The Geoengineering Gamble: Why Spraying the Skies is a Recipe for Catastrophe, By James Reed and Brian Simpson
The hubris of human ingenuity has reached new heights, or rather, stratospheric ones. As wildfires rage across California and floods swallow Bangladesh, a cadre of climate technocrats pushes "solar geoengineering" as the silver bullet for a supposed warming world. Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI), the star of this mad science revue, proposes blasting reflective particles into the upper atmosphere to mimic volcanic eruptions, bouncing sunlight back to space and cooling the planet by decree. White House documents admit it's funded "covertly and openly," while startups like Israel's Stardust Solutions just hauled in $60 million to make it rain aerosols by 2026, particle composition undisclosed, of course. Sounds like a plot from a dystopian thriller, but here's the plot twist: A bombshell Columbia University study in Scientific Reports just exposed SAI for what it is, a logistical nightmare, a physical farce, and a governance ghost story that could turn Earth into a laboratory for unintended Armageddon. This isn't salvation; it's a disaster in the making, built on a crumbling foundation of climate alarmism. Geoengineering isn't just risky, it's reckless.
Before we dive into SAI's fatal flaws, we must torch the bonfire of vanities fuelling it: the narrative that human CO₂, a trace gas comprising a mere 4% of the atmosphere's 0.04% CO₂, is the climate's overlord. Alarmists peddle this as gospel, justifying sky-spraying experiments to avert a "carbon crisis." Yet peer-reviewed science begs to differ. A Geomatics study by Ned Nikolov and Karl Zeller crunches satellite data to reveal that recent warming stems entirely from solar energy fluctuations and Earth's reflectivity (albedo) shifts, clouds thinning, oceans absorbing more rays, not CO₂'s ghostly grip. Their model, verified against NASA's CERES fluxes, shows sunlight and cloud cover explain 100% of the post-2000 heat-uptick, demanding a "fundamental reconsideration" of the carbon cult.
Then there's the carbon cycle itself. A Science Advances analysis traces atmospheric CO₂ growth to tropical temperature swings and El Niño pulses, natural variability, not fossil fuels. Over 40 years of data, "no signs of human (fossil fuel) CO₂ emissions can be discerned," with mankind's role "minor" in climatic evolution. Zoom out further: A landmark Science reconstruction of 485 million years of Earth's climate paints our era as the "coolest state" in Phanerozoic history. Hothouse hells dominated, icehouses were rare, 13% of the time, and life thrived without polar caps. Add a 50-year audit of doomsday predictions: Zero hits, from drowned cities to barren farms.
This isn't denial; it's data. Geoengineering's pretext? A manufactured panic, propping up a trillion-dollar green grift while ignoring nature's thermostat: the Sun. As Nikolov and Zeller quip, Earth's "undoubtedly gained heat" since 1980 via solar uptake, not SUV exhaust. Spraying the skies? It's like treating a sunburn with napalm.
Enter the Columbia quartet, Miranda Hack, V. Faye McNeill, Dan Steingart, and Gernot Wagner, their Scientific Reports paper a scalpel slicing through SAI's illusions. Forget the "hundreds of studies" modelling perfect puffs of particles; real-world grit, microphysics, geopolitics, economics, renders it unworkable. "The design space for a 'low-risk' SAI strategy... may be more limited than current literature reflects," they warn. Bluntly: It collapses.
1. Engineering's House of Cards. SAI's darlings, calcium carbonate, alumina, titanium dioxide, are "Geldart Group C" powders: dense, tiny, and stubbornly clumpy. They resist fluidisation, forming micron-sized aggregates that plummet like stones, not dispersing into a reflective veil. Busting them? You'd need aircraft with 100-fold pressure compressors or pressurised gas hauls, hardware that doesn't exist, spiking costs and crash risks. Sulphur's "simpler," but even it demands fleets of high-altitude behemoths, unbuilt and unaffordable.
2. Optical Implosion. Assume the miracle: Particles aloft. Then what? Aggregates balloon, slashing scattering efficiency. Fractal clumps with dimensions >1.5 barely reflect; worse, they absorb infrared, flipping cooling to heating. Sedimentation surges, demanding endless injections. "Near-0 forcing efficiency," the authors note, your geo-fix becomes a heat pump.
3. Resource Reckoning. Global SAI? Kiss goodbye to supply chains. Zirconia and industrial diamond demands would eclipse production; even "abundant" lime and alumina face 2-10x inflation under scaled schemes. "Inelastic" markets mean manufacturing cannibalisation, cars grounded, chips starved, for a fantasy fog.
SAI isn't a solo act; it's a symphony requiring UN-level harmony. Miss a beat? Chaos. Uncoordinated sprays, say, a rogue nation or Stardust going lone wolf, yield patchy veils: Skewed rain, wrecked monsoons, equatorial droughts. "Decentralised scenarios do not yield the control required," Columbia cautions, amplifying risks exponentially. Sulphates deplete ozone (Pinatubo redux); solids add aggregation roulette. No "low-risk" path exists, only trade-offs in a zero-sum terror.
Stardust's splashy raise underscores the folly: $60 million from VCs like Lowercarbon Capital, eyeing deployment by decade's end, particles secret as state secrets. CEO Yanai Yedvab vows "government-led governance," but with military-tied funders and no patents, it's a patent troll's dream: Hold the tech hostage, nations beg. Critics howl "reckless race," breaching UN moratoriums, risking ozone holes and acid rains without consent. As 590 scientists demand a non-use pact, Stardust accelerates, hubris on hypersonic.
Why pursue this folly? Psycho-politically, it's the elite's escape hatch: Admit natural cycles rule (as Nikolov-Zeller prove), and the carbon cartel crumbles, trillions in green bonds, EV mandates, net-zero edicts evaporate. Geoengineering? A technocratic talisman, promising control over chaos while dodging emission cuts that crimp corporate jets. It's Freudian: Humanity as Promethean child, stealing atmospheric fire, blind to blowback. The Columbia team's "risk space... constrained" plea? A eulogy for hubris.
Earth's 485-million-year ledger mocks the panic. Today's "crisis"? A coolhouse blip, sped by solar whims, not our whimsy. Failed prophecies, from Ehrlich's famines to Hansen's ice-free Arctics, expose the scam: Fear funds the fix.
Columbia's verdict is damning: SAI's "low-risk" mirage evaporates under scrutiny, particles clump, optics fail, chains snap, governance ghosts. Even "feasible" sulphates scar the ozone; solids summon unknowns. As Hack et al. concede, "no realistic 'low-risk' SAI strategy" endures. Stardust's sprint? A spark to tinder.
Ditch the sprays; embrace the cycles. Geoengineering isn't climate salvation, it's a catastrophe scripted by scientists playing God with a planet they don't command. Time to clip the wings before we all crash.
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