PLAN C FOR CIVILIZATION

As emissions pour into the atmosphere and world leaders struggle for solutions to a climate emergency, the controversial climate-cooling technology called solar geoengineering is entering the world’s stage. It’s an idea so powerful and full of uncertainty that even the proposal of research itself is seen as a dire risk by leading environmental activists and scientists. But for physicist David Keith, what matters is not what’s popular but what could help reduce the harms of a heating planet. And to learn more, he plans to launch the world’s first experiment into the stratosphere. 

 

Solar geoengineering is inspired by volcanic eruptions whose plumes of sulfur dioxide circle the planet’s stratosphere, creating a shroud of shiny particles that bounce sunlight back into space. Proponents of research believe that we could mimic these eruptions ourselves, reflecting incoming sunlight back into space and cooling the planet. They claim it would be relatively cheap, and fast. But a global deployment could alter weather and precipitation patterns, damage the ozone layer, and provoke war. Keith and other advocates of research are clear that the risks are serious. But if this technology has the potential to save millions of lives and preserve entire ecosystems, do we not have a moral obligation to explore it? 

 

Until now, research in solar geoengineering has been confined to the lab and computer models as outdoor experiments like the one that Keith is pursuing have been thwarted by opponents. But in 2023 Luke Iseman and Andrew Song began their own rogue solar geoengineering campaign with their Silicon Valley start-up, Make Sunsets. For $10 a gram, they will launch a balloon filled with "planet cooling" sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere from atop their Winnebago. Each gram of SO2 is enough, they claim, to offset the warming effect of 1 ton of CO2 for one year. 

 

As the Mexican government races to ban them and the FBI pursues them, Luke and Andrew continue their operation without oversight or regulation. Make Sunsets may be a laughable sideshow, but as suffering spreads and patience runs thin, solar geoengineering presents a complex but unmistakable hope; what if there was a way to cool the planet - fast?

 

Plan C for Civilization tackles the promise and peril of solar geoengineering with exclusive verite access to its protagonist David Keith and the SCoPEx project as well as the rogue geoengineers of Make Sunsets. From Bangladesh to Nevada, solar geoengineering is emerging after more than 60 years in the shadows, and with it, a new chapter of the climate change saga.