Here's the link to the MIT Tech Review post that this seems to mainly be referencing: https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/12/24/1066041/a-startu...
> He says they occurred in April somewhere in the state of Baja California, months before Make Sunsets was incorporated in October.
> But it’s not clear whether that happened, where the balloons ended up, or what impact the particles had, because there was no monitoring equipment on board the balloons. Iseman also acknowledges that they did not seek any approvals from government authorities or scientific agencies, in Mexico or elsewhere, before the first two launches.
And now this article is linked on the company's front page as a "feature": https://makesunsets.com/
Given the obvious incentives to lie or exaggerate here, until some actual evidence turns up, I'm going to assume this is just a guy lying to draw attention to his startup.
I'm curious how you are planning to validate that this works and doesn't have negative side-effects.
> That’s in part because it’s highly controversial. Little is known about the real-world effect of such deliberate interventions at large scales, but they could have dangerous side effects. The impacts could also be worse in some regions than others, which could provoke geopolitical conflicts.
[...]
> By Iseman’s own description, the first two balloon launches were very rudimentary. He says they occurred in April somewhere in the state of Baja California, months before Make Sunsets was incorporated in October. Iseman says he pumped a few grams of sulfur dioxide into weather balloons and added what he estimated would be the right amount of helium to carry them into the stratosphere.
> He expected they would burst under pressure at that altitude and release the particles. But it’s not clear whether that happened, where the balloons ended up, or what impact the particles had, because there was no monitoring equipment on board the balloons. Iseman also acknowledges that they did not seek any approvals from government authorities or scientific agencies, in Mexico or elsewhere, before the first two launches.
Probably $0 if you didn't have his background. 100% he got funding because he went through YC twice and was the Director of HW, but we welcome competition. I'm sure a VC out there will fund a startup that can scrub SO2 in the stratosphere to negate our efforts.
Why wait young man. You guys should do it and run both outfits. You already give off serious SBF vibes, so go all the way, and congrats on being the first to float an environmental scam.
Btw, when do you think we will have the first "environmental terrorism" charges filed?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/ADX_pris...
Efficacy and the benefit:harm ratio is still to be determined until we scale up our deployments, but here is a lecture by David Keith, the leading researcher in stratospheric aerosol injection. Towards Quantitative Comparison of the Risks and Benefits of Solar Geoengineering (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZ8TZqfwzdU&t=2247s)
TL;DW: it's 100:1 at conservative estimates.
The best read on this is from Naomi Klein in the New York Times from 2012. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/opinion/sunday/geoenginee...
Saying she is the best argument against something is to me like saying ISIS and Breitbart released a join resolution against something. About as strong argument-from-authority for that-thing as one can make.
There are far better ways to do this btw.