Geoengineering and Climate Intervention Discussion

We spray sulfuric acid in the stratosphere 20 kilometers over our head and

use that to stop the planet warming up in a kind of ugly tech fix.

Wait, you, you could, you can spray something into the

atmosphere-

Yeah

... to ch- Okay. Okay.

Spray pollution into the atmosphere to stop it warming.

How do you do this? Okay.

You start with a fleet of modified business jets and, say, 20,000

tons of sulfuric acid-

Uh-huh

... into the stratosphere every year.

Uh-huh.

And each year you have to put a little more.

Mm-hmm.

And this doesn't, in the long run, mean that you can forget about

cutting emissions. We will need to rein in the-

No, we'll get to it eventually.

But-

So in the meantime, we're shrouding the Earth in sulfuric

acid.

So people are terrified about talking about this-

Uh-huh

... 'cause they're scared that it will prevent us cutting emissions.

Right, and also that it's sulfuric acid.

We put 50 million tons of sulfuric acid in the air now. That's pollution.

Okay.

And it kills a million people a year worldwide.

Okay. But it'll be better if we put more in.

We're talking about 1% of that.

1% more, we're just killing 10,000 more people.

You can do math.

What happens to the sulfuric acid after it's sprayed? Does it just stay up there?

No, it rains down.

Okay.

But it's a tiny addition-

Okay

... to what we're already doing.

Is there any possible way this could come back to bite us in the end?

That actually turns out to be an old idea.

Really?

This was known since President Johnson.

You ever look at those planes up there? They have contrails behind them.

Maybe all those planes with the contrails, maybe they're actually spraying

chemicals into the atmosphere right now, and Uncle Sam isn't telling us.

Seems extremely unlikely that the United States-

That the United States is not telling something to its citizens?

That seems extremely likely.