Israeli-U.S. geoengineering company Stardust Solutions has announced a $60 million fundraising round for its efforts to block the sun by spraying particles into the atmosphere.
Stardust says they have created a powder that they promise “wouldn’t accumulate in humans or ecosystems, and can’t harm the ozone layer or create acid rain like the sulfur-rich particles from volcanoes.”
But it refuses to disclose what the particles are actually made of, rendering those promises meaningless without transparency, independent verification, or the public’s informed consent.
The startup will use the money to begin “controlled outdoor experiments” as soon as April, according to a POLITICO report that broke the news. “Those tests would release the company’s reflective particles inside a modified plane flying about 11 miles (18 kilometers) above sea level.”
Such technology is “thinly researched and mostly unregulated,” POLITICO notes.
It could even “disrupt global weather patterns and trigger geopolitical conflict.”
The investors were reportedly just “putting their trust in the concept,” instead of demanding proof that tampering in such a significant and dangerous way with sunlight won’t unleash irreversible atmospheric or geopolitical fallout.
More than 590 climate scientists and governance scholars now support a worldwide moratorium on such experiments involving the sun, and have called for an ‘International Non-Use Agreement on Solar Geoengineering.’
Nevertheless, Stardust has now raised a total of $75 million for its sun-blocking scheme.
Hellbound and Down 