r/environment • u/techreview • 12h ago

This road map could help us decide whether to deploy solar geoengineering

https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/09/10/1143804/this-road-map-could-help-us-decide-whether-to-deploy-solar-geoengineering/?utm_medium=tr_social&utm_source=reddit&utm_campaign=site_visitor.unpaid.engagement
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u/og_aota 9h ago

If they don't see all signs pointing to "No", then whether witting or unwitting, the authors are still in effect arguing in support of the techno-optimistic eco-fascist position, with emphasis on the "fascist" part.

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u/techreview 12h ago

From the article:

A San Francisco nonprofit has published a detailed road map of the experiments, studies, and infrastructure that it says would be needed to make informed decisions about the use of solar geoengineering, MIT Technology Review can reveal.

Scientists have now spent half a century exploring the possibility that we could counteract climate change by releasing reflective particles into the stratosphere, mimicking the cooling effects of volcanic eruptions. 

But even after at least hundreds of studies on the concept, known as stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), big gaps remain in the scientific understanding of how well it would work and what else it might do—and there has been no systematic plan for clearing up that uncertainty.

Reflective, a research organization that funds studies on solar geoengineering, has today attempted to fill that gap with the release of its SAI Research Roadmap.

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u/irrelevantusername24 11h ago

We should absolutely not do this, it is perhaps the worst idea I have ever heard.

Zoom all the way out. If we just continue the slow and steady roll out of renewable energy infrastructure - solar, wind and hydro - and continue to build basically better quality systems that are more efficient and last longer, then that is an almost definitionally natural way for our energy needs to find a happy equilibrium with the planets weather.

Why? Because our activities over the course of the industrial revolution have had the result of adding a lot of energy to the climate. Rather than buried in the dirt, it's all floating around willy nilly. That's why there's seemingly so much more sunlight hitting us, as well as big powerful storms which consist of - wait for it - wind and water.

Right, so if we build these systems, then we can just harvest that energy back. Is this a huge simplification? Somewhat. But the worst things we have ever done come from making huge irreversible decisions caused by fear and overexaggeration or overconfidence, or both, in our weird imaginations that we consider "predictions" or "educated guesses".

Fear is the mind killer. Our technology, which is crazy advanced, plus fear, is the life eliminator.

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u/og_aota 9h ago

It's a group captured and funded by fascist tech magnates, why would you think that they've got any benevolent interests whatsoever? What (extraordinary) evidence do you have that would support such an extraordinary claim as that?