In a “worst person you know just made a great point” sort of moment, Lee Zeldin’s rebranded Environmental Protection Agency has turned its sights on Make Sunsets, the small and weird startup company that sells “cooling credits” for releasing sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere. The EPA has submitted a “demand for information” to the company, asking for updated data on their balloon launches.
Make Sunsets has been around for a few years now, somewhat audaciously claiming on their homepage that “We cool Earth with reflective clouds.” They started their balloon releases in Mexico, in response to which the country literally banned solar geoengineering. For the low price of five bucks, anyone can purchase a single cooling credit, equivalent to one gram of SO2 emitted from a balloon up in the stratosphere. These balloon launches are a very small-scale version of the ever-controversial idea of stratospheric aerosol injection, or SAI; SO2 particles reflect sunlight back out into space, helping cool the planet. Humans emit those particles and other similar aerosols from a variety of sources all the time — the controversial bit is to do it intentionally, at a large scale, in order to offset the warming that we collectively are failing to rein in.
There isn’t much debate over whether more aerosols up high would cool the planet; we have seen it happen, thanks to large volcanic eruptions like Pinatubo in 1991. The issue is that it would almost certainly cause specific harm to certain parts of the world; monsoon patterns would likely shift, upending some agricultural areas, and in general it would mean actively pick winners and losers in a global experiment. It may produce other unforeseen risks, and it is also just sort of an inherently ugly idea, to purposely block out a bit of sunlight to compensate for humanity’s failures.
Of course, none of that is why Zeldin and the EPA are semi-threatening some sort of enforcement action against Make Sunsets. “The idea that individuals, supported by venture capitalists, are putting criteria air pollutants into the air to sell ‘cooling’ credits shows how climate extremism has overtaken common sense,” Zeldin said in a press release. Sure.
Make Sunsets is generally right about climate change, but it does demonstrate that tech bro-ification and get-that-bag mentality can invade just about any space. There are reasonable arguments to be had over SAI’s potential to, maybe, reduce the sum total of human suffering in the world, but a company profiting off of the concept isn’t meaningfully participating in that discussion. Aside from the cooling credits themselves — save 80 percent by committing to a $30 monthly plan — Make Sunsets has a merch page, if you’re in the market for a “Dad Hat + 1 Cooling Credit Bundle.”
Regardless, EPA’s anti-climate-action eye turned on the company might have its own chilling effect on what is effectively “rogue” geoengineering. Make Sunsets says it has deployed 147 balloons for almost 900 total customers, though that data is current as of about a year ago; EPA’s demand helpfully includes a blank spreadsheet for the company to fill in with data on every individual launch. Make Sunsets says what it does is legal under the Weather Modification Act of 1976, and that they have been in contact with government agencies including the CIA, FBI, FAA, and NOAA — though not the EPA. If they want to avoid potential “monetary penalties,” they have 30 days to remedy that.
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