The Plan B Post: May 15, 2024

Your free weekly update on the latest news about chilling the earth with geo-engineering.

This week: Conspiracy theorists discern evil intentions in Brazilian floods. And Harvard’s David Keith points out that we can’t even manage the internet, much less responsibly govern geoengineering.

Neue Zürcher Zeitung

Dimming the sun to cool the earth: Is solar geoengineering the future?

The researchers projected an effort to spray sulfur particles into the stratosphere via over 6,700 flights per day for 160 years to stabilize global warming at 2 degrees Celsius, while other measures were taken to reduce carbon from the atmosphere. "SAI is not a solution, but should only ever be used as a supplement."

Boston Globe

Commentary: Combat climate change thru geoengineering

The idea that cutting carbon emissions to zero in a short time frame is the only correct policy is absurd and failing. If the West Antarctic ice sheet were to start slipping into the ocean—which would be a global disaster—no standard fossil fuel policy could make any significant change. Geoengineering is the only feasible way to stop or reverse the increase in temperature quickly and at a low cost. It offers a price tag in the low hundreds of billions of dollars over the 21st century, compared to standard policy costing tens of thousands of times more.

San Francisco Chronicle

“Controversial” geoengineering experiment stopped by Alameda officials

The city of Alameda has ordered the University of Washington to halt a marine cloud brightening experiment that involved shooting salt water into the air from the deck of the USS Hornet — a decommissioned aircraft carrier — citing health and environmental safety concerns.

Washington Post

Biden and oil companies like this climate tech. Many Americans do not.

ExxonMobil and the Biden administration plan to capture emissions from power plants and store them underground on 100,000 acres, aiming to combat global warming and net-zero the electricity grid by 2035. Critics argue this could delay the transition to renewable energy and pollute the environment in places where the gas is to be stored.

Cool Down

State lawmakers pass bill: 'This is not a fringe movement'

Since the 1990s, conspiracy theorists have hypothesized about "chemtrails," secret chemicals released by airplanes to control the population or conduct experiments. Tennessee's state legislature passed a bill targeting solar geoengineering in a nod to conspiracy theories that forecloses on a potential tool to fight global warming. Tennessee's bill aims to ban the release of chemicals to affect temperature, weather, or sunlight intensity. While contrails do trap heat, science explains them without needing added chemical theories.

BBVA OpenMind

Solar Geoengineering to Cool Down Our Planet

Nobody should be playing with our planet’s temperature. That’s why we’re worried about climate change. Solar geoengineering has its own set of risks. But if you are looking for a risk-free solution to climate change, you’re naive. Nor can we make sure it is responsibly governed. After all, there are many sorts of things we can’t govern responsibly, including the internet, the distribution of vaccines, and emissions cuts.

Business Insider

Floods in Brazil spark conspiracy theories over toxic jet vapor trails

Bizarre online conspiracy theories have cropped up over what's behind recent floods in Brazil. Social media users blamed antenas in Alaska, vapor trails, cloud seeding, and geoengineering. They blame everything but the warmer atmosphere, which can store much more water vapor and thus lead to more frequent and intense rainfall.

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