Challenging Climate

27. Luke Iseman on his for-profit solar geoengineering venture - Make Sunsets

Jesse Reynolds and Pete Irvine Episode 27

Luke Iseman is the founder of Make Sunsets, a recently launched startup that is selling “cooling credits” on the promise that they will release sulphur dioxide into the stratosphere using weather balloons. In this episode, we discuss Make Sunset’s mission to “substantially lower global temperatures,” the details of their offering, the technical challenges for verifying their cooling credits, and the potential political repercussions of their efforts

Links: 

Make Sunsets official website: https://makesunsets.com/ 

Make Sunsets contested cooling calculations: https://makesunsets.com/blogs/news/calculating-cooling 

Luke’s blog post from just before he launched this effort, “Geoengineering Now”: https://www.dirtnail.com/2022/04/04/geoengineering-now/ 


Some reactions to Make Sunsets: 

Ted Parson’s essay on Make Sunsets, “A Dangerous Disruption”: https://legal-planet.org/2023/01/02/a-dangerous-disruption/ 

David Keith on why not to commercialize geoengineering: https://twitter.com/DKeithClimate/status/1608085360927457281 

Gwynne Dyer’s comment in Stuff: https://www.stuff.co.nz/opinion/130909204/balloon-goes-up-on-geoengineering-sulfur-scam 


Another podcast interview with Luke Iseman by Reviewer 2 Does Geoengineering: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2Fr15fdX20qyyfVX8VCF3Q 

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