Billionaire-backed nongovernmental organizations (NGO) persist with aerosol sunlight-blocking efforts despite setbacks, The Daily Caller reported.
The initiative aims to lower global temperatures by brightening clouds, making them more reflective of sunlight. However, local officials in California have been reluctant to allow scientists to spray aerosols, such as liquefied salt, into the atmosphere. Despite these hurdles, many of the program’s financial supporters, including Hyatt Hotels heiress Rachel Pritzker, remain undeterred.
"The Pritzker Innovation Fund believes in the importance of research that helps improve climate models and enables policymakers and the public to understand better whether climate interventions like marine cloud brightening are feasible and advisable," Pritzker said in a statement to Politico. "We will only get answers to these questions through open research that can inform science-based, democratic decision-making."
"We remain firmly committed to advancing transparent, equitable, and science-based approaches to understand and potentially mitigate climate risks," said Greg De Temmerman, chief science and programs officer of The Quadrature Climate Foundation. The foundation is an NGO associated with the U.K.-based hedge fund Quadrature Capital.
The Alameda experiment, planned to last for months, operated for just 20 minutes. This premature end was partly due to researchers announcing the project in The New York Times before notifying the city.
Politico said this is the second billionaire-funded stratospheric aerosol injection project to fail in recent months. The first project, led by Harvard in northern Sweden, was shut down in March due to opposition from environmental groups and Indigenous communities worried about its effects on weather systems.
Jim Thomas ✉
Jim Thomas is a writer based in Indiana. He holds a bachelor's degree in Political Science, a law degree from U.I.C. Law School, and has practiced law for more than 20 years.
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