Bill Gates-Backed Plan To Dim the Sun Moves Forward

Bill Gates, among others, is backing the Harvard Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment. The SCoPEx is researching a form of “geoengineering” to prevent global warming. In this case, they’re exploring the idea of spraying tiny particles into the air to reflect sunlight and make the earth cooler. Towards that end, Harvard scientists are planning to fly a balloon full of equipment 12 miles above Sweden next year to gather data.

People across the ideological spectrum are not fans of this idea. The main argument from the Left is that this could keep people from cutting back on carbon emissions.

The argument from the Right would be that for all of our big talk about the climate, we know so little about it, that we’re like chimps playing with shotguns. We can’t even accurately model climate change on the earth or do a good job of explaining it, so why would anyone believe we’re competent enough to start tampering with something like sunlight on a global scale?

The conservative argument is spot-on, while the liberal argument has much less merit. It is true that people that if geoengineering solutions worked, there wouldn’t be a need to cut carbon emissions, but even if you buy into manmade carbon emissions causing global warming (Which we shouldn’t without a lot more research), there is no fix for it without advances in technology. It doesn’t matter what they pledge, nations like China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Russia are not going to cripple their economies today because MAYBE the planet might be slightly warmer in 100 years. That makes it futile to try to fix this politically.

More