The City Council of Alameda, California, voted early Wednesday to deny scientists permission to continue a controversial trial of technology that could one day be used to brighten clouds.The project, among the first of its kind, involved spraying saltwater on the deck of a former aircraft carrier moored at a city pier. The scientists behind it planned to test devices that can create and measure plumes of aerosols.Long-term, the research could have served as a step toward a type of climate intervention known as marine cloud brightening. The concept, still mostly theoretical, is to make clouds more reflective of sunlight, which would send more heat back into space and help mitigate global warming.No such efforts are underway yet — rather, scientists are designing experiments to investigate how the technology might work. The trial in Alameda would have been part of those efforts, but the City Council voted unanimously against it.The episode has put Alameda officials at the center of a public debate that extends far beyond the city, over the promises and perils of geoengineering and whether tests of this kind of technology should be pursued at all. The council’s decision follows similar actions in other areas, including a state-level ban on geoengineering implemented in Tennessee and the abandonment of a geoengineering project that Harvard scientists sought to deploy in Sweden.However, the council’s vote was not a repudiation of the science or the idea of geoengineering, but rather of the researchers’ approach. The members complain …
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[mwai_chat context=”Let’s have a discussion about this article:nnThe City Council of Alameda, California, voted early Wednesday to deny scientists permission to continue a controversial trial of technology that could one day be used to brighten clouds.The project, among the first of its kind, involved spraying saltwater on the deck of a former aircraft carrier moored at a city pier. The scientists behind it planned to test devices that can create and measure plumes of aerosols.Long-term, the research could have served as a step toward a type of climate intervention known as marine cloud brightening. The concept, still mostly theoretical, is to make clouds more reflective of sunlight, which would send more heat back into space and help mitigate global warming.No such efforts are underway yet — rather, scientists are designing experiments to investigate how the technology might work. The trial in Alameda would have been part of those efforts, but the City Council voted unanimously against it.The episode has put Alameda officials at the center of a public debate that extends far beyond the city, over the promises and perils of geoengineering and whether tests of this kind of technology should be pursued at all. The council’s decision follows similar actions in other areas, including a state-level ban on geoengineering implemented in Tennessee and the abandonment of a geoengineering project that Harvard scientists sought to deploy in Sweden.However, the council’s vote was not a repudiation of the science or the idea of geoengineering, but rather of the researchers’ approach. The members complain …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]
