While wealth can breed big egos, Bill Gates apparently doesn’t yet believe he can just wave his hand and make the sun go dark. So instead, the world’s fourth-richest man is using part of his $124 billion fortune to support research designed to “dim the sun” — all as part of a plan to combat “global warming.”
“Dim sun” may sound like a Chinese dish. But it actually describes serious Harvard University research involving the idea of spraying calcium carbonate (CaCO3) dust into the atmosphere to form a particulate shield that would reflect sunlight away from the Earth. My, what could possibly go wrong?
Unsurprisingly, many scientists and notable figures have warned of the scheme’s dangers. Among them is Apocalypse Never author Michael Shellenberger, who called the idea “bonkers” and “grossly irresponsible” in a Thursday Tucker Carlson Tonight appearance.
Western Journal provided detail late last year on what he was criticizing, writing:
The project represents one of the most controversial aspects of what’s known as “geoengineering” — the idea that, to tackle issues like climate change, massive aspects of our ecosystem can be played with or changed. In this case, it would involve reflecting some of the sun’s rays to stop them from reaching Earth.
“Open-air research into spraying tiny, sun-reflecting particles into the stratosphere, to offset global warming, has been stalled for years by controversies — including that it could discourage needed cuts in greenhouse gas emissions,” Reuters reported.
… The Harvard team, whose project is known as SCoPEx [Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment], is funded in large part by Gates, according to an August report in the U.K. Daily Mail. (Which gave the subject the wordy title: “Could dimming the sun save the Earth? Bill Gates wants to spray millions of tonnes of dust into the stratosphere to stop global warming… but critics fear it could trigger calamity”)
Speaking of which, “I’ve co-authored articles with the Harvard investigator,” Shellenberger told host Carlson Thursday. “We’ve told him personally this is a terrible idea. The vast majority of scientists disagree with this.”
“What they are proposing to do is identical to what we feared would occur after nuclear war in the 1980s, which is nuclear winter, the idea that you cool the planet deliberately. The effects on crops are completely unknown. They call this an experiment, but they know that there is no way to figure out what the large-scale planetary effects of this kind of thing would be.”
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He isn’t kidding. Because according to Forbes, even “Frank Keutsch — who’s the project’s top investigator — quote, ‘does not know what the results might bring,’” Carlson related (video below).
Yes, well, as with Nancy Pelosi and passing ObamaCare “so that you can find out what is in it,” I guess we have to do the experiment so we can find out what happens. And buy some land at the equator just in case.
It’s bad enough that we’ve wasted billions and perhaps trillions of dollars worldwide driven by political opportunism and Chicken Little, doomsday fears when there’s no actual evidence that man-caused climate change is profound or a threat. Now scientists would perhaps create what they claim to want to prevent: a climate catastrophe.
It’s reminiscent of Michael Crichton’s techno-thriller Jurassic Park, which “teaches us that no matter how advanced technology becomes, we will never be able to completely control nature,” as FEE.com put it in 2017. Crichton’s story merely involved what’s likely a tenable endeavor, however: using cloning to resurrect extinct dinosaurs. In contrast, the Harvard researchers threaten to create the very phenomenon that supposedly made the dinosaurs extinct.
Note here that the Earth experiences cycles of 100,000-120,000-year glacial periods followed by warmer 12,000-year interglacials, and the last glacial period ended approximately 12,000 years ago. Thus are we due for, and some scientists are predicting, another ice age. And now the Harvard geniuses want to make it worse.
This is what we should actually fear, too. Generally speaking, warmth breeds life (“Let there be light,” anyone?) and cold, death. Even the New York Times admitted this, reporting in 2016 on a Lancet study showing that “cold weather is responsible, directly or indirectly, for 17 times as many deaths as hot weather,” as the Times related it. Moreover, the paper cited yet another study suggesting that in most of the world, “rising temperatures could reduce overall mortality rates.”
Related to this, the Harvard cooling scheme could create hot conflict if ever implemented. Just consider Russia. It’s already a very cold country, and, consequently, one of its historical goals has been the acquisition of warm-water ports. How do you think Moscow would react to a plan to exacerbate their Siberian woes? They just might consider it an act of war. I wouldn’t blame them, either.
In keeping with this, my guess is that there probably will always be enough international opposition to forestall sun-dimming, playing-God lunacy. The Harvard researchers may even know this but, as with everyone else, scientists love indulging their passions; they want to create their Frankenstein monster simply because it satisfies their intellectual curiosity. They also want funding. And getting money from crackpot billionaires may require peddling crackpot ideas.
This said, we always have to watch our “betters.” Big egos plus small minds can equal major destruction. And if he wants to, Bill Gates can afford to buy all of Equatorial Guinea.
