Talk:Solar radiation modification

Modest reorganization of impacts / effects

As I work through the document, I found the "technical risks" section to broad. I split this into "Climatic and environmental effects" and "Scientific risks and uncertainties". Both need further work, especially the former. I also moved the subsections on termination shock and deployment length to "Governance and policy issues", which is a better place (although neither location is perfect). TERSEYES (talk) 16:25, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the major changes you made yesterday. Article is now much clearer for the reader IMO. A shame it's been defaced with an unsightly tag, but we can get that removed in a few months (or possibly sooner) unless someone makes a case that the article has NPOV issues in either direction. FeydHuxtable (talk) 08:07, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

You're welcome! I started polishing the language and changing references to intergovernmental reports, starting at the top. I forgot to include page numbers in some of those refs, and will do when I I get some time (hopefully this weekend). The new section "Climatic and Environmental Effects" is not quite coherent. And I want to double-check my edits to "Scientific uncertainties and risks." TERSEYES (talk) 04:24, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

COI tag?

Hello, User:Hemiauchenia, I see you have added the COI maintenance tag on this article. I think I agree with your step. However, what would have to be done in order for the tag to be removed? And should a kind of permanent notification be placed at the top of this talk page? I am not very familiar with these processes but I think I've seen this on other talk pages every now and again. Would you say that some of the main editors of this article still ought to disclose their conflict of interest (if they have any)? Were you referring to me or the other editors? I think my COI has been discussed at great length in the AN/I thread; and is also shown on my profile page. Did you mean that AN/I thread (permalink here) when you said "As per the unspeakable site" in your edit summary? EMsmile (talk) 14:16, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

I was referring to the other editors who I placed COI tags on their talk pages. Off-wiki evidence suggests that the editors I have tagged are involved in organisations affiliated with solar geoengineering, and have not properly disclosed their COI. Hemiauchenia (talk) 14:51, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

@Hemiauchenia Should you tell us which editors might have a COI so I can check what changes they made to this article and make sure it has a neutral point of view? If not I suppose I should simply read it and check for bias without knowing who wrote what as that way I would be more independent. Chidgk1 (talk) 17:41, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

The editors I am accusing of have a COI are Thisredrock, TERSEYES and Matthias Honegger. The first two have made significantly more edits to the article than Honegger, so you should prioritize their edits. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:43, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

@Hemiauchenia Thanks. I won’t comment on whether or not they have a COI or if they had whether they should have made the edits, but will just ponder the text and sources and see whether I think it has a neutral point of view. Might take me a while as I don’t know the subject well so will need to read around, but if I have not replied within a week feel free to chase me up. Chidgk1 (talk) 18:04, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

@User:Hemiauchenia: I'm following the discussion on your talk page and on the COI talk page with interest. The ins and outs of COIs, COI declarations etc. are interesting and important to understand (I am still learning!). Could you please make a suggestion what kind of wording you'd like to see on the user profile pages of the three editors that you mentioned above (or link to a couple of example user profiles where it's done well?)? Once these COIs are properly disclosed (also for User:Andrewjlockley, I assume?), then the COI tag could be removed from the article; is that how it works? (a possible NPOV issue is a separate issue from a COI tag, as far as I can see). EMsmile (talk) 21:57, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

I would personally like them to properly disclose what particular solar geoengineering organisations they have a conflict of interest with (don't need to say exactly how they are associated with them), but according to discussion at WT:COI that may not be necessary. At bare minimum, they need to mention that they are associated with organised efforts to advocate solar geoengineering. To their credit, after I gave them a COI warning, TERSEYES created a userpage doing exactly that, and Thisredrock already had a similar note on their userpage. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:05, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

This is very useful, thanks. I am glad TERSEYES now has a user page. Could I also suggest we all put on our profile pages a sentence that indicates that we are aware of the difficulties around our COIs and that we are aware of the policies? For example on my user profile page I have formulated it like this (is this alright?): When I am editing Wikipedia as part of my professional duties, I always strive to strictly abide by Wikipedia's accepted practices on conflicts of interest, neutrality, and notability. I will always work in the best interest of Wikipedia, because that's what I believe in and it's also is in line with the missions of those organisations who have funded my time so far (philanthropic foundations, NGOs, government entities).. EMsmile (talk) 22:20, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

That sounds good to me. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:25, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

Here to just very briefly indicate that – on my user talk page – I've clarified my two instances of volunteering a few hours of my time for the Degrees initiative in case this helps resolve this issue. Happy to further clarify if anything remains unclear. Matthias Honegger (talk) 09:54, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

@Hemiauchenia I am struggling a little to get to grips with this subject as it is more complicated than I first thought. As far as I can tell so far deploying now is a fringe view and banning research is a fringe view. The mainstream view seems to be to research but not deploy. However I have no idea what is currently thought by national governments outside Europe. I guess all governments everywhere have more urgent things on their minds and are not thinking about it. Hope to continue later this week. Chidgk1 (talk) 11:54, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

I have added the "connected contributor (paid)" template for myself to the talk page now. I hope I have done it correctly. I guess another Wikipedian still has to say that they have checked my edits for neutrality (?). At the moment it says there User:Example in that template.

I've also left a note at the talk page of TERSEYES, suggesting that they also add the "connected contributor" template about themselves to this talk page. And I think the same should probably be done for Thisredrock and anyone else who has a COI, e.g. by working for a university or org that does SRM research or advocacy in any form (?).

This way, it might help us all to have more transparency and better collaboration vibes; what do you think?

My aim is that once this is all done, we could remove the COI tag at the start oft he article; what do you think, User:Hemiauchenia?

At the end of the day, I think we can all collaborate well on this together (the last few weeks have been good!), no matter who we work for, what our day job is, if we are volunteers or not; provided we come here in good faith with the overall aim to have a nice, informative and well-balanced article about SRM in the end. Perhaps even get it to WP:GA status one day. EMsmile (talk) 23:13, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

Sure, can do.

Just to be clear, I do not "edit about [my]self, family, friends, clients, employers, or [my] financial and other relationships," per WP:COI. TERSEYES (talk) 08:09, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

I've now removed the maintenance tag from the article page. I hope everyone, and especially User:Hemiauchenia, agrees? We have the "connected user templates" now on the talk page for myself, TERSEYES, Thisredrock, and Andrewjlockley. This is now sufficient, right? EMsmile (talk) 15:49, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

"among environmentalists"?

There is a sentence in the lead that goes like this (bolding added by me): For these reasons and more, SRM is often a contested topic among environmentalists.. My proposal is to remove "among environmentalists" as that is overly narrow and ill-defined (what exactly is an environmentalist? Am I one?). I think the sentence could simply be: For these reasons and more, SRM is often a contested topic.. Or if you think it needs to be spelled out then it could become: For these reasons and more, SRM is often a contested topic among academics, policy makers and civil society organizations.. Thoughts? EMsmile (talk) 14:19, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

Good call, I think the simpler formulation "For these reasons and more, SRM is often a contested topic" is right Thisredrock (talk) 15:55, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks. Update: The "among environmentalists" has now been removed from that sentence. EMsmile (talk) 21:39, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

Who is funding SRM advocacy or research

(I've moved this segment from earlier on the talk page, and added a section heading, to make it easier to follow it and to see latest additions at the bottom of the talk page - as per my housekeeping suggestion from yesterday. ) EMsmile (talk) 14:25, 10 February 2025 (UTC) Without a shadow of a doubt, similar to CDR, some SRM advocacy is funded by pro polluters. AR6 didn't mention that from what I could see. But would agree with including this if a good source is found. Though equally, IMO as of 2024 the clear majority of folks who support more SRM research are good faith. Looking forward to seeing how the good ESG scientists see this. FeydHuxtable (talk) 20:30, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

Contrary to understandable speculation, there is no advocacy for using SRM besides fringe actors such as Make Sunsets and no known funding or advocacy of SRM research from fossil fuel interests. A moment's investigation of claims that there is such funding or advocacy reveals misrepresentation. For example, an activist group issued a report revealing 'the early, ongoing, and often surprising role of the fossil fuel industry in developing, patenting, and promoting key geoengineering technologies.' However, its evidence relied almost entirely on including carbon dioxide removal (CDR) in geoengineering, as well as a few scattered pro-SRM statements made by opponents of climate action over the last 15 years. In other words, 'big, if true.' And I would agree to include this if a good source is found. TERSEYES (talk) 07:51, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

There's no speculation on my part buddy. This topic space is too complex to be understood by "A moment's investigation". Let me try to tease out the subtlies here. As we'd already agreed, there's been little public advocacy for the use of SRM. Yet's there's been abundant back-room advocacy for research and sometimes use. In the 'idea factories' (Universities) , the corridors of power (National & Multilateral government) and even Industry. I know this first hand; as mentioned above I was recently at UN HQ. Regardless this is all undeniably proved by quality WP:RS - just not the sort I'd see as suitable for use in our article due to accessibility issues, the way they cover the overall context , etc.

You may have been correct if you'd said there's "no widely known funding or advocacy of SRM research from fossil fuel interests". But it's well known by insiders and covered in WP:RS. For example, about a quarter of chapter 7 in The New Climate War is all about fossil fules advocacy of SRM, from former ExxonMobil CEO & Trump secretary of state Rex "climate change is just an engineering problem" Tillerson to various high profile pet scientists. Chapter 7 has 90 sources, one of them being The fossil fuel industry's invisible colonization of academia. The source revealed how fossil fuel interests dominates major US Universities with hundreds of millions worth fundings. The two authors have impecabble credentials for such statements - they used to hold positions at Harvard & Standford (both formerly major centres of SRM research) and have since moved on to be trusted advisors on climate change to US Federal government and the EU.

This is not to deny that the anti SRM crowd don't make equally incorrect claims, such as saying SRM originated from fossil fuel industry. It originated (and is increasingly supported by) good faith scientists who only want what's best for humanity and the world. But it's equally true that fossil fuel interests had for years attempted to use SRM as a way to dampen emission reduction efforts. Granted, some of those same fossil fuel funders later pivoted to throwing most types of SRM scientist under a bus in favour of Carbon Capture tech, which is more politically acceptable to their compromised IPCC allies - as said, this is a complex topic space, not easy to understand at first glance.FeydHuxtable (talk) 12:54, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for these inputs, very interesting! I just wanted to add that when it comes to the question of "who is funding SRM research currently?" I can highly recommend this paper by Surprise and Sapinski: Surprise, Kevin; Sapinski, Jp (2023). "Whose climate intervention? Solar geoengineering, fractions of capital, and hegemonic strategy". Capital & Class. 47 (4): 539–564. doi:10.1177/03098168221114386. ISSN 0309-8168. It is already cited in the article with this sentence: A study from 2022 investigated where the funding for SRM research came from globally concluded there are "close ties to mostly US financial and technological capital as well as a number of billionaire philanthropists". The article is behind a paywall but it can be accessed through academia.edu: https://www.academia.edu/89265578/Whose_climate_intervention_Solar_geoengineering_fractions_of_capital_and_hegemonic_strategy

I think there could probably be more content that could be used from that paper, to explain where the funding for SRM research is coming from and why.

Housekeeping proposal: I think we should move my post and the three posts before mine into a new section that we move to the bottom of this talk page. As otherwise readers have to jump to the start and to the end of the talk page to see recent posts. We could call that section "Funders of SRM research and advocacy". EMsmile (talk) 17:19, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

Truly outstanding analyses in that source EMsmile! Granted, it's already a little dated. The partial backlash against ESG investments and especially the growing power of the Dark Gothic MAGA tech-bro sub faction make the capitalist state mediated compromise envisaged in the source seem a little optimistic. But for our purposes it's great. I'd not wanted prominent mention of FF's funding role before as I didn't know a source that while admitting the fossil fuel lobby were historically major funders, covers the fact that's no longer true. Your source handles that almost perfectly: fossil fuel interests and climate denial organizations are now largely absent from SG policy-planning, while prominent criticism of the technology continues to link it to the fossil fuel industry etc. So now in favour of a brief mention of FF funding & also of your housekeeping proposal. Suggest it may be good to wait a week or so in case editor TERSEYES or others object. FeydHuxtable (talk) 08:07, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

The talkquote in the above comment is roughly correct.

1. There is no publicly known advocacy for the use of SRM among its researchers. (A border case is the fringe project Make Sunsets. There are also a handful of gadfly hobbyists.)
2. Traditional political opponents of cutting GHG emissions and other climate action have largely been dismissive of SRM, belittling it as a dangerous solution to a nonexistent problem (example). (An exception is Bjorn Lomborg.)
3. There is no publicly known support of SRM by the fossil fuel sector.
4. Activist and other ideological opponents of SRM sometimes (often?) try to make or insinuate claims contrary to the above.

As I noted in my previous comment, the most common way that activists et al do (4) is to group SRM with carbon dioxide removal (especially direct air capture) as "geoengineering". The following is technically true but misleading: "Solar geoengineering would alter the world's climate and poses many risks. It could worsen climate impacts. Yet fossil fuel companies are investing in, researching, have patents on, and lobby for geoengineering." This is the rhetoric that Mann (which FeydHuxtable links to) generally uses.

I cannot comment on what happens in the "back-room" and "corridors of power" that remains unreported. Tillerson was explicitly referring to adaptation when he said that climate change has an engineering solution.

The quote from Surprise and Sapinsky that EMSmile provides is not wrong, at least about the philanthropic funding of SRM research. However, the latest numbers indicate that a (modest) majority of SRM research is publicly funded.

In the this absence of clear evidence, I strongly oppose a statement in the article that the fossil fuel industry funds SRM research, advocacy, or other activities. TERSEYES (talk) 04:58, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

To clarify, do you oppose a mention that fossil fuel interests were historically major funders, with a caveat that no longer appears to be the case, like in the above quote? (I'd hope no one wants a statement implying FF are significant, ongoing funders of SRM, as that would seem to contradict what's said in recent qualtity WP:RS. ) FeydHuxtable (talk) 08:52, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

I am not aware of the fossil fuel industry historically being major funders of SRM. I propose that you float the sources here, and we could come to consensus. TERSEYES (talk) 09:43, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Sufficient sources to support such a statement have already been aired by EMsmile & myself in this very section; it would only take 10 mins to post quotes making that crystal clear. But I'm going to have to decline your proposal. In the last hour I've received off wiki communication making me feel I should re-assess my largely pro SRM pov. I've resolved not to make any more article or talk page posts that help the pro SRM side until at least several months prayer & research. (I may still make non pro SRM edits if I feel NPOV & other wiki policy supports it.) With this said, thank you for the policy compliant way you've conducted this minor dispute. FeydHuxtable (talk) 10:32, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Legality of deployment under existing national laws?

The article does not explain why an American company deployed (or pretended to deploy) SRM from outside their own country. Perhaps it was merely that balloons are cheaper in Mexico rather than anything to do with US law prohibiting deployment.

Also I have not yet been able to find out whether any countries have made deployment a crime. https://www.ciel.org/news/solar-radiation-modification-eu-must-reject-solar-geoengineering-and-support-non-use-approach/ seems to claim it might be against EU law because of treaties the EU has signed - but perhaps no country has ever tested anything in court. Chidgk1 (talk) 19:10, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

Your guess isn't too far from the mark, but the short answer would be that some early deployments took place in Mexico simply as the company founder liked to hang out there. Read the box if you'd like that explained in more depth.

too much of a digression for the article, and maybe even for talk

It would have been almost as hassle free to deploy from US - even during the Biden administration when regulation was more of thing, they just had to fill out a notice to air missions to reduce the collission risk for aircraft. Balloons suitable for SAI cost about the same in Mexico, if not slightly more due to transport costs. But there is a pastime about 20x as cheap across Latin America compared to US. It relates to a motivation which Elizabeth Blackwell called "an inevitable condition of life and the foundation of society. It is the greatest power in human nature. ...the central force of life". Schopenhauer described as "the most complete expression of the will to live, it is the concentration of will". And Buddha said is "sharper than the prod by means of which wild elephants are tamed; it is hotter than flames; it is like an arrow driven into the soul of man." I'm quoting ancient authorities here as I find frustrating how much this motivation is downplayed by contemporary society: "TeeHee inkwell. Segs don't matter silly! Just get a hobby bro." I try to fly less than once per 5 years, and I'd never have made aforementioned trip to the UN HQ just to stick my oar into climate politics. There's thousands way more politically adept and connected trying to help with that. But there's few of that calibre with a long term interest in making things better for incels. My reason for the trans Atlantic flight was soley related to them. While WHO does recognise "the need for Love" as a fundamental human need, I thought it would be useful if UN agencies could say that more prominently, perhaps using more powerful language similar to above quoted ancients. (I guess I'm saying this partly in case anyone thinks that my previous statement about by UN HQ trip might imply I have a COI too. I wasn't paid for the trip and my reason for going had nothing to do with GW. It just so happened I got into some interesting SRM related conversations. This said, do feel welcome to change or remove any of my article contributions if you feel that helps NPOV.)

Very few laws have been passed anywhere in the world actually making SRM illegal. But as per sources, especially if we are talking about deploying SRM on large scale, it's fair to say there's "a de facto global moratorium in place on geoengineering". (Huh, at least it was, the Donald & Musk's crew making changes so fast it's hard to be sure what's true anymore) Btw, great to see a trusted volunteer editor like yourself has stepped up to review this article for COI! FeydHuxtable (talk) 07:53, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

Campaigners often claim that decision X/33 8(w) of the Convention on Biological Diversity represents a de facto moratorium but this is something that is questioned by scholars. The language of the decision asks parties to consider ensuring that no SRM take place that would be expected to have significant and transboundary and adverse effects on biodiversity unless the need for it was demonstrated and relevant risks had been taken into account. This can be interpreted as a de facto moratorium, but it's not a clear fact.

I don't know about prohibition under existing national laws (I don't think there is much there) but Republicans in various US states have been introducing anti-geoengineering legislation over the last year. Thisredrock (talk) 17:14, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

Adding a section on the existing governance of SRM is on my mental to-do list. Years ago, I worked on the governance section of the geoengineering article, including adding text on the CBD decision, but I now see that EMSmile removed the section. As I wrote there, the CBD Secretariat described the 2010 decision as a “non-binding normative framework", not a moratorium. A later decision of the CBD Conference of Parties called for more geoengineering research. I therefore would oppose describing the CBD decision as a moratorium.

To my knowledge, there are no national laws anywhere on SRM or geoengineering. Mexico said in two press releases that it intended to prohibit outdoor SRM activities, but I have seen no follow up. This does not mean that deploying SRM would be consistent with existing laws because it would implicate national and international laws and regulations regarding pollution, weather modification, flight, transboundary environmental risk, environmental liability, etc. TERSEYES (talk) 05:32, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Looks like we're in agreement, at least for now. In contrast to the de jure variety, a de facto moratorium does not have formal legally binding force. It describes the effective state of affairs, which is contingent on the discretional wills of the powerful. During the Biden administration one could make a lively case that the de facto moratorium was a thing. But all bets are off until we see how the Donald & Musk stand on the issue. We ought not assume Musk would support various forms of SRM just as several fellow tech bros do. There's multiple reasons he might oppose. 1 °C cooling by global dimming would mean less green electricity , and more to the point, almost certainly less public funding for Tesla. It might create friction with senior Republicans who believe in Chemtrail conspiracy theory, which drove some of the recent state & county level ordinances Thisredrock was referring to. This isn't to imply Musk is purely self interested, any fool can see he feels impelled by Destiny to advance mankind. But in his own way. I used to think he could be best understood in comparison to Cecil Rhodes But recently it's became clear a more apt comparison is to The Emperor, who as 40K fans will know can be quite inscrutable. He might act in either direction with things like SAI.

EMsmile is well known for improving reader experience by trimming what she sees as extraneous detail from a great many article. Now SRM governance is more of a hot topic, with even her pal Chidgk1 expressing interest, I'd doubt she'd object to you adding back an updated section. FeydHuxtable (talk) 08:52, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Not a national law but Tennessee law says: "Environmental Preservation - As enacted, prohibits the intentional injection, release, or dispersion, by any means, of chemicals, chemical compounds, substances, or apparatus within the borders of this state into the atmosphere with the express purpose of affecting temperature, weather, or the intensity of the sunlight." so if I understand right although that bans deployment some kinds of research are still allowed in the state.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/26/climate/geoengineering-conspiracy-theorists-skeptics.html 188.3.11.104 (talk) 10:25, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Hi TERSEYES: I had another look to remind myself why I had deleted that section on governance from the climate engineering article in Nov 2022. To me it seemed to mismatch with the updated definition of climate engineering. But I've put it back in for now, together with some questions on the talk page of climate engineering. Let's discuss it further there. Strangely, someone else had removed it already in 2012? Confusing. In any case, I think we need to be smart about how the SRM article and the climate engineering interrelate with each other. The climate engineering is the parent article for SRM, so it should use summary style when explaining content that is also covered in the SRM article, like governance issues for SRM (some of which would also apply to CE in general, not just to SRM). EMsmile (talk) 12:10, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

I agree. This is on my to-do list. The governance of SRM is largely different from carbon removal and intend to work here (at least initially) and perhaps later at CE. TERSEYES (talk) 16:03, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Last sentence of the lead

The last sentence of the lead, which was added by TERSEYES on 17 January, now says Climate scientists and other experts from around the world research and publish academic articles, while more nongovernmental and intergovernmental organizations, as well as national governments, are examining and developing views.. I don't think it's a good sentence as it's vague, opinionated and as it's pitting two camps against each other even though this is not how it is. There are academics on "both sides", and even the NGOs are probably "on both sides". What does "developing views" mean? I suggest to simply delete this sentence, or else to improve it. What is it really trying to tell us? That the topic is controversial. This is already mentioned in the lead earlier, so does not need to be repeated again.

The sentence before that is also a bit vague and probably would require a reliable source ("increasing" compared to what? "Attention" in which sense? You mean more research funding? Yes). In the face of ongoing global warming and insufficient reductions to greenhouse gas emissions, SRM receives increasing attention. EMsmile (talk) 10:06, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

I generally agree that the sentence is vague and vacuous. It could be removed with no loss. My goal was to expand on the previous sentence regarding increasing attention. But reading it now, you are right; it adds nothing. The lead should say something about increasing attention. There are plenty of reliable sources that say this. I could probably find a suitable one this weekend.

(On the other hand, I do not agree that the sentence is opinionated or framed as polarization. But this disagreement doesn't matter here!) TERSEYES (talk) 20:54, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Done Chidgk1 (talk) 06:28, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks. The ref that you chose (blog post from APRI) is alright as a starting point but I think we should look for another one or two (more reliable sources). Also can we be more precise? At the moment it says only: SRM receives increasing attention.. But "attention" in which sense? Do you mean attention in mainstream media or amongst scientists? Or is "increasing attention" meant to refer to "increasing amounts of research funding and projects"? Once we have that cleared up in the lead we should also explain it in the main text better. So far, the word "attention" does not appear in the main text. The only similar statement I found was this, which uses a NPR news item as a source: In 2024, Professor David Keith stated that in the last year or so, there has been far more engagement with SRM from senior political leaders than was previously the case. For this sentence, I think it would be fair to add "David Keith, a long-term advocate for more research into SRM" to provide the broader context. EMsmile (talk) 09:08, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

References

EMsmile (talk) 09:08, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

All who follow SRM would most likely agree that the topic is receiving increasing attention. For example, the first sentence of the webpage and the foundational academic article of arguably the most prominent opponents of SRM research, the NUA campaign, are "There are growing calls in recent years for research on “solar geoengineering“" and "Solar geoengineering is gaining prominence in climate change debates", respectively. If an alternative secondary source is needed, I can try to find one over the weekend.

I acknowledge that "attention" is unclear. However, I suspect that all reasonable metrics (e.g. public and philanthropic research funding, discussion among policy makers, media coverage) are increasing.--TERSEYES (talk) 10:50, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Agreed. I've amended the end of the lead accordingly. Is this good like this?: In the face of ongoing global warming and insufficient reductions to greenhouse gas emissions, SRM is receiving increasing attention. This increased attention is reflected in increasing philanthropic research funding, discussions among policy makers, and media coverage. I wasn't sure if we have sufficient evidence that the public funding has also gone up (?), so for now I've just said the philanthropic funding has gone up. But if we have evidence that also the public funding has gone up, we could add that back in (with a source?). EMsmile (talk) 11:37, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

References

EMsmile (talk) 11:37, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

I agree. I have seen unofficial accounts of increased public funding. ARIA alone will increase annual public funding by maybe 30%. Anyway, perhaps just "research funding", with no further adjective? — Preceding unsigned comment added by TERSEYES (talk • contribs) 15:56, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Few scientists? Or only a few scientists?

I don't fully understand this sentence and how the Hansen ref is used: Yet in the 20th and early 21st century even calls for further SRM research have been controversial, and few scientists called for its actual use.. I thought it was meant to mean "only a few" but User:William M. Connolley said my addition of "only" broke the grammar? Does "few scientists" mean "several scientists"? Or "many"? Or "only a few"? Also, I don't understand why the Hansen 2025 ref is used as a source here: Does Hansen say that "few scientists called for its actual use" or is Hansen supposed to be an example of someone calling for its use? It might be better to add the Hansen ref to the end of "Yet in the 20th and early 21st century even calls for further SRM research have been controversial". The sentence and ref was added by User:FeydHuxtable so perhaps they'd like to comment on how it was meant. Thanks. EMsmile (talk) 11:28, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

"few" does not mean "many". I'm baffled by your inability to understand a common word. Also, Hansen is a bad source, he is desperately idiosyncratic William M. Connolley (talk) 13:20, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Grammar and Hansen aside, I cannot think of any scientist who has called for SRM to be used. TERSEYES (talk) 15:59, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Sorry, William M. Connolley: not everyone is a native English speaker. So when you say "few scientists" and that is supposed to mean only a handful of them (?), then wouldn't the sentence be clearer if we said: "only a few scientists"? (or is that grammatically wrong / bad English?) Or actually, if TERSEYES says that no scientist has called for SRM to be used, then why do we even say "few scientists called for its actual use"?

The MIT Review article from 2017 that is used as a source here (not a super strong source) says "Few serious scientists would argue that we should begin deploying geoengineering anytime soon." (without saying who those "few serious scientists" are). The same source also states (bolding added by me): "As climate change accelerates, a handful of scientists are eager to move ahead with experiments testing ways to counteract warming artificially."

The Hansen ref is not a good one for this sentence either. The closest sentence I could find in their paper (searching for "scientists") is: We do not recommend implementing climate interventions, but we suggest that young people not be prohibited from having knowledge [...]

To summarise: I think we should rather delete the second half of the sentence: Yet in the 20th and early 21st century even calls for further SRM research have been controversial, and few scientists called for its actual use.. Or else, find a more precise source for that. EMsmile (talk) 22:52, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Changing "Few" to "Only a few" changes the meaning and reduces source:text integrity.

'Few' means "Not many" - and generally "Not many" could be seen as meaning quantities like 3, 2 or even zero.

Whereas 'Only a few' means "not many - but at least two or three" - quite a different thing.

TERSEYES did not say "that no scientist has called for SRM to be used" (And if he had claimned that, he'd be wrong) He said he cannot think of one. Again, big difference. And regardless, we go by what's said by WP:RS, not the opinions of an admitedly knowledgable editor like TERSEYES.

There's too many other mistakes & false assumptions in your statements here to address. It would have been more collegial to think things through a bit more, rather than subject a volunteer editor to so many unnecessary questions just beacause he corrected one of your mistakes. It's good to be considerate of volunteer editor time - many of us like have high article:talk space ratios. Dont take this too much to heart - mostly youre quite charming and your talk pages posts are useful for article improvements. But sometimes it's best to think more and edit less. I'm now taking this page of my watchlist for a few months, please don't ping me back. Much as I consider William M. Connolley to be a rightly recognised expert on GW, it's just too vexing to see my man Hansen being described as 'desperately idiosyncratic'. FeydHuxtable (talk) 01:33, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

MIT Technology Review is among the best sources of science news for non-expert audiences in English. The author of that source, James Temple, might be the best journalist on SRM.

In principle, I would go even further: that no mainstream scientist calls for the use of SRM. But we must stick to WP:RSs.

I am torn on whether to keep "few scientists called for its actual use". On the one hand, it counters the clickbait headlines the many false clickbait headlines which claim that scientists do want to use SRM (e.g. 1, 2; I could produces dozens), while the articles' texts describe mere modelling experiments. On the other, the phrase implies that some scientist do call for its actual use. Ultimately, I lean toward keeping it. (But remove the Hansen source, which is one paper that calls for SRM research.) TERSEYES (talk) 06:59, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

OK, I've removed the Hansen source for this sentence now. Maybe it would be clearer if we said "not many scientists...". Or we use a direct quote from the MIT source: Few serious scientists would argue that we should begin deploying geoengineering anytime soon.? But if someone asks: would we know who those few serious scientists are? Is the important aspect in that sentence perhaps the "anytime soon"? It seems to me that those scientists who advocate for more SRM research now (like David Keith (physicist)) implicitly would also argue that we should use it in the future when the research is completed and if it seems promising (otherwise, why else spend money on researching it; nobody would bother researching something that is likely to be a "dead horse".). EMsmile (talk) 14:01, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

I agree that we quote the MIT Tech Review.

Not relevant to the article, but plenty of SRM researchers oppose its use, e.g. Alan Robock. TERSEYES (talk) 05:01, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Done (reworded by using a direct quote from MIT Tech Review). Thanks for the info on Alan Robock. This is a name I hadn't heard about yet. Will read more. EMsmile (talk) 14:37, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Reduced mitigation vs. moral hazard

A leading concern RE: SRM is that its research, evaluation, use, etc. would undermine emissions cuts. There is debate as to what to call this. This is sometimes called 'moral hazard', using a concept from insurance. But this is a poor analogy. (Who is the 'actor has an incentive to increase its exposure to risk because it does not bear the full costs associated with that risk, should things go wrong'? That sounds like the intergenerational and N-S issues of climate change, not SRM.) More recently, 'mitigation deterrence' has gained traction. ('Deter' means to prevent, usually through a threat or risk. What is the threat or risk that could prevent mitigation'?)

@EMSmile recently added 'moral hazard' to a heading. I propose that we avoid this, as well as mitigation deterrence, in favor of a clear, accurate phrase. I used 'lessened mitigation'. Similarly useful could be 'greater emissions'. Thoughts? Views? TERSEYES (talk) 10:08, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272494424000616 says:

‘ Lin (2013) suggests that a similar kind of moral hazard applies to geoengineering. In Lin’s account, geoengineering research is like an insurance policy, the government researching geoengineering is like an insurer, and the public is like the insured. With these similarities, analogous moral hazard is potentially present. On Lin’s account, if the public is made aware that the government has backup policies to reducing emissions (i.e. geoengineering), then the public may end up with less motivation or behaviour to reduce emissions. This is of significant importance for public policy; if research into, and information about, geoengineering reduce motivation, that is a strong reason to refrain from researching or adopting geoengineering. Conversely, if the posited moral hazard is absent or undetectable, then there could be reason to develop research and disseminate information about geoengineering without worrying about this “prominent challenge.”’ Chidgk1 (talk) 10:59, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

Lin endorses 'moral hazard'. But surely observers would be concerned if the same actor (e.g. 'the government') both developed SRM and reduced mitigation efforts.

Regardless, the goal on this WP page is to accessibly summarize knowledge where there is consensus. 'Moral hazard' is not clear and does not reflect consensus. For critiques of the term, see e.g. McLaren 'Mitigation deterrence and the “moral hazard” of solar radiation management' , Jebari et al 'From Moral Hazard to Risk-Response Feedback', and Hale 'The world that would have been: Moral hazard arguments against geoengineering'.

Although SRM is controversial, the issue of what to call this particular aspect does not follow the divisions of the wider SRM issue. For example. McLaren opposes research while Jebari are largely supportive. On the other side, the most prominent proponent of SRM research, David Keith, first used 'moral hazard' to describe this concern.

If we use 'reduced mitigation' or 'greater emissions', then we can discuss this matter while sidestepping a decade+ long academic debate. TERSEYES (talk) 11:23, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

I think you're right that the current heading of "Lessened climate change mitigation and moral hazard" is perhaps too cumbersome and abstract. Perhaps the "moral hazard" discussion (using papers as mentioned above) might warrant its own section heading, where we could explain who endorses this term/concept and who rejects it? So perhaps we split it into two, and have one on "Less impetus for climate change mitigation" and one on "moral hazard"? Or perhaps we need a section on "ethical aspects" rather - would that be clearer? EMsmile (talk) 10:33, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

For whatever it's worth, I find "mitigation displacement" to be a preferable term to "moral hazard" and "moral hazard" to be preferable to "mitigation deterrence", which is skewed and inaccurate. Thisredrock (talk) 16:10, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

I do not think that "lessened mitigation" (or whatever we call it) warrants a full section. Although it is directly or indirectly a (the?) central concern regarding SRM, there is not much else to say than what we currently have (at least without original research). We could (and I think should) say that experts call the possible phenomenon various names, and list those).

I agree that there should be a subsection or section on ethical issues. TERSEYES (talk) 04:52, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

What other existing governance instruments and institutions are applicable?

The lead says that ‘some existing governance instruments and institutions are applicable’ and I have added ‘It has been suggested that the UN should ask some parties to the Environmental Modification Convention to meet to discuss SRM.’ to the body but what are the other ones in the body of the article? Or if they are not already in the body what are they please? Chidgk1 (talk) 15:17, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

The lead should be a summary of what's in the body of the article. If they exist, it would be good to get them into the body of the article. If not, it should not be in the lead. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 22:13, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

Changed ‘some’ to ‘few’ but if anyone knows any more than the two already in the article let us know Chidgk1 (talk) 05:30, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

Other applicable existing governance instruments and institutions include the CBD COP decisions, the International Law Commission's draft guidelines on the protection of the atmosphere (which the UN General Assembly endorsed), the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, the Montreal Protocol, UNEP, IPCC, and the customary international law of Prevention of Transboundary Harm from Hazardous Activities. I intend to write this up. But I am cleaning the article from top to bottom and this might take me a few weeks. See e.g. Proelss, "Geoengineering and International Law". There are more. Given this, I believe that "some" is more accurate than "few". TERSEYES (talk) 13:11, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for those links - I hope to read a bit more later this week so may well come back with questions Chidgk1 (talk) 12:04, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Images

I believe that the article would benefit from some different images.

1. The image of the space-mirror orbital is a distraction, since space-based SRM is a fringe idea. I propose to remove it.
2. I believe that a graph of SRM's expected impacts would help. The article had this one for a while, which I find to be clear and helpful. User @Emsmile removed in a couple of months ago. I propose to return it.
3. I propose add an image from ship tracks to show the basis for MCB.

Any objections? TERSEYES (talk) 05:45, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

Hi, I agree with you that the article would benefit from some images that clarify to the layperson reader what SRM is about. My comments back:

1. I think the space-mirror orbital (or a similar one) should stay because - fringe or not - space based technologies are included in SRM options. If we were talking about the SAI article, then we wouldn't need it. But SRM is more than just SAI. (by the way, we should probably also improve the SAI article further).
2. I think that second graph is far too complex for layperson readers and does not illustrate this article very well. It takes too long to look at to figure out what it's trying to tell us. But perhaps my view on this is a minority view.
3. I agree on the ship track image.
4. For inspiration, here is the image used in another article (this article is actually also interesting and should be cited): https://newsroom.co.nz/2024/03/27/hacking-planet-earth-will-not-save-us-from-ourselves/ . The caption used there for the image is "Geoengineering proposals include injecting sea salt into clouds to increase their brightness and using giant space parasols to block the sun.". I am not saying we should use this image but just for inspiration - I think this is the kind of image we should (also) be looking for. EMsmile (talk) 10:05, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

1. I'm indifferent here. It is a fringe idea but it is indeed discussed by reports like Geoengineering the Climate from the Royal Society

2. I think that this image is useful and should be returned. It is common to have images like this explaining the impacts of global warming. Perhaps consider removing row (c) though?

3. Agree too re ship tracks

4. The only image I see on the linked page is a giant umbrella sticking out of the Earth - am I looking at the wrong thing? Thisredrock (talk) 16:01, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

1. Sure, keep it.
2. I don't find it too complex, especially if we were to remove row C a have a well-written caption. Update: done
3. Consensus = add. Update: done

TERSEYES (talk) 04:45, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Thank you, this is a good example of good collaborative editing. I am really happy about this. And I think it was a good solution that you have removed the C row of the image mentioned under point 2. We could perhaps make the caption even clearer for lay persons. At the moment it reads a bit academic like this: Projected end-of-century temperature and precipitation changes relative to preindustrial conditions for (a) representative concentration pathway RCP4.5, and (b) RCP4.5 with SRM to reduce mean global warming to 1.5 °C..

Regarding the image that I had mentioned under point 4: yes, it is overly simplistic, even child-like. But I think something similar (slightly less simplistic) would be useful so that people can easily grasp the overarching concept, i.e. the blocking of radiation from the sun hitting the Earth. If we look around we might find a suitable image under a compatible licence. EMsmile (talk) 14:07, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Editing as a volunteer (17 February onwards)

Since there have been previous discussions about my status as a paid editor for this SRM article I would just like to point out that the paid hours I had for improving the SRM Wikipedia article have long been used up. I had 24 hours in my budget for editing, training and advising activities, starting 18 June 2024 (if anyone wants to know). So let me just clarify that all my edits for this and related articles as of today onwards are volunteer editor time. I thought it was worth mentioning this because the post by FeydHuxtable above (they wish not to be pinged) sounded to me as if there might be a silent accusation of "paid editor is wasting volunteer editors' time" as per WP:PAYTALK. (maybe they didn't mean it like that but I cannot be sure). Either way: I am now editing here as a volunteer editor because I find this topic fascinating. Thanks. EMsmile (talk) 10:20, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

Conditional tense in the introduction

At the moment the intro text states that "SRM could be a supplement to climate change mitigation and adaptation measures, but would not be a substitute for reducing greenhouse gas emissions".

I appreciate that one wants clarity ahead of pedantry in the opening sentences, but isn't this statement too confident? One of the major concerns about SRM is that it could be pushed as a substitute for mitigation. Would it be too picky to have something along the lines of "Experts often argue that SRM should only ever considered as a supplement to climate change mitigation and adaptation measures, not a substitute"? There is probably a better formulation than this but I don't think that the text should state with certainty what SRM will or won't be. Thisredrock (talk) 16:23, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

I agree with you. And I also don't like with this sentence that the ref (IPCC report) is used mid-sentence here. In general, refs should always be at the very end. If needed to have the ref mid-sentence then this might indicate that the sentence should be split in two. EMsmile (talk) 14:28, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

@Thisredrock I understand your objection but I think your proposed replacement text is not strong enough.

https://esd.copernicus.org/articles/10/453/2019/esd-10-453-2019.html is CC and

says “even if successful, SRM can not replace but only complement CO2 abatement.” Chidgk1 (talk) 14:47, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

@Thisredrock So you are saying that SRM could not be a real substitute but could be a fake substitute? How about we change “ would not be a substitute” to “cannot replace”? Chidgk1 (talk) 14:59, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

My formulation might not be right but what I'm trying to do is separate fact from opinion. Experts agree that SRM should not be used as a substitute for emissions cuts (and I have written this in more articles and reports than I can remember) but it is not an immutable fact that SRM isn't a substitute. It could be used as a substitute, this would just be inadvisable and very risky. But perhaps this is too pedantic and the sentence is fine either as it is or with "cannot replace". Thisredrock (talk) 15:17, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

"Experts agree that SRM should not be a substitute for mitigation."

"SRM could not be a perfect substitute for mitigation." For example, ocean acidification would continue and, even under optimized SRM, there would be residual precipitation anomalies.

Both are true. I find the first to be more relevant for the lead section. TERSEYES (talk) 18:24, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Some pretty major claims appear unsourced and misleading

In at least two places, a claim is made that a particular method would compensate for very large increases of CO2. These claims are not sourced. They appear implausible or at least misleading. The wording makes it sound like they would accomplish this offset overall, but I'm guessing that that reduction statement is only for / within the area covered by the measure which would only be a tiny fraction of the world. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 19:21, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

I put CN tags on them. I'm assuming these came from sources and it would probably be good info with wording which more accurately reflects what the sources say, which I'm guessing is that the quoted offset is valid (only) for the areas where the measure is applied. North8000 (talk) 20:56, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

I deleted them. There is some info in https://esd.copernicus.org/articles/10/453/2019/esd-10-453-2019.html but I don’t understand it Chidgk1 (talk) 14:33, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

I skimmed that paper and didn't see anything covering that topic.North8000 (talk) 17:07, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

I wrote / revised some of the text where you added CNs. Adding those and double-checking the precision of the language is on my to-do list. Maybe this weekend?

Either way, note that the leading SRM methods would generally have (near) global effects. TERSEYES (talk) 18:56, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

??? I think we may be talking about two different areas? North8000 (talk) 20:30, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

For example: It said "potentially reversing the warming effect of a more than a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide." Aside from being unsourced, a common reading of this this is a pretty mathematically implausible statement. That we could cancel out a doubling of the CO2 in the word's atmosphere by using this method. My guess is that source actually said that if you applied this measure in a test spot and doubled the CO2 in a test spot, that within that test spot those two changes would cancel each other out. North8000 (talk) 20:42, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

I just looked at the section in question and removing the text was correct, I think. The original said that MCB "could produce up to 5 W/m² of negative radiative forcing, potentially reversing the warming effect of a more than a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide". Part of this is true, part is wrong. A doubling of CO2 from pre-industrial levels would have a radiative forcing of 3.7 Wm-2. If an SRM method could produce a global forcing of -5 Wm-2, it would indeed reverse the warming from a doubling of CO2. But I think that under current projections MCB could produce this amount of cooling regionally not globally, and as such it was right to cut the text. Thisredrock (talk) 07:36, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

The IPCC AR6 stated "1–5 W m–2, depending on the scale and amount of sea salt injection; heterogeneous radiative forcing" for "Global Mean Negative Radiative Forcing Potential and Characteristics". I just now looked at the underlying sources, and it appears that the IPCC report is not quite correct. Both of the newer IPCC-cited articles [1, 2] gave maximum global negative RF as 2.0 W/m2, and the older two give no values. However, one of the newer cited articles does refer back to this one from 2012 which concludes "we predicted a [global] radiative flux perturbation (RFP) of −5.1 W m−2, which is enough to counteract warming from doubled CO2 concentration." This seems like an outlier.

To be cautious, I propose something like "studies generally indicate that this technique could produce up to 2 W/m² of negative radiative forcing" and cite the two newer IPCC-cited articles instead of the IPCC itself. I recognize that this flirts with crossing into WP:NOR but, in this case, would defend it. TERSEYES (talk) 08:03, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

@TERSEYES Thanks for that expert advice - I am trying to improve the MCB section based on that. By the way if you have time perhaps you would like to Talk:Marine cloud brightening with any expert suggestions you may have for that article Chidgk1 (talk) 09:16, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

Will do. TERSEYES (talk) 09:54, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

Do we still need pre-2020 sources outside the history section?

Don’t we have enough sources from 2020 onwards? Apart from the history section, if we just used sources from the past few years it might be easier to check that the sources support our text don’t you think? Chidgk1 (talk) 13:04, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Um, I don't know if a general statement (and a cut-of year) can be made about this. I think pre-2020 is only 5 years old so could still be very valid. Which sources in in particular do you have in mind which you think should be replaced with newer ones? EMsmile (talk) 14:12, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Two of the “major reports” at the end of the context section could presumably be removed - 2009 is already mentioned in the history section and 2015 seems to be superseded Chidgk1 (talk) 14:37, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Should the opening sentence and the bulleted list of major reports be moved to the history section?

And for what it is worth, the 2021 US National Academies report had a slightly different focus ("Recommendations for Solar Geoengineering Research and Research Governance") than the 2015 one (a scientific assessment). TERSEYES (talk) 18:42, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Should the methods sections be excerpts?

As each of the five methods sections has a main article should we replace those with excerpts from the main articles? That way they might be easier to keep up to date in future. Chidgk1 (talk) 13:17, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

I think that is a good suggestion. I would support it. In the process, you could take those sentences and refs that are good from here and move them to the leads of the sub-articles (so that they come back via the excerpt). (but I know some people don't like excerpts, particularly if the ambition is to get this to GA or FA standard; or if the leads of the sub-articles are of poor quality.) EMsmile (talk) 14:10, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Yes if I remember right the only excerpts I have submitted for GA have themselves come from GA. Still if the GA reviewer objected it would be quick and easy to change this article back to not using excerpts. Chidgk1 (talk) 15:13, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

I would say: good ahead with doing the excerpts, and in the process also improving the leads of the transcribed articles. :-) EMsmile (talk) 09:11, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

Question about COI edit notice on talk page

Hi User:Dustfreeworld, I have a couple of questions about the COI edit tag that you have put on the talk page here. Do you see this as just a general warning tag, or are you saying that a few of us who have recently been editing here would need to stop editing directly? Because if that's what you're saying then I would mildly oppose that.

I think in the last few weeks (or even most of the time in the last 12 months), the editing here has been collaborative and beneficial for the quality of the Wikipedia article - regardless of whether people have a close connection to the topic, e.g. by being researchers in SRM, or not. I think Thisredrock and TERSEYES are good examples. They have a connection to the topic, and are WP:experts, e.g. perhaps working at universities where SRM research takes place (see their profile pages for disclosure). And yet, we can work together in a collaborative style to make this article better, right?

If e.g. the three of us stopped to edit the article directly, and only made suggestions on the talk page, then it would take much longer and rely on volunteer time of others who may or may not have time/interest/energy for this.

Did you have a particular intention with placing this tag at this specific point in time? If it's a general "be careful" notice then I think it's fine. EMsmile (talk) 14:24, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Inputs by climate scientist Kevin Trenberth

A few days ago I've reached out to climate scientist Kevin Trenberth and asked him what his opinion is about SRM in general, the SRM Wikipedia article, and the recent Hansen publication which we have cited (and briefly discussed above). FYI, Kevin is one of the content experts whom we have reached out as part of our Formas-funded project and who has kindly donated his time to give critical feedback and inputs for several Wikipedia articles on climate change. I wish more content experts would be so generous with their time as he has been. I have for many years tried to bring the knowledge of content experts into Wikipedia articles (not just for this topic).

Anyhow, here is his input, for inspiration purposes and food for thought (he said it's OK by him to copy his e-mail to the talk page):

++++++++++

This may help:

Hacking planet Earth will not save us from ourselves. 27 March 2024

I am against SRM especially for ethical reasons: who decides on behalf of all humanity?  I first wrote about this in 2007:

Trenberth, K. E., and A. Dai, 2007: Effects of Mount Pinatubo volcanic eruption on the hydrological cycle as an analog of geoengineering. Geophys. Res. Lttrs., 34, L15702, doi:10.1029/2007GL030524

For every action the atmosphere reacts in ways not well understood or modeled.  Many proposals are not sound physically because while they may cool things in one spot they may increase T in other spots.

wrt Hansen: he is wrong.

I sent this out on Feb 5 to colleagues:

"Is there any commentary that is useful on Jim Hansen's latest article in Environment. Goodness knows how he gets stuff like that published. I can't stand to read it: it is 40 odd pages. I did a search and not once was water vapor mentioned. Yet water vapor is at record high levels, and of course so is the ocean heat. Global integrated water vapor is some 7% higher in 2024 than in 2000. Of course that is a feedback and depends on higher temperatures (in the right places), but it also very much depends on the warmer oceans!

He carefully compares things to cause exaggerations, e.g. he uses SST, but SST in the northern hemisphere is for a much smaller region that in the SH: is is not area or mass weighted. He also uses Watts per square meter for other metrics but not total Watts. Globally that is OK but comparing regions or ocean areas, the size and volume matter. If he did the latter he would find that, no, the biggest warming is not in the northern hemisphere oceans but in the southern hemisphere oceans where aerosols certainly were not responsible for the warming. I am not saying they haven't played a role: they have, but not like Hansen believes."

But got little back.  But these two reports:

• Matt Rozsa, Salon - 6 Feb 2025 A recent report finds climate change is accelerating faster than predicted. Some experts disagree
• Bob Berwyn 4Feb 25, Inside Climate News New Research Led by James Hansen Documents Global Warming Acceleration

+++++++++++++

EMsmile (talk) 08:49, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

Suggestion to put info about costs of SAI back in

I don't understand why this text was removed in an edit by TERSEYES on 16 Feb? It seems like useful information to me. Was there a specific reason for removing it?:

++++++++

A 2021 report by the US National Academies estimated that developing the technology for SAI could cost several billion dollars over a decade, while annual deployment could cost in the tens of billions of dollars. Costs are expected to increase over time due to reduced efficiency from larger aerosol particles, requiring greater mass injections to maintain cooling levels.

++++++

EMsmile (talk) 14:11, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

References

EMsmile (talk) 14:11, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

I kept the costs of SAI and only updated the source from the 2021 US NAS report to 2023 UNEP. The only substantive removal was the sentence regarding increasing costs, which came from a single ten-year-old study and was not (as far as I could see) not repeated in any of the recent major reports. TERSEYES (talk) 07:57, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

The section on Climatic and environmental effects

Hi TERSEYES, I am trying to follow your thought process with your edits but sometimes you make large sweeping changes with a single edit and then I get lost. (I sometimes do it myself too, I know it's easy for it to happen). E.g. could you please explain your thought process in this edit from 22 Feb?

Also, I don't think this split in the two section headings works very well now:

• Climatic and environmental effects
• Environmental and physical uncertainties and risks (previously called "scientific")

Is the idea that the "effects" section has content that is not uncertain and not risky, whereas the section afterwards has all the content where there is uncertainty? In that case it's not properly working out at the moment. The section on effects does include content about uncertainties (towards the end).

Previously, the section on "Climatic and environmental effects" had sub-headings but I see you have removed them now. I see earlier on the talk page on 9 Feb you had written "As I work through the document, I found the "technical risks" section to broad. I split this into "Climatic and environmental effects" and "Scientific risks and uncertainties". Both need further work, especially the former.".

I wonder if that split was perhaps not a good move (or the labels of the sub-headings are not clear) and now we have two sections that overlap a lot (and that both contain information on uncertainties and risks). EMsmile (talk) 14:27, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

I am not strongly connected to the distinct sections and am open to merging under the proper heading, e.g. "Climatic and environmental effects"

As background: There was previously no section describing the extent to which evidence suggests that SRM could achieve its objective, i.e. reducing climate change risks and impacts. I kept this separate from presumably unwanted side effects, risks, and key uncertainties.

A couple days ago, as I revised "Climatic and environmental effects," I found that some text fit better under "Environmental and physical uncertainties and risks," and what remained was shorter -- short enough that I felt that subheadings were not necessary. Again, I am not strongly connected to this decision. If we were to merge the two sections, subheadings would clearly be needed. TERSEYES (talk) 07:54, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

I've come back to this now after a little break. I have made some changes which could hopefully work, namely by calling the first section "Intended climatic effects" and then moving anything to do with uncertainties and risks to the section below which now looks like this:

Environmental and physical uncertainties and risks

• Regional differences
• Precipitation
• Effect on sky and clouds
• Stratospheric ozone
• Failure to reduce ocean acidification
• Climate model uncertainties
• Risks to ecosystems

Would this new structure work for everyone? EMsmile (talk) 15:00, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

This is not a bad approach (and I can think of no good ones) because I still suspect that most readers will have questions along the lines of "Would SRM work?" and "What harm might it cause?" Three issues:

"Intended climatic effects" is that it assumes someone's intentions for actions that have not yet occurred. What about "Potential to reduce climate change"?

What to call the Risks section, whose title is a bit long? Maybe "Environmental uncertainties and risks", removing "physical"?

A third issue is whether Regional differences and Precipitation should be in the first section (whatever we call it) or risks. These are ways in which SRM would imperfectly reduce climatic changes. I propose that we move them to "Potential to reduce climate change" (or whatever), with the possible exception of the final paragraph on changes to monsoons, which could be a new subsection of Risks TERSEYES (talk) 07:19, 15 March 2025 (UTC)

I am open to changing that section title but I don't think "potential to reduce climate change" is correct. This is far too euphemistic... If anything we could use similar wording to what we have at the start of the article where we say "a group of large-scale approaches to limit global warming by increasing the amount of sunlight (solar radiation) that is reflected away from Earth and back to space.". So if SRM was working successfully it wouldn't "reduce climate change" but it could "reduce warming". That 2024 paper by Hansen, which I have written about earlier on this talk page, talks about "purposeful global cooling". - So maybe something like "Potential for global cooling"?

And I think "Environmental uncertainties and risks" is perhaps too short as a section heading because those risks that are related to governance issues are not going to be in this section but only the risks related to the physical environment, right? So perhaps "Uncertainties and risks for the physical environment"? EMsmile (talk) 16:07, 16 March 2025 (UTC)

Mostly agree. But isn't "climate change" just the current common name for "(global) warming"? North8000 (talk) 16:38, 16 March 2025 (UTC)

Indeed in common language climate change is often as taken equal with global warming but in actual fact, they are not the same. We struggled for a long time with this issue when we renamed the Wikipedia article "global warming" to climate change. But the first sentence of that article explains is fairly well: Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth’s climate system.. For example, due to climate change we not only get warmer temperatures but also more intense water cycle and an ocean whose pH value is dropping, see ocean acidification. :-( . SRM does not stop climate change, because it does not change how much CO2 is in the atmosphere... It could mask some of the warming, just like "normal" air pollution does and did (see global dimming). EMsmile (talk) 17:06, 16 March 2025 (UTC)

The challenge is that the major reports define SRM in terms of reducing global warming but it would reduce other manifestations of anthropogenic climate change, including changes to precipitation (albeit less precisely). On the first point, I remind you of this discussion from last year Talk:Solar radiation modification/Archive 2#Changed short description . On the second, here is how IPCC AR6 synthesized the climate response to SRM:

Modelling studies have consistently shown that SRM has the potential to offset some effect of increasing GHGs on global and regional climate (high confidence), but there would be substantial residual or overcompensating climate change at the regional scale and seasonal time scale (high confidence)... For the same amount of global mean cooling, different SRM options would cause different patterns of climate change (medium confidence). Modelling studies suggest that it is conceptually possible to achieve multiple climate policy goals by optimally designed SRM strategies.

Note that ocean acidification is a non-climatic consequence of elevated atmospheric CO2 concentrations.

I propose that we bridge this partial contradiction by

(1) keeping the article lede as it is, which defines SRM in terms of warming but subsequently says "Scientific studies, based on evidence from climate models, have consistently shown that SRM could reduce global warming and many effects of climate change."

(2) the section on intended effects be titled with respect to climate change.

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I am OK with "Uncertainties and risks for the physical environment" (although I believe that "environment" along would imply physical -- but not a big deal either way). TERSEYES (talk) 09:01, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

I've made the change to the second heading, making it "Uncertainties and risks for the environment", hoping that most people will know that environment equals physical environment here and not e.g. the legal environment or alike.

Regarding the first heading, I am still pondering more options... How about this one: Potential for global cooling and associated changes? This would be shorter than the longer version of: Potential for reducing global warming and associated climate change effects. I think calling it "global cooling" might fit better than "reducing global warming", as it's shorter and it's also inline with the suggestion made in the paper by Hansen in 2024, where they speak of "purposeful global cooling" e.g. in this sentence: Purposeful global cooling with such climate interventions is falsely described as “geoengineering,” while, in fact, it is action to reduce geoengineering.. EMsmile (talk) 14:08, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

Why not something like "Limiting of climate change"? A couple messages above, you called this "euphemistic", but I do not understand what you mean exactly.

The verb "Limiting" is from the definition of SRM in the article. The IPCC uses "offsetting" which strikes me as less good.

The prepositional object "of climate change" is short and accurate. An additional word like "of climate change impacts" could help." "Of global warming" is too narrow. "for reducing global warming and associated climate change effects" is unnecessarily long and clunky. Only Hansen uses "global cooling." TERSEYES (talk) 05:41, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

I called it "euphemistic" because "limiting of climate change" sounds very optimistic when in reality all that SRM does is pretty much act like additional air pollution (in the case of SAI). Hence far more similar to what is discussed in the global dimming article, i.e. cooling instead of warming... It does nothing about CO2 and other GHGs in the atmosphere, does nothing about ocean acidification. - But I wish it wasn't just you and me discussing these things. Is anyone else around who's willing to give their two cents worth? EMsmile (talk) 16:13, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

Which anthropogenic climatic changes would SRM be unable to limit? I am not aware of any. Clearly, its reductions would be imperfect, spatially and temporally heterogenous, and dependent on the parameters of implementation. But "limit" does not mean "eliminate" or "prevent".

Note that ocean acidification is a non-climatic global impact of CO2 emissions. TERSEYES (talk) 05:35, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

Ocean acidification is indeed an effect of climate change (yes, not related to the climate itself; it goes further than that - which is actually very scary in itself). SRM would not do anything to halt that. SRM works on preventing warming (and as a knock-on effect would thus slow down sea level rise etc.). I think that suggestion by Hansen to refer to it mainly as "intentional global cooling" is a good one.

But also, I don't want to stand in the way of progress with this article, and have an overly "academic" debate. So my suggestion for the way forward for this section heading is now: Potential for reducing global warming; or if you or others really insist then: Potential for reducing climate change. I am not a fan of the word "limiting" because for me it implies there is a sort of "limit", like a fixed value that we can achieve (like "limiting a global temperature increase to 2 deg C"). However, this could also be due to me not being a native English speaker. I find "reducing" easier to grasp than "limiting".

In any case, starting the section heading with "Potential for..." is good, I think. EMsmile (talk) 09:00, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

TERSEYES is correct about the scientific understanding of SRM: It would counter/reduce/limit – depending on application scenario – pretty much across the range of climate impacts (precipiation and temperature extremes, and variability). This is well researched and really not ambiguous.

On "global warming": This is a terminology that has been advanced by climate change denying institutions seeking to downplay its deadly effects. I would caution to not follow that same path.

"Potential for reducing climate change" seems like an appropriate phrase here – based on my total of 19 years immersed in climate science and policy literatures. Matthias Honegger (talk) 17:17, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

OK, I've changed that heading to "Potential for reducing climate change" now. Seems like consensus has been reached. :-) EMsmile (talk) 16:33, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

I went ahead an implemented my proposal to address the third issue. That is, I moved subsection "Regional differences" and the first paragraph of "Precipitation" from "Uncertainties and risks for the environment" to "Potential for reducing climate change." My reason is that these would be limitations and imperfections in SRM's reduction of anthropogenic climate change, not new risks per se. TERSEYES (talk) 08:02, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

New article in the Guardian about UK funding field trials

There is a new article in The Guardian about this topic which we could utilise for this Wikipedia article in one way or another: The UK’s gamble on solar geoengineering is like using aspirin for cancer. It says: "Injecting pollutants into the atmosphere to reflect the sun would be extremely dangerous, but the UK is funding field trials". I don't have time at the moment but perhaps someone else does. Articles from The Guardian are regarded as a reliable source. It could also be interesting, maybe, to contact the two authors and invite them to take a look at our Wikipedia article and let us know their comments (if any): "Raymond T Pierrehumbert FRS is professor of planetary physics at the University of Oxford. He is an author of the 2015 US National Academy of Sciences report on climate intervention. Michael E Mann ForMemRS is presidential distinguished professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of Our Fragile Moment: How Lessons from Earth’s Past Can Help Us Survive the Climate Crisis".EMsmile (talk) 14:46, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

Ah surprised you spotted this before me as I read that newspaper a lot. But it is an opinion article and they seem to be exaggerating when they say the govt is funding development as well as research. Page 14 of https://www.aria.org.uk/media/wotbzgsm/aria-actively-cooling-the-earth-programme.pdf says that only research will be funded. There is a lot of detail in the document about what outdoor experiments they would and would not fund. I doubt that all outdoor experiments are “field trials” but what exactly counts as a “field trials” I don’t know as the doc does not say anything about funding “field trials”. Interestingly they also say on page 14 that results should be creative commons.

However I suppose Pierrehumbert and Mann might be right that the funding might be cut. Unless the proposals can explain how they help to defend UK of course - if we can brighten some clouds perhaps it will be harder for Russian spy sats to see what the army is practicing on Salisbury Plain! Chidgk1 (talk) 15:20, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

Oh and I would like funding to figure out how the North Sea fog was created by the Russians Chidgk1 (talk) 15:25, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

Section about article in The Ecologist

I've removed this from the article. I don't know why it was there. Was it meant to be for the talk page?:

+++++++

New section

 "Bill Gates backs climate scientists lobbying for large-scale geoengineering". The Ecologist. 6 February 2012. Retrieved 10 March 2025. There are clear conflicts of interest between many of the people involved in the debate,' said Diana Bronson, a researcher with … What is really worrying is that the same small group working on high-risk technologies that will geoengineer the planet is also trying to engineer the discussion around international rules and regulations. EMsmile (talk) 15:08, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

Overlapping content at global dimming?

There is a fairly long section about SRM at the global dimming article (a GA article) which was written by User:InformationToKnowledge, see this section: Global_dimming#Relevance_for_solar_geoengineering. I think some of that section overlaps a lot with this article, so I wonder if some of that content ought to be moved to here rather or if we should bring it here via using an excerpt. It contains additional content and refs about SRM which we don't have here yet. It would be a lost opportunity if readers didn't see that content as it might be hidden in global dimming - a term which is not as big as solar geoengineering in the media (?). Mind you, their pageviews on Wikipedia are pretty similar. Either way, I am just not sure if it's wise to have the content about SRM spread over too many different articles. Already it's spread over SRM and stratospheric aerosol injection and global dimming (a certain amount of overlap is unavoidable, of course). EMsmile (talk) 17:27, 16 March 2025 (UTC)

I agree that this page should mention the ongoing, but lessening, cooling effect of tropospheric aerosol pollutants, and that the content should not be spread thin. I propose to excerpt Global dimming#Relevance for solar geoengineering here. If needed, this section could be revised and excerpted on stratospheric aerosol injection as well. TERSEYES (talk) 08:47, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

Contrary to what a wrote a couple weeks ago, I have now seen that the sections in global dimming to possibly excerpt would be too long. Instead, I wrote a short paragraph at the end of the Context section. I am open to other approaches. TERSEYES (talk) 07:55, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

Make Sunsets section

The article should and does discuss Make Sunsets. Over the last year, this has been in various sections: politics, funding, and now 'deployment'. But none of these are appropriate. For example, MS has released less than 250 kg, which is approximately 0.000005% of deployment. I have therefore changed the title of the section to Make Sunsets, but am open to other suggestions. TERSEYES (talk) 07:42, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

I would prefer if our main level headings are all as generic as possible (generic is e.g. "Methods", "Costs", "Risks"). So I don't think having "Make Sunsets" as a main level heading is good. It's actually rather confusing for our readers. Nobody would know what is inside of a section that is called "Make Sunsets". Before your latest round of changes, we had a main level heading called "Deployment" which had two sub-sections: "Legality" (not sure what this was for; did you move this content so somewhere else?) and "Private sector" (this is where the Make Sunsets content was). I think "Deployment" as a main section heading still makes sense even if no large scale deployment has happened yet. EMsmile (talk) 13:47, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

I agree with your logic about generality. However, I do not see Make Sunsets as deployment due to the very small scale. Another general category could be something along the lines of "Commercial actors". Thoughts?

You can see here the two single-sentence subsection 'Legality' which I removed. It has one fact that is covered elsewhere (no prohibition at the national level) and two that strike me as too small to warrant inclusion (the EU report's recommendations and prohibition in US state of Tennessee). I could be convinced that the final point should be added to National and subnational law. However, given the large number of pending state bills, I am concerned that it would quickly become out of date. TERSEYES (talk) 16:26, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

"Commercial actors" is a good suggestion. But I wouldn't make this a main level heading. Neither should the chemtrail theory be a main level heading, in my opinion. I've moved them both into "society and culture" like this:

Society and culture

• Commercial actors
• Public awareness and opinions
• Chemtrail conspiracy theory

Do you think that could work? I think generic main level headings are very helpful for our readers. If you think it doesn't fit under "society and culture" then what else could be a good main level heading for the sub-sections "Commercial actors" and "Chemtrail conspiracy theory"? EMsmile (talk) 21:49, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

And regarding that former text under "legality" why did you remove this sentence?: In 2024 the Scientific Advice Mechanism to the EU advised banning deployment, but continuing research and reviewing the ban every five to ten years.. I thought that is quite an important statement? EMsmile (talk) 21:54, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

That sentence was two (or three) of the five recommendations (merged into one sentence) of seven major reports that the page lists, most of which have around a similar number of recommendations. Why list those two recommendations and not the other approximately 25 recommendations from all those reports?

As an alternative, we could try to synthesize what the recommendations of those seven reports have in common, e.g. no use now, continue or expand research, etc. However, this might be contrary to WP:NOR. TERSEYES (talk) 06:57, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

Sure, those three former sections could, with roughly the same content, be subsections of Society and culture. TERSEYES (talk) 06:53, 31 March 2025 (UTC)