Get the latest tech news

A Mysterious Startup Is Developing a New Form of Solar Geoengineering


Stardust, an Israeli–US startup, intends to patent its unique aerosol technology for temporarily cooling the planet.

Pasztor recommends that Stardust work with its investors to explore ways to give away their intellectual property, akin to how Volvo made its patented three-point seatbelt design freely available to other manufacturers 60 years ago. Defense scholars and security experts don’t see geoengineering technology as a potential weapon, but they do view it as something a government might use for its advantage, and as something that would disrupt international relations, said Duncan McLaren, a researcher with the Institute for Responsible Carbon Removal at American University. “That tends to be a space in which public involvement in decisions is utterly sidelined,” McLaren said, and there is “the potential for this to be a highly undemocratic process of moving us down a slippery slope to solar geoengineering.” If humanity needed this technology, he added, “I definitely want it to be controlled democratically.”

Get the Android app

Or read this on Wired

Read more on:

Photo of new form

new form

Photo of solar geoengineering

solar geoengineering

Photo of mysterious startup

mysterious startup

Related news:

News photo

New Form of Parkinson's Treatment Uses Real-Time Deep-Brain Stimulation

News photo

Farewell to taking up space on land – Japan invents a new form of energy by putting more than 50,000 solar panels in the water

News photo

Smartwatch pioneer and Kickstarter darling Pebble is returning in a new form