Prof. Sam LawlerEverybody go read "Termination Shock" by Neal Stephenson, because apparently that whole scenario is actually about to start happening: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/11/21/stardust-geoengineering-janos-pasztor-regulations-00646414
Academics, looks like there's an open letter against solar geoengineering that you can sign on to here: https://www.solargeoeng.org/
'Theoretically, rogue billionaires could afford to at least start changing the climate on their own. That’s the premise of the science fiction novel “Termination Shock,” which inspired Iseman to found Make Sunsets in 2022.'
WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK TECHBROS
Greem (Graeme. Not Graham!)JeffGoldblum.gif except capitalists rather than scientists.
Gabriel N@sundogplanets and then, on succeeding, Snowpiercer.
Lucas C. Wheeler@sundogplanets I am getting really tired of the hubris of Silicon Valley.
Weltzeitgeist@sundogplanets Sci-Fi Author: In my book I invented the Torment Nexus as a cautionary tale.
Tech Company: At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don't Create The Torment Nexus.
Androcat@sundogplanets These people are so caught up in their own egoes, and they have Very Bad people selling them Very Bad ideas (for personal profit, of course).
All along, if we want a technological answer at all, it's getting rid of oil, plastic and then adjusting the pH of the oceans (which actually just means adding some old seabed back into the oceans to neutralize the carbonic acid it has absorbed from the atmosphere)
Axomamma, Antifa from birth@sundogplanets They're willing to do anything that doesn't involve addressing the cause. I threw "Termination Shock" down halfway through because it was making me scream.
Besides having terrible ideas, Stephenson desperately needs an editor.
Paul Evanby@Axomamma @sundogplanets Also a Dutch proofreader.
@evanby I don't understand.
@Axomamma He uses some Dutch phrases in Termination Shock, but does so incorrectly or spells them wrong. Jarring to a Dutch reader. Could have been avoided.
@evanby Not surprising given the baffling and completely unrealistic premises he starts with that he (or an editor) wouldn't do basic research with respect to a second language.
Thorium@sundogplanets Absolute proof that the wealthy aren't wealthy because of their intelligence.
WTL@sundogplanets I'm (re-)reading this book right now actually. Very WTH.
Darren@sundogplanets - curious, have you read the book and what did you think if you have ?
Avi Rappoport (avirr)@sundogplanets “It doesn’t turn out well in the book.”
John Francis 🇨🇦🦫🍁💪⬆️@sundogplanets I say if they want to go work capitalism on the surface of the sun, we let them
staringatclouds@sundogplanets Well I can't think of any way this can go wrong .. oh wait
It's like a bond movie without bond
Mister Wanko@sundogplanets where's the one for it?
Ángela Stella MatutinaOh FUCK ME.
CatelliCan't believe we're at "The solution to polluting the atmosphere is more pollution of a different type."
Twoowls Elt 🦉 🦉@Catelli @sundogplanets FFS NOPE! We definitely don’t need more pollution! Are these people certifiable??!!?
John Appel@sundogplanets I tried that one on audio, but gave up after the 20-minute section defending Feral Hog Guy from Twitter.
Chris Mills
Kalle Kniivilä@sundogplanets Added to my reading list!
https://kirja.casa/user/kallekn/generatednote/46857#anchor-46857
Bill, organizer of stuff@sundogplanets I think of this every time this comes up:
"We don’t know who struck first, us or them. But we know that it was us that scorched the sky. "
- Morpheus, The Matrix
Bob K Mertz 
Innocuous In Innisfil Has MovedFFS.... Billionaires selling us perpetual cloudy days...
Alfred Chow - Maker of Things@sundogplanets
I am now wondering if Termination Shock happened, in a small way, during Covid lock down when suddenly the aeroplanes stopped flying, and we all sat outside in our gardens enjoying a very warm year of nothing else to do?
I am now wondering if Termination Shock happened, in a small way, during Covid lock down when suddenly the aeroplanes stopped flying, and we all sat outside in our gardens enjoying a very warm year of nothing else to do?
Aaron Sawdey, Ph.D.@Maker_of_Things @sundogplanets I think that switching to container ships to low sulfur fuel will do it in a much bigger way from what I’ve seen. Aircraft engines have been engineered to burn really clean, not much particulates, just water vapor and co2.
@acsawdey @sundogplanets
I was thinking of the water vapour, contrails, as the skies suddenly became very clear and blue for a long time, until flights started again.
I was thinking of the water vapour, contrails, as the skies suddenly became very clear and blue for a long time, until flights started again.
@Maker_of_Things @sundogplanets yes, definitely had an effect, and I think papers were published on it. Sulfur particles have a longer lifetime and a bigger cooling effect though. And the thing with changing fuels used in large ships is going on right now….
Colm Ó Donnchadha@Maker_of_Things @acsawdey @sundogplanets
There was research done after sept11/2001 and the shutdown of flights across North America,
The effect was small, I've seen reports interpreting both warming and cooling effects seen
There was research done after sept11/2001 and the shutdown of flights across North America,
The effect was small, I've seen reports interpreting both warming and cooling effects seen
berserk du soleil@Maker_of_Things @sundogplanets definitely some key factors showed changed because of covid restrictions (I reported on them at the time but can't name them for you offhand, but like CO2 without as many flights, kind of thing)
@aetataureate @sundogplanets
Yeah, I think many of us noticed clearer blue skies at that time as there were no contrails cris-crossing the otherwise clear sky.
Yeah, I think many of us noticed clearer blue skies at that time as there were no contrails cris-crossing the otherwise clear sky.
Jenica Lake เหล็ถเลถ@sundogplanets glitter will be the end of us all
Michael BuschNearly 20 years ago now, there was a piece critiquing another sulfate aerosol scheme.
It was entitled "Can Dr. Evil Save The World?".
Evidently, the venture capitalists concerned have learned nothing.
OGJester has moved
MissConstrue@OGjester @michael_w_busch @sundogplanets Thank you for saving me the search. As I read this article, all I could hear was Burns’ voice.
The Eddie Show 📷🎧❤️"a key threshold [has] already been crossed. Humanity [has] gained the power to turn down the sun, and barely anyone on the planet even [knows]."
64 Islands Aroha Cooperative@sundogplanets and that’s how you starve out forest undergrowth just when you need it most
MattAmazing, yet another change to the environment, that I never consented to, being forced upon me by psychopathic overlords
I doubt I'm alone in feeling this way
shom@sundogplanets I don't know how else to process what I just read...
Luna Lactea@sundogplanets "If we kill all of the crops & starve all humans, CO2 production will decrease!"
Their collective brain mass is just large enough to fit on a microscope slide.
Their collective brain mass is just large enough to fit on a microscope slide.
Lady Errant@sundogplanets @nullagent the same idea is a critical plot point in "Souls in the Great Machine" by Sean McMullen. Really great series of books.
DaveOfTheNui@sundogplanets Potential side effect of killing off (or seriously degrading) solar power, which as is the current way of things, will result in an increase in fossil fuel usage.
Nicole Parsons@WainuiTrailerTrash @sundogplanets
The fossil fuel industry is expanding its efforts to thwart an utterly necessary fossil fuel phase out.
Their efforts include funding climate denial, platforming fascist movements, and undermining COP30 & climate action.
The industry shows all the signs of preparing to wage world war to keep their captive consumer markets.
Particulate geoengineering would make solar panels ineffective.
It would disrupt wind & weather patterns & hurt wind farms.
1/
2/
https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-oil-industry-donations
We continue to underestimate how far the fossil fuel industry will go to stop progress on climate action.
They're literally buying the levers of power to keep frying the planet.
https://theintercept.com/2022/06/30/supreme-court-epa-climate-charles-koch/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/13/us-saudi-arabia-arms-deal-trump-meeting-syria
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/11/17/trump-f-35-saudi-arabia-00654771
Solar🌄Garden@Npars01 @WainuiTrailerTrash @sundogplanets
"Normal" commercial flight vapour trails are already a serious curtailment of the solar PV output I see here. The process to get commercial flights to alter altitude or route based on atmospheric conditions serious DOES need to be pushed forward.
"Normal" commercial flight vapour trails are already a serious curtailment of the solar PV output I see here. The process to get commercial flights to alter altitude or route based on atmospheric conditions serious DOES need to be pushed forward.
Steve Wart@sundogplanets I remember reading Stuart Brand's book about this stuff a few years ago and thinking that the use of aerosols to reduce solar radiation was cheap enough to do that a billionaire could just do it, and there wouldn't be anything anyone could do about it.
Michael Bacon@sundogplanets Or watch Snowpiercer
Log 🪵@sundogplanets That's the one with the sulfur rockets, right?
~Tilde #Gartenzaun@sundogplanets That's also the plot of the last episode of "Dinosaurs".
Kate BowlesThis calculation is so familiar: acknowledge but immediately brush off the prospect of harm to some, outweighed by the benefit to others.
“There would be some winners and some losers. But in general, some amount of ... stratospheric aerosol injection would likely benefit a whole lot of people, probably most people”
Ricardo Harvin@sundogplanets Well, fuck 😑
George Liquor, American@sundogplanets ...finally answering the question "what would it look like if someone concerned with the climate had just as much hubris as those who are destroying it"
Hans-Cees 🌳🌳🤢🦋🐈🐈🍋🍋🐝🐜@sundogplanets @oldguycrusty 20 billion per year seems belony to me.
Nobody really wants #sai but when impact #climatechange becomes devastating it might become our last resort. My blog describes how SAI can cool the earth in 2 years and keep temperature steady even if CO2 keeps rising. We still need to slash CO2, but slower and avoiding collapse
Risks are big, but I have summed them up realistically without all the doom and gloom.
Its last resort time
Please read before you disagree
And sorry, its very long and thorough
Toni Aittoniemi@sundogplanets Spraying the atmosphere with weird shit. WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO FUCKING WRONG?!
leftofcentre@sundogplanets the genocidal duo doing genocidal shit
spara@sundogplanets Would you be interested in investing in my luxury train that goes non-stop around the world during the coming ice age?