Claims that solar radiation modification, or S.R.M., could control the sun’s warming effects ignore the immense risks and the reality of sudden temperature spikes if deployment is stopped.
This technology could never “restore” the climate but would further destabilize an already disturbed climate system, leading to unforeseen and irreversible ecological disasters, and severely affecting current and future generations.
Almost 500 leading scientists and more than 2,000 civil society organizations worldwide are calling for a solar geoengineering non-use agreement.
Both African ministers and the European Parliament have called for such a mechanism, reflecting a growing consensus against these dangerous experiments.
It’s alarming that the key lesson learned from the Harvard solar geoengineering research project’s failure appears to be to proceed with less transparency, denying the public’s right to know about future experiments — while ignoring a global de facto moratorium of the United Nations on all geoengineering.
Organizations:
Harvard, United Nations