Wealthy donors declared they will continue bankrolling efforts to alter the atmosphere to prevent climate change despite initial efforts being derailed by a skeptical public.
Politico reported this week that major groups connected to Wall Street and Silicon Valley have vowed to keep raising money to create innovations and technology that will limit global warming – including methods of brightening clouds to limit the amount of sunlight that enters the earth’s atmosphere.
"The Pritzker Innovation Fund believes in the importance of research that helps improve climate models and enables policymakers and the public to better understand whether climate interventions like marine cloud brightening are feasible and advisable," group founder and president Rachel Pritzker told the outlet about her group’s commitment to find climate solutions despite recent setbacks.
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Prtizker’s group is one of several that have funded research at the University of Washington to find ways to intervene in the sun’s effects on the planet to reduce global warming, a field of science referred to as "geoengineering."
However, two recent experiments were shutdown following public backlash.
"The latest experiment was derailed earlier this month when local officials in Alameda, California, rejected a request by Washington researchers to restart a test to brighten clouds from the deck of a decommissioned aircraft carrier in San Francisco Bay," the outlet reported.
Though his group did not fund that particular experiment, Simons Foundation President David Spergel told Politico the importance of the university’s research into the "basic science" of manipulating the atmosphere in various ways to prevent climate change.
"Our goal is to support the basic science needed to assess the role of aerosols in the atmosphere, particularly the stratosphere," he said, adding, "We want to have the basic science in place so that society can evaluate the possible benefits and costs of stratospheric aerosol injection or marine cloud brightening."
He also noted that his group’s funding for similar experiments at the school is "not going to be affected by their difficulties there."
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The Environmental Defense Fund, another group supporting the school’s projects in the field, told the outlet it would fund other solar geoengingeering research following the setbacks.
Quadrature Climate Foundation – an initiative connected to hedge fund Quadrature Capital – also expressed its commitment to continue funding this research. In a recent statement, the foundation’s chief science and programs officer, Greg De Temmerman, said, "We remain firmly committed to advancing transparent, equitable, and science-based approaches to understand and potentially mitigate climate risks."
The group, which the outlet noted is mostly "dedicated to reducing carbon emissions and removing them from the atmosphere, rather than blocking sunlight," recently disclosed to MIT Technology Review it plans to provide $40 million to research sun-blocking tech.
Not only are billionaire donors interested in this research - the Biden White House has expressed support for it as well.
The White House website published a report released by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy last year that revealed that its team is researching geoengineering methods to keep the sun's rays from accelerating global warming.
