Andrew Song: Global Cooling with Sulfur Dioxide in the Stratosphere — Manifold #91
Andrew Song is a co-founder of Make Sunsets, a company focused on addressing climate change through solar geoengineering. The company launches balloons filled with sulfur dioxide (SO2) into the stratosphere with the aim of reflecting sunlight to cool the Earth.
https://makesunsets.com/
Previous Manifold episodes on climate:
https://www.manifold1.com/episodes/casey-handmer-terraform-industries-and-a-carbon-neutral-future-57
https://www.manifold1.com/episodes/tim-palmer-status-and-future-of-climate-modeling-16
https://www.manifold1.com/episodes/klaus-lackner-on-carbon-capture-climate-change-and-physics-40
Steve and Andrew discuss:
(00:00) - Introduction
(01:35) - Andrew's Background and Swimming Career
(06:37) - Journey into Startups and Y Combinator Experience
(11:30) - Make Sunsets: Concept and Science
(32:53) - Exploring Supersonic and Balloon-Based Solutions
(33:45) - Environmental Concerns and Biodegradable Solutions
(36:13) - Business Model and Cooling Credits
(39:26) - Future Prospects and Climate Modeling Challenges
If it was necessary, it would be an interesting approach to pursue. I don't see the need to overreact to the climate catastrophizing.
As Steve said, he is skeptical of climate modeling. Higher CO2 levels will and already are increasing the crop productivity and other plant growth, way outweighing the costs of small sea level rise.
In anything, I am for conversion to nuclear, rather than wind and solar mistake.
Fascinating podcast -- great choice for a guest! It's unfortunate that there wasn't more on the mechanism behind this. That said, I think it's hard to make a back-of-the-envelope estimate of the link between sulfur-dioxide concentration and albedo, because the mechanism isn't SO2 per se but SO2 interacting with water and causing aerosol formation; it's the (aqueous) aerosols that are reflective. This is a more complicated phenomena than (single) CO2 molecules absorbing infrared.