||| FROM THE TELEGRAPH |||
Experiments to dim sunlight to fight global warming will be given the green light by the Government within weeks.
Outdoor field trials which could include injecting aerosols into the atmosphere, or brightening clouds to reflect sunshine, are being considered by scientists as a way to prevent runaway climate change.
Aria, the Government’s advanced research and invention funding agency, has set aside £50 million for projects, which will be announced in the coming weeks.
Prof Mark Symes, the programme director for Aria (Advanced Research and Invention Agency), said there would be “small controlled outdoor experiments on particular approaches”.
“We will be announcing who we have given funding to in a few weeks and when we do so, we will be making clear when any outdoor experiments might be taking place,” he said.
“One of the missing pieces in this debate was physical data from the real world. Models can only tell us so much.
“Everything we do is going to be safe by design. We’re absolutely committed to responsible research, including responsible outdoor research.
“We have strong requirements around the length of time experiments can run for and their reversibility and we won’t be funding the release of any toxic substances to the environment.”
Geoengineering projects which seek to artificially alter the climate have proven controversial, with critics arguing they could bring damaging knock-on effects, as well as being an unhelpful distraction from lowering emissions.
However, scientists are increasingly concerned that carbon dioxide levels are not falling fast enough and that further action may be needed to prevent catastrophic warming.
One major area of research is sunlight reflection methods, which includes stratospheric aerosol injection whereby tiny particles are released into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight.
Another potential solution is marine cloud brightening in which ships would spray sea-salt particles into the sky to enhance the reflectivity of low-lying clouds.
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Note: This is not the U.S., it’s the U.K. Here’s another article on it, from the Manchester Guardian.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/22/uk-scientists-outdoor-geoengineering-experiments
The atmosphere is not aware of national borders.
We’ve already dimmed the sun via pollution to “hide” about +1C of global warming. Recent efforts to reduce ship air pollution (by dumping it into the oceans instead) and by China to reduce coal fired power plant pollution have contributed to accelerating global warming (ironic!). It’s kinda funny they put rules in place to reduce ship sulfate emissions and now want to spray the atmosphere with… yup! sulfates to dim the sun.
As we know, if humans *can* do it, we *will* do it. “We must study geo-engineering even if we never use it” is just hogwash. Besides, we’re already geo-engineering the atmosphere with CO2, CH4, and pollution galore.
Once we “dim” the sun, we can never stop, as long as we continue to burn fossil fuels and destroying ecosystems – both of which emit CO2 and CH4 – because reducing or eliminating the dimming later means essentially instant warming (as we’ve learned from the ship experiment!). It is fully expected that if we begin geo-engineering to intentionally dim the sun (as opposed to dimming simply as a by-product of pollution) that we will then use that as an excuse to keep burning fossil fuels. Which means we’d have to continue geo-engineering forever. Just like we have to keep maintaining the tailings dams forever. And remediating mine effluent forever. “Forever” doesn’t exist on human time scales, therefore, there will come a day when the money runs out or the willpower runs out or a war gets in the way and these activities will stop, and then, as Robert Louis Stevenson wrote, “Sooner or later we all sit down to a banquet of consequences.”
FAFO.
Better never than late. This gives a whole new meaning to April FOOLS’ Day.