Billionaire-backed non-governmental organizations (NGO) behind a bungled experiment to block sunlight using aerosols in California have vowed to continue their efforts, Politico reported on Wednesday.
The initiative, which aims to lower global temperatures by making clouds brighter and thus better able to reflect sun rays, has faced hurdles as local officials in California are hesitant to allow scientists to spray the aerosols, such as liquefied salt, into the atmosphere. Nonetheless many of the program’s financial backers, including Hyatt Hotel heiress Rachel Pritzker, remain undeterred, according to Politico.
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“The Pritzker Innovation Fund believes in the importance of research that helps improve climate models and enables policymakers and the public to better understand whether climate interventions like marine cloud brightening are feasible and advisable,” Rachel Pritzker said in a statement to Politico responding to the public backlash against the Alameda experiment. “We will only get answers to these questions through open research that can inform science-based, democratic decision-making.”
“We remain firmly committed to advancing transparent, equitable, and science-based approaches to understand and potentially mitigate climate risks,” Greg De Temmerman, chief science and programs officer of The Quadrature Climate Foundation – an NGO tied to UK-based hedge fund Quadrature Capital, told Politico.
The Alameda experiment operated for a grand total of 20 minutes despite being slated to last for months, in part because researchers chose to announce the project in The New York Times before notifying the city, according to Politico.
The project is the second billionaire-backed stratospheric aerosol injection project to fall apart in recent months.
In March, a similar Harvard-led project in northern Sweden ended after facing pushback from environmentalists and Indigenous communities who were concerned about the study’s effect on weather patterns, Politico reported.
The University of Washington, SilverLining NGO, SRI International, The Quadrature Foundation and crypto billionaire Chris Larsen’s Larsen Lam Climate Change Foundation – all of which were also involved in conducting or funding the Alameda experiment according to Politico – did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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