Rogue Private Companies Trying To Stop Climate Change In Potentially Dangerous, Risky Ways

A company called Make Sunsets wants to pump 
sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere to blunt
climate change. Sounds good, but a lot 
can go wrong with this idea. 

You can combat climate change, at least a little, for just $1.00.  The problem is, that $1 to fight climate change might backfire enough to make climate change seem like a trifle. 

The dollar would go to a private company called Make Sunsets. As the Washington Post explains:

"Your dollar will pay for founder Luke Iseman to drive a Winnebago RV into the hills half an hour outside Saratoga, California, to release a balloon loaded with sulfur dioxide, an air pollutant normally spewed by volcanic eruptions. He and his 1,000 paying customers hope the balloon will burst in the stratosphere, releasing particles that will block sunlight and cool the planet."

Of course, just one of those little balloons won't have any effect on climate change. Make Sunsets has released just over 240 pounds of sulfur dioxide this year. You need to release millions of tons of that chemical every year to change global temperatures. 

For instance, in 1991, the Mount Pinatubo volcano erupted in what was easily among the biggest eruptions in a century. It released 15 million tons of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere.  

That eruption dropped global temperatures by about 1 degree Fahrenheit for nearly two years. But those cooler temperatures were still above the 20th century average. 

Still, as the WaPo points out, private businesses are diving into the idea of blocking the sun through chemicals. "Make Sunsets has raised more than $1 million from investors and sold more than $100,000 worth of 'cooling credits' to customers this fall. A better-funded competitor, Stardust, has raised $75 million to develop a more sophisticated geo engineering method it says will be ready to launch by the end of the decade- although its founders vow they won't deploy their technology unless a government hires them to do so." 

These companies are jumping in because they say scientists and governments are too slow and plodding with possible solutions to climate change. So they want to speed it up. Reading between the lines, these companies want to make a pile of money and fast.  

There is reason why these scientists and governments are so "slow and plodding." 

The technologies these companies are playing with could have really bad unintended consequences, like altering global weather patterns in ways that could be even more dangerous than climate change. These tech ideas could increase air pollution and cancer rates.

 Here'a a pertinent quote in that Washington Post piece:

"'I do not trust the private sector to make good decisions for people,' said Shuchi Galati, founder of the nonprofit Alliance for Just Deliberation on Solar Geoengineering. 'The whole move-fast-and-break-things ethos - I've see it and it hasn't gone particularly well for society."

Most governments don't have specific laws banning geoengineering. But remember those kinda wacky laws in some states, and a Marjorie Taylor Greene-sponsored piece of legislation that banned weather modification due to unfounded fears of chemtrails?  Those laws might just apply to these geoengineering firms. 

The Trump administration Environmental Protection Agency has already gone after Make Sunsets for the minuscule amount of sulfur dioxide the company has put into the air. Which is a bit rich, since the Trump people have rolled back regulations that were helping reduce fossil fuel emissions.  The most obvious way to fight climate change is getting rid of fossil fuel, but that would make the Trump people unhappy. So we can't have that. 

But even if every nation in the world enacted laws and regulations banning freelance methods of trying to blunt climate change, like pumping sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, that might not stop real trouble.  A few rogue  billionaires will probably try to get around nations' "stupid laws"  - possibly at humanity's expense. 

HOW IT GOES SOUTH

Luke Iseman, the founder of Make Sunsets, said he got the idea for his business from the science fiction novel "Termination Shock." The premise of the novel is that billionaires take it upon themselves to fight climate change. 

In the book, a Texas billionaire launches a geoengineering project that does save low lying areas from sea level rise, but also introduces a brutal, deadly drought elsewhere. Obviously, a lot more goes on that in the story, but the book's title refers to the concept that once a geoengineering project starts, abruptly stopping it later results in skyrocketing warming, which is called termination shock. 

Termination shock would have the world abruptly warm to the high levels you would have had if you didn't reduce fossil fuel usage, and never tried to block the sun with sulfur dioxide, or whatever you're trying to use to do that . 

Remember how within a couple years after Pinatubo blew up in 1991, climate change picked up where it left off? That was a couple years. The world without Pinatubo's sulfer dioxide wasn't that much warmer in 1993 than it was in 1990.  In the grand scheme of things, mankind didn't have to make many quick adjustments due to a new climate.

Now imagine if we cut off climate change today by spraying the stratosphere with sulfur dioxide and kept doing it until, say, 2060.  Suddenly, within a year, maybe 18 months after 2060, the world abruptly warms from something like we have now, which is bad enough, to something dangerously hotter. 

It's hard enough adapting to climate change at the pace it's going now. Imagine trying to deal with the sudden extreme heat, even more extreme storms and gawd knows what else if global temperature spikes incredibly sharply in a year or two. 

Then imagine the cascading food shortages, disasters and resulting civil unrest, mass migration and war this snap-of-the-fingers change might bring.  There's a recipe for a dystopian novel at best, an incredibly grim future at worst

The trouble with some (most?) billionaires is that they think they're the Enlightened Ones, who are smarter than everybody else. So they'll just do what they want because their narcissism makes them think they can save the world. Or at least add to their billions in cash they have piled up. 

 The minions the billionaires collect like dust bunnies under the sofa will do it.  (That's why Congress kowtows to the 1% so much nowadays. They want their take of the profits.

Here's the Washington Post quote from Iseman himself:

"If every country in the world bans this, and a billionaire comes to me and says, 'Here's a boat with a flag of convenience that's not going to enforce the ban...I want to take credit if people like it and have plausible deniability if they don't. Go. You know, I can think of no better way to spend the next several years."

The plausible deniability part of the quote really had my eyes rolling to the back of my head.  

What happens when the billionaire runs out of money, or more likely loses interest in the geoengineering project as fast as a dude with ADHD loses interest in any boring spreadsheet you put in front of him? . 

Billionaires almost never suffer the consequences of what they start. So when the climate really goes haywire when the said billionaire abandons his little sulfur dioxide scheme,   he'll be whisked to his safe private island, safe from the global chaos he's created. 

While the rest of us rubes pay the consequences.  

Don't Say "Climate": Northeast Climate Center To Close Under Trump Fears Of Science

The Northeast Regional Climate Center looks like
it will be another victim in the Trump war
on climate science 

The Northeast Regional Climate Adaptation Center in Amherst, Massachusetts will probably close by the end of the month because the Trump administration doesn't want anybody researching anything to do with climate change. 

The center is Public Enemy #1 in the eyes of the Trump people because it helps state and local partners formulate plants to adapt wildlife, water resources and land to climate change. 

"'This is just another way to stop science," said Bethany Bradley, the center's co-director and a professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where the research center is hosted.

As WBUR reports:  

"In mid-August, the federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB) directed the agency's ecosystems  research arm, which overseas these centers, to spend money only on federal employees' salaries, according to budget documents.  

Other spending, on activities like publishing articles, hiring post-doctoral researchers, or applying for operating funds, has stalled, Bradley said. Planned projects for the upcoming academic year were canceled. In a typical year, the center's budget ranges from $3 to $4 million."

The center runs out of money at the end of this month.  If the OMB spending freeze isn't lifted, the center will close and 20 or so jobs might go.

It's just another of many climate change resources evaporating under the gun of the Trump administration. This center in Amherst is one of nine regional hubs across the nations that helps site and local organizations formulate plans to adapt wildlife, water resources and land to the effects of climate change. The nine regional hubs have been supported by the U.S. Geological Survey.

Several other of the nine regional climate centers in the United States have already shut down or are about to under the spending freeze. 

MY RANT

What galls me the about these climate cutbacks from the Trump administration is the wording they use about these topics. Of course their wording is meant to anger "woke liberals" or whatever they call anybody who disagrees with them.

To MAGA, people who think climate change is a serious thing aren't just wrong or misguided.  They are the enemy. That's why the funding freeze described by the White House "guts a weaponized deep state" and that efforts to combat the effects of climate change are the "Green New Scam."

I suppose it's effective PR, especially if the target audience is willfully ignorant. And for the MAGA crowd,  it probably feels good inside to use language like that.   

You can have temper tantrums all you want, but nothing gets done. Which maybe is the point. Why do actual work when you can put on an impromptu, easy show instead? Mostly for likes and clicks on MAGA social media. 

Who cares if peoples livelihoods are at stake, right?  President Trump, you're 79 years old. Isn't it time to grow up?

Humid Heat Wave Abruptly Changes Policy At U.S. Open

Novak Djokovic holds ice bags against his head
Tuesday at the U.S.Open to combat the high
heat and humidity during this year's tournament.

The U.S. Open Tennis Championships are in full swing in New York, and like here in Vermont, the weather is atrocious. 

It's hot. It's really humid. Players are suffering from the heat, as anyone who has watched even a snippet of the tournament today and yesterday have noticed. Temperatures in New York this afternoon were in the low 90s, with a heat index in the 95 or 96 degree range.

That's very dangerous for people engaged in heavy physical exertion, like a professional tennis match. 

Until now, the retractable roof at the Arthur Ashe Stadium was always open during matches unless it was raining. But it's so hot this year, they abruptly changed that policy. They are not partly closing the stadium roof to provide extra shade.  

According to NBC New York:

"The (Tuesday) change to the roof policy was made during Coco Gaff's 6-0, 6-2 victory over Jelena Ostapenko, when the conditions crossed a threshold for protecting players in the heat, but that match was over too quickly to adjust the retractable cover, tournament referee Jake Garner told The Associated Press."

An AP analysis indicates high temperatures during the U.S Open and three other major tennis tournaments have gotten higher and more dangerous in recent decades, reflecting climate change trends.  At best, the heat prevents athletes from performing at their top levels, and at worse, can give them risky heat illnesses.  

Biden's Climate Plan Steers The U.S. Onto A New Course

President Joe Biden has sweeping plans to tackle 
climate change. The proof will be in the pudding. Let's
see, and hope, that most of his policy
package goes forward.

Well, he's taking a stab at it.   

President Joe Biden held "climate day" Wednesday in which he unveiled plans to sharply redirect how this nation manages its energy resources in the age of climate change. 

As Biden has been doing since he took office a week ago, he took a number of executive orders to mostly undo the executive actions of his predecessor, Donald Trump.

In doing so, though, Biden is seeking to seriously change how energy is created and used across the broad economy. The plan has a major jobs component, and also includes dealing with the link between climate and social justice. 

Fossil fuels are taking a clear hit, while renewables win big with Biden's plans.  As the Associated Press reports, the president, for starters, is pausing oil and gas leasing on federal land, and targeting subsidies for the fossil fuel industry. 

Under his plan, Biden would double the nation's offshore wind energy, and the federal vehicle fleet would be all-electric.  

Overall, Biden's goal is to eliminate pollution from fossil fuel from power plants by 2035 and from the entire U.S. economy by 2050.

In that regard, the wind is at Biden's back, so to speak.  For fans of the free market, the economy is headed in that direction anyway, driven by changing buying patterns in industry and among consumers. 

The solar and wind energy industry has mostly been booming, oil and gas have been "meh" at best. (Oil and gas business is expected to rebound after Covid and its attendant recession fade, but this industry is not expected to grow above pre-Covid levels.

And coal is basically fading away. 

Pretty much everybody assumes Biden is about to be hit with political blowback, as his plans don't exactly help the oil, gas and coal industry. 

However, the risks from climate change on the whole is bigger than fossil fuel companies, and Biden insists his climate-friendly moves are a job maker, not a job killer.

"When I think of climate change and the answers to it, I think of jobs.....We're going to put people to work. We're not going to lose jobs. These aren't pie-in-thy-sky dreams. These are concrete actionable solutions. And we know how to do this," Biden said. 

I can see how that might come true. The fact of the matter, though, is some people in the fossil fuel industry will need to find other lines of work.  That might not be too difficult, especially if we enter into a "Roaring 20s" economy once the pandemic finally fades. 

Still, Republicans will try to make hay out of the likely job losses in fossil fuel industry. They will probably say that Biden is killing "real American jobs" and only suggesting the clean energy jobs are lame. Appealing to their base, maybe they'll hint these new jobs are not "manly" perhaps. 

A more real problem is that regions that have a lot of fossil fuel employment might not recover easily as the industry fades, but then other parts of the United States will do better. 

Generally speaking, most of the fossil fuel industry jobs are in "red" states, so this could further exacerbate our terrible political divide.

When I say that, I'm not minimizing the climate risk at all. Biden does need to combat climate change shoulder to shoulder with the rest of the world. 

After all, the costs are too high. Even if you want to think America First, we already are first, at least in 2020, for weather disasters, most of which were made worse by climate change.

The world suffered 50 weather related disasters each costing $1 billion in 2020, according to Aon an insurer broker. Of those, at least 22 of them were in the United States - 27 if you go by Aon's count. 

These are the highest numbers for billion dollar disasters on record. And yes, all the figures are adjusted for inflation. 

There has been and always will be huge weather disasters, with or without climate change. But the trend is clearly going up, and that's partly due to climate change. 

Biden's bet is the cost of investing in climate change mitigation is worth the investment to prevent some future deaths and destruction. Climate change is sort of Biden's Covid fight, writ large. 

For more details on the Biden Administration's climate plan, click here.