CLIMATEWIRE | Climate scientists, environmental activists and philanthropists met privately last month to prepare for an expected surge of Silicon Valley funding related to last-ditch measures for slowing global warming.
The two-day gathering on solar geoengineering — or efforts to increase the reflectivity of the planet through spraying particles into the stratosphere or altering cloud cover — shows how the notion of limiting sunlight absorbed by the earth has moved from taboo to plausible in part by gaining the acceptance of tech industry billionaires.
The meeting at the San Francisco offices of the Environmental Defense Fund, which has publicly supported research into geoengineering since 2011, was held to help set best practices for a coming wave of philanthropic-funded studies into the concept, also known as solar radiation management. The meeting has not previously been reported.
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Many of the roughly 30 scientists, environmentalists and funders at the meeting would prefer that guidelines for solar geoengineering research be established by a federal scientific coordinating body like the U.S. Global Change Research Program.
“That hasn’t come to be yet,” said Lisa Dilling, EDF’s associate chief scientist. The workshop was an acknowledgment of “the reality of the world as we see it now, which is that there are foundations starting to be interested in this topic.”
In theory, solar geoengineering could replicate the cooling response of natural phenomena like major volcanic eruptions, which can launch millions of tons of reflective sulfur dioxide particles miles into the sky. Supporters of the idea — including billionaires Bill Gates and George Soros — argue that human efforts to redirect…
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