The Washington Post reports that, for as little as $1, a person can dim the sun a bit to allegedly save the world from climate change. That is the claim made by a California start-up called "Make Sunsets."
A dollar will pay for the company founder to drive an RV into the hills half an hour outside of Saratoga, California, to release a balloon loaded with sulfur dioxide, which is normally spewed by volcanic eruptions. This is in hopes that the balloon will burst high up in the atmosphere and release particles that will block sunlight and cool the planet.
While this practice is not approved by any government or illegal in California, it is riddled with controversy as a part of “solar geoengineering.”
Climatologist David Legates of the Cornwall Alliance is not buying it.
"It's one of the more ludicrous things I've seen. The idea is that you can take a balloon full of sulfur dioxide, release into the atmosphere, and simulate what's happening with a volcano. It's the comparative amount of how much sulfur dioxide you have in a balloon relative to what's being produced by a major volcanic eruption,” states Legates. “To say it's orders of magnitude different understates the case."
He said that the balloon would not make it up to the desired part of the atmosphere.
"I'm not sure how that's going to happen because sulfur dioxide is heavier than air, but nevertheless, let's assume we do get it to rise. Once it gets to the tropopause, the stratosphere above that is going to start to warm, and therefore, the rising motion is going to start to decrease,” says Legates.
He said that he does not know how someone’s balloon could get through all that.
“So, it's probably going to pop and release whatever he's put in there to the troposphere where it's going to rain out fairly quickly," states Legates.
Legates said that it seems to be a complete waste of effort.
