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andyjsong

Time to deploy sulfate aerosols in the stratosphere https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/73f7f362-9890-4375-9a92-1...
Re:As Oceans Warm, Great White Sharks Are Overheating on Friday May 01, 2026 @07:57PM (#47981888)
related and addresses your concerns from one of the leading scientists in stratospheric aerosol injection: https://davidkeith.earth/stardust-is-tackling-the-wrong-prob...
Re:Who Funds Misfit Research? on Wednesday September 24, 2025 @11:35PM (#45369024)
I think you answered your own question. But to clarify, we applied for SBIRs, but were never awarded, yet.
Re:Who Funds Misfit Research? on Wednesday September 24, 2025 @12:32PM (#45362709)
For those who want a live example:

MakeSunsets has raised ~$1.8M from angels + VCs and another ~$133K in Cooling Credit sales over the past 12 months from individuals [1]. These purchases directly fund stratospheric aerosol injection — bringing awareness and cooling the Earth.

We’ve applied to SBIRs, explored DAOs, crowdfunding platforms, and are in conversations with family offices and UHNWI.

Most of our closed deals? They’ve come from Twitter and Substack. The key: talking directly to decision-makers — not committees.

[1] Climate dads: https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0685/0042/2976/files/Make_...

Re:Make Sunsets: Geoengineering on Wednesday September 24, 2025 @03:31AM (#45357373)
>I just finished reading Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson.

What took you so long? :) The book came out in 2021. He's even written about Make Sunsets in his substack: https://x.com/MakeSunsets/status/1871734075008115081

Augment and repair are not the right words here. Since the Industrial Revolution, we've already been cooling the Earth by influencing radiative forcing; we're just doing it the worst way possible, by applying sunscreen at the wrong altitude (troposphere) and using too much of it.

Here's further reading if you'd like to learn more https://www.keepcool.co/p/no-one-is-coming-to-save-us-time-t...

We're doing deliberate tests with sulfur dioxide instead of CaCO3, more info here: https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/so2-injection
Great, we conduct artificial stratovolcanic eruptions in NorCal every month: https://makesunsets.com/products/join-the-next-balloon-launc...
https://www.economist.com/interactive/asia/2025/05/28/if-ind...

TL;DR India should be hotter, but due to sulfur dioxide emissions at ground level the rate of warming is a third less. For reference, the current rate of warming is ~0.25C per decade.

Re:gwern helps cool Earth on Tuesday June 24, 2025 @03:17PM (#44369881)
Here's a good primer: https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/so2-injection

Risk vs. Benefits: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2025/01/ma...

Or the scientist Bill Gates calls when he wants to learn about climate change: https://makesunsets.com/blogs/news/optional-climate-change

Termination shock is already happening as we've been decreasing the amount of SO2 in the air we breathe. Peak global SO2 emissions were 131 million tons in 1979. Now it's 69 million as of 2022. We've been removing the sunscreen that unintentionally cooled the Earth, and one of the reasons why 2023 and 2024 were the hottest in recorded history.

If you want to understand the risks of doing vs. not doing SAI check out this recently published paper: https://climate.uchicago.edu/insights/comparing-the-benefits...

The next step is to redeploy the SO2 that has unintentionally cooled Earth and do it better in the stratosphere with a fractional amount that we've tolerated since the start of the Industrial Revolution.

Here's an article I recently wrote if you want to understand from a macro-level: https://www.keepcool.co/p/no-one-is-coming-to-save-us-time-t...

The last point about "fossil fuels can continue" is also called moral hazard. Regardless of SAI or not, we're going to keep using whatever is the cheapest and accessible fuel we have available, and right now, it's hydrocarbons pulled from the ground. We've already gotten good at recklessly warming our planet and unintentionally cooling it, so we might as well get good at cooling intentionally.

If you think there is a chance we're going to start deploying stratospheric aerosol injection, might as well get good at it, if you want to help scale up deployments: https://makesunsets.com/products/join-the-next-balloon-launc...
Thanks for sharing the link! The article focuses on Marine Cloud Brightening (MCB), an unscalable method of solar radiation management. MCB would require thousands of autonomous boats (ideally running without fossil fuels) to locate suitable low-altitude ocean clouds and spray them with finely misted saltwater to increase their reflectivity. At best, this method might achieve localized cooling over ocean areas, but its net impact on global temperatures remains uncertain—scientists are still debating whether it would result in overall cooling or even exacerbate warming in some regions.

The specific experiment mentioned in the article was halted due to a lack of community engagement. The organizers failed to inform or invite the local mayor to the deployment event, leading to public backlash when residents learned about it from the New York Times. Much of the misunderstanding came from a perception that the experiment involved risky technology, though in reality, it was as simple as using a patio mister mounted on a retired warship.

What I was referencing, however, is Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI), which differs significantly from MCB in both the type of aerosol used (typically sulfur dioxide, SO₂) and the location of the injection (the stratosphere, rather than the lower atmosphere). If you're interested in learning more about SAI, here's an excellent primer: https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/so2-injection

It's not banned, where are you getting this information? We've deployed 124 times for our customers mostly in Northern California. If you want to learn more: https://makesunsets.com/pages/new-faq
Re:Global Warming Is Accelerating on Monday March 04, 2024 @01:05PM (#39593723)
There's only one thing we can do today to delay it before we burn, enough to solve the problem: SO2 injection
They will probably profit from the solution regardless of where you decide to send your support. For example, one of the byproducts of oil refining is sulfur. If you burn sulfur in the presence of oxygen will turn into SO2. Then you can put up in the stratosphere and cool Earth until the last drop of petrochemical is burned or alternative energy is close to free and as accessible as oil and gas.

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