effects of global warming.
“We agree that there are no alternative technologies that replace the need to reduce emissions to remediate climate change. We also see that the negative and unequal impacts of climate change are growing, and we hope to encourage the world to consider whether technological interventions have the potential to help,” Make Sunsets wrote in its blog post.
Wanser echoed that sentiment. “Increasing the reflection of sunlight from the atmosphere is one of the only means that scientists have identified to significantly reduce global warming within the next few decades. Understanding its risks and benefits through research is critical for the world’s most climate-vulnerable people,” she said in a statement.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
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