Solar Geoengineering and Its Links to the World's Richest

While the vast majority of humanity living in the Western world is distracted with all things "COVID" and "vaccine", a potentially ground-breaking experiment is moving forward, thanks to funding from one of the world's foremost, untrained climatologists.

  

Here is the announcement from the American Association for the Advancement of Science or AAAS:

 

According to the author of the news item, Paul Voosen, Harvard University is proposing a June 2021 test flight of a research balloon and gondola over Sweden (the location of the Esrange Space Center located in Kiruna) that is ultimately designed to drop small amounts of calcium carbonate and observe its effects on the world's stratosphere.  This particular experiment is being used to review the gondola's horizontal and vertical control systems as well as its power, navigation and communication systems.  The SCoPEx experiment is part of a larger and controversial plan of solar geoengineering, processes that could potentially be used to reduce the impact of global climate change. 

  

The experiment is called the Stratospheric Controlled Perburbation Experiment or SCoPEx and has been designed by a group headed by Harvard's Frank Keutsch, the Stonington Professor of Engineering and Atmospheric Science and a Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard.  

  

Let's look at the SCoPEx experiment.  Here is a YouTube video that explains the process and the rationale being the experiment:

 

 

According to Keutsch's FAQ page, the SCoPEx experiment is designed to gain and understanding of stratospheric aerosols and how they could be relevant to solar engineering.  Here is an explanation of the experiment:

 

"At the heart of SCoPEx is a scientific balloon, fitted with repurposed off-the-shelf airboat propellers. The repurposed propellers serve two functions. First, the propeller wake forms a well mixed volume (roughly 1 km long and 100 meters in diameter) that serves as an experimental ‘beaker’ in which we can add gasses or particles. Second, the propellers allow us to reposition the gondola to different locations within the volume to measure the properties of the perturbed air. The payload can achieve speeds of a few meters per second (walking speed) relative to the surrounding air, generally for about ten minutes at a time.

The advantage of the SCoPEx propelled balloon is that it allows us to create a small controlled volume of stratospheric air and observe its evolution for (we hope) over 24 hours. Hence the acronym, Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment. If we used an aircraft instead of a balloon, we would not be able to use such a small perturbed volume nor would we be able to observe it for such long durations. 

 

We plan to use a high-altitude balloon to lift an instrument package approximately 20 km into the atmosphere. Once it is in place, a very small amount of material (100 g to 2 kg) will be released to create a perturbed air mass roughly one kilometer long and one hundred meters in diameter. We will then use the same balloon to measure resulting changes in the perturbed air mass including changes in aerosol density, atmospheric chemistry, and light scattering."

 

Here is a graphic showing the key parts of the equipment used in the experiment:

 

Here's what the future holds for the SCoPEx project:

  

"In the future, if a science flight is approved by the independent Advisory Committee, we plan to release calcium carbonate, a common mineral dust. We may also release other materials such as sulfates in response to evolving scientific interests."

 Here is the answer to the questions about the potential hazards of the experiment:

"The test will pose no significant hazard to people or the environment. Calcium carbonate is a nontoxic chemical commonly found in nature, for example as limestone, and sub-micron precipitated calcium carbonate particles like the ones we will use are a common additive to consumer products such as paper and toothpaste. In general, the amount of materials to be released (less than 2 kilograms for calcium carbonate) will be very small compared to other routine releases of material into the stratosphere by aircraft, rockets, or routine balloon flights. For example, the release of experimental materials will be small compared to the release of the iron filling ballast that are commonly released to control the altitude of stratospheric balloons. Additionally, if we test sulfate in this experiment, the amount we would use would be less than the amount released during a one minute of flight of a typical commercial aircraft. Aircraft release sulfates due to residual sulfur content of aviation fuel."

  

Here is a followup video showing why the world's first solar engineering test is so controversial:

 

 

With that background, let's look at who is funding this project.  Here is a screen capture from a Geoengineering Brief dated November 2017:

 

 

Here is a screen capture from Harvard's Solar Geoengineering Research Program showing its funders:

 

Like flies swarming on a dead carcass, once again we find Mr. Bill Gates and his seemingly unlimited pile of money funding the use of technology to solve the world's problems as he explains here:

Given that Gates lives in a 66,000 square foot home and flies around the world using a Bombardier Global Express private jet because his time is just so valuable and has just entered a bid for an investment in one of the world's largest private fixed base operator for private jets through his Cascade Investment (which already owns 19 percent of the company, Signature Aviation) as shown here:

...wouldn't you think that he would know that he has a carbon footprint that is far larger than the vast majority of human beings or at least see the irony in his climate proclamations?  But I guess when you are that man that brought us Windows Vista, you can get away with pretty much anything.

Update March 31, 2021

Here is a recent announcement from the Swedish Space Corporation:

It looks like it's back to the drawing board for Bill Gates.  Apparently, Sweden was not for sale to one of the world's richest men.