Solar Geoengineering Experiment Secretly Kicks Off in California
Editor’s Note: Our readers responded strongly to this story when it originally ran; we’re reposting it here in case you missed it.
I can’t decide whether to be nervous about this or not. Maybe you can help me out.
According to Scientific American, scientists launched a project in early April in San Francisco Bay to combat global warming by spraying “microscopic salt crystals” into the air to create clouds that reflect more of the sun’s rays back out into space.
On the one hand, I’m not a big believer in man-made climate change. I believe the climate may be changing — it’s an awfully large and complex subject about which to rule anything definitively in or out — but science tells us it pretty much always has been, so whether or not humanity is having much of an impact on such a ginormous system as the entire planetary climate remains debatable.
On the other hand, these folks in San Francisco are intentionally trying to alter the climate, and I do have a great deal of faith in mankind’s ability to accomplish even the most challenging of goals — especially when the results of those achievements may be detrimental to human flourishing.
And, according to Scientific American, “[t]he risks are numerous” that that type of environmental manipulation will not turn out as expected.
Researchers from the University of Washington launched the salt particles from the USS Hornet, a decommissioned aircraft carrier.
The experiment was kept under wraps until it was already in progress “to avoid public backlash,” the outlet reported.
That secrecy surrounding the Coastal Atmospheric Aerosol Research and Engagement, or CAARE project, was no accident, according to Scientific American.
“The University of Washington and SilverLining, a geoengineering research advocacy group involved in the CAARE project, declined interview requests,” the report stated. “The mayor of Alameda, where the experiment is being conducted, didn’t respond to emailed questions about the project.”
“The idea of interfering with nature is so contentious, organizers of [the April 2] test kept the details tightly held, concerned that critics would try to stop them,” reported The New York Times, one of only two outlets invited to cover the first day of the project. (The other was the San Francisco Chronicle.)
Even the White House issued a statement that “distanced itself” from the experiment, according to the Times.
Because keeping things secret is always the best way to build public trust. Or, perhaps more likely, because the elitist leftists in charge just don’t believe the public has a right to know about such things — or even that they could handle the information if it were provided to them.
Scientific American noted that a similar experiment near Sweden was canceled last month after indigenous groups protested.
“Every year that we have new records of climate change, and record temperatures, heat waves, it’s driving the field to look at more alternatives,” Robert Wood, the lead scientist for the team behind the project, told the Times. “Even ones that may have once been relatively extreme.”
Even climate activists agree with that description. Two such people cited by the Times described the experiment as “scary” and “extraordinarily dangerous.” Even one of the researchers running the project expressed the hope that it would never actually be needed.
Those are alarming quotes. On the other hand, they come from people with a history of saying alarming things that I’m not necessarily in full agreement with. So, again, I’m not sure what to think.
What about you? Do we have cause for concern here, or is it just one more piece of bait for the fear-mongering establishment media to distract us with?
Let me know if you figure it out.
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