(OPINION) ETH – Scientists want to spread dust in the upper atmosphere to see if it will stop climate change. The idea is to dump calcium carbonate, basically chalk dust, into the stratosphere to block some of the sun’s rays with the hope of halting the climate from warming. It’s called Stratospheric Aerosol Injection or SAI.
The media calls it Bill Gates’ idea, but Gates is only one of many people funding the research and it isn’t his idea, it’s Harvard’s. The test launch for the project next month in Sweden was canceled after people complained. But there’s likely to be another test in the future because some scientists think this could work, while others say it’s a very bad idea.
A video made by the German science foundation Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung shows how it could all go terribly wrong. It says of Stratospheric Aerosol Injection that “It is unlikely that cooling of the planet could be achieved in a uniform way. SAI would therefore produce regional winners and losers.
The total global rainfall would be less. In Asia, SAI could upset the complex system governing the monsoon, on which the water and food supply of 2 billion people depends.” It could also lead to droughts in Africa and flooding in Latin America. Experts admit they aren’t sure what would happen if the sun was dimmed, but we know when it has happened because of natural processes, the result was not good.
The year 1816 in the United States was called “the year without summer,” or “Eighteen hundred and froze to death.” Scientists now believe it was a “volcanic winter” created by a huge eruption in the south Pacific. As volcanic ash circled the globe, a strange fog began to appear in the eastern United States and the month of June suddenly saw freezing winter-like temperatures that wiped out crops and livestock and led to famines. READ MORE
