Daily Episode 253 - Private Companies to Control the Climate?

0:00Hey, Cory here. We've had an influx of new listeners, and so I just want to make sure that if you are new to the podcast, you don't just jump in and start listening to these daily episodes which we've been doing. Please go back and listen to the first at least eight episodes. So you have an idea of what collapses, what it is that Cory is talking about. Also if you've been with us for a while and you're enjoying the content, please join us on Patreon. We would love to see you there. There's a link, as always, in the description. Fall flavors are waiting for you at Whole Foods Market. Cozy picks all through the store, like Maple Leaf Cookies from 365 Brand. Swing by the bakery for pumpkin cheesecake, here for a limited time, and pumpkin turmeric bread freshly baked every single day. Sip the season with 365 Brands Cinnamon Spice Coffee and Pumpkin Spice Creamer, while you still can. Spice Up Fall at Whole Foods Market. Therapy's biggest impact doesn't show up in some dramatic breakthrough.

1:03It shows up in the smallest moments. You bite your tongue instead of escalating. You put your phone down instead of firing off that text. You say what you actually mean instead of what would hurt someone else the most. Nobody applauds those moments, but they quietly change your life. That's what growing feels like, and that's exactly what growth therapy is here for. Grow is therapy that works, covered by insurance. Insurance average $21 with insurance, and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan. There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments, you just pay per session. Grow connects you with thousands of high-quality licensed therapists across the US, offering both virtual and in-person sessions, nights and weekends. You can search by what matters, like insurance, specialty, identity, or availability, and you can book a therapy session in minutes, and begin in as little as two days, not the national 48-day average. See if you could pay as little as $0 for therapy in seconds at growtherapy.com slash

2:05acast. That's growtherapy.com slash acast. Growtherapy.com slash acast. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan. The world is ready. With your future at your fingertips, it's time for you to take the reins. Ready for a degree in animation, entertainment business, film, graphic design, media communications, writing for film and TV, and more. At the Los Angeles Film School, it's all about you. Your ideas, your vision, your future. The world is waiting for you. Are you ready? Learn more. Visit lafilm.edu. All right. Happy Thursday, everybody. Happy Thursday that is unless you are the people of Bancock, where floods are forcing thousands into shelters as a disaster is declared. This is from the Guardian. You like the way I just dove right in there? I'll spare you the small talk today and just jump right in.

3:09More than 300 millimeters of rain fell in two days in parts of Thailand's capital, in undating homes, shops, and roads. Had you heard about this? I was pretty lucky to have stumbled upon it because I hadn't heard about it anywhere else in the mainstream media. I think that's going to become more and more of the norm. That as things happen, the disasters unfold, they become more normal, they become more frequent. Especially if they're happening in another part of the world very far away, we may simply just cease to hear about it. It says thousands of Bancock residents awoke in shelters on Sunday after flooding triggered days of heavy rain in the Thai capital, inundated homes and roads with some starting to dry out their homes and belongings. Nearly 5,000 people have been evacuated to shelters with about 52,000 households affected by the floods, which prompted a disaster declaration across the capital according to the Bancock Metropolitan Administration. More than 330 millimeters of rain fell in some areas of the city between Thursday and Sunday the weather agency said.

4:09This as a reminder, 330 millimeters is just over a foot for us here in the US. That's one foot and one inch. That is a massive amount of rain in just two days. Office worker Kocin Nilset said, our house was underwater for about 30 hours. They live along the Prem Prachakorn Canal and the outskirts of the capital. This time, the water level is higher than the 2011 flood the 44-year-old said. widespread delusions across the Southeast Asian country in 2011 killed more than 500 people and damaged millions of homes. Kocin and his family lifted their belongings once they saw the water level was higher than the Canal retaining wall, but their ground floor was still left soaked. At least tap water and electricity are working, he said, as he used a broom to sweep out water. Pedestrians in plastic rain ponchos trudged through murky flood waters in Bancock's east, knee deep in some areas of a grocery store parking lot, floating their belongings in plastic tubs alongside them. More rain was forecast throughout Sunday for Bancock and its surrounding provinces but

5:10would begin to taper off on Monday. Scientists warn that the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events will increase as the planet continues to heat up because of fossil fuel emissions. Well in another piece of news, this one from sfgate.com, it's titled, a new reality, California scientists uncover why rivers are turning orange. They were even more acidic and metallic than water leached from mines. In 2018, scientists traversing through Alaska's remote Brooks range were confronted by a strange phenomenon they'd never seen before. Despite their bucolic surroundings, the rivers around them that were once crystal clear were suddenly orange and milky, resembling the type of rust-colored water typically seen by abandoned industrial sites. Now after conducting research at several of these waterways, researchers from California have discovered that they were even more acidic and metallic than water leached from mines. The phenomenon, a byproduct of thawing permafrost, might become more common as the world continues to warm. According to a September 26 study, authored by several UC Davis environmental researchers,

6:13Arctic waterways are becoming more vulnerable to thawing permafrost, which releases toxic elements through acid rock drainage. The process results in minerals being exposed to air and water for the first time, causing a release of acid, sulfate, and a mixture of metals. After studying six different watersheds, the scientists discovered, quote, concentrations of nickel, zinc, and cadmium similar to those observed in mine-impacted rivers outside the region. There are still many mysteries regarding the environmental implications, but scientists noted the six rivers water chemistry substantially changed in tandem with warm weather in the region. Brett Polin, a UC Davis professor in the Department of Environmental Toxicology in a September 24 article, said, This is a very acidic metallic water. There is some resiliency in the system, but there are metals that increased downstream and those can be transported very long distances. Those metals also became more toxic the further they traveled downstream. Concentrations were 70 times higher, 60 miles away from their entrance point. As of 2025, over 200 rivers and streams in the Brooks Range region have been potentially

7:17affected by this recent phenomenon. This was a process that was not forecast, Polin told the University. It was not predicted or included in any assessment of how the Arctic will change under a warmer climate, but we're seeing it in rivers across the Arctic. It's still unknown whether acid rock drainage in these waterways has a negative impact on rural communities and ecosystems, but scientists are continuing to monitor them. Concerns and hopes are the big takeaways. Taylor Evans, an author of the study, told UC Davis, While we are not seeing massive fish die-offs and we're not aware of drinking water quality issues currently harming villages, the numbers of observations are still concerning. Evans are pointed out hundreds of watersheds have signs of acid rock inputs, even though they are untouched by industrial activity. It's a new reality of climate change, in the article. So in the first story, we had an example of something happening in another part of the world that most of the Western world has not heard about because it's becoming a new reality. In this second article, we have an example of an unexpected new reality coming into play

8:17because of climate change. I recognize that recently on the podcast, it has been very heavily focused on climate change topics. I know there is so much more to collapse than climate change, though climate change is a massive part of it. But when we're talking about the news and what we're seeing every day, I think it's natural that this comes up more often. And one aspect of this that I think we are going to see more and more coming up every day in the near future, not every day on the podcast, but every day in the news cycles, is going to be about this topic, which is an Israeli company unilaterally trying to cool the planet regardless of scientific concerns or concerns for the rest of humanity. This is already becoming such a hot and contested topic, and I don't think we're even, you know, 5% of the way to the controversy that we're going to see in the coming years and maybe decades. Number one, companies are starting to see that there is perhaps a profit in this and a steep one.

9:17Number two, governments are not really stepping up to do it. And so it's becoming the place of private companies who think that they can do it without repercussions. Three, regulations for the most part are not in place to stop it, to control it. And so companies are going to do what they're going to do if they think there's money to be made from it. And there certainly are no regulations from a global standpoint. And so just like we see with AI, the nuclear arms race, those types of things, certain countries, if there's money to be made might take advantage of this problem, which could be profitable to solve or to appear to solve, but which would have consequences for their neighbors and the rest of the world. So reading from this, this is from CNN.com. It says this company says it can help cool the planet for $10 billion a year. Scientists are raising red flags. One company has a simple sounding plan to help save the planet. Take a food additive and the mineral that makes eggshells hard, produce tiny particles out of them, spray them into the atmosphere and cool the world.

10:18Stardust Solutions, an Israeli-US company founded in 2023 and led by two former Israeli government nuclear physicists, is pushing ahead in the race to develop solar geoengineering. A controversial technology aimed at artificially bringing down global temperatures by dimming the sun. There are many different solar geoengineering methods, but perhaps the most research, and the one Stardust focuses on, involves spraying tiny particles into the stratosphere from high altitude aircraft or balloons to reflect the sun's energy away from Earth and back into space. It's an artificial version of a natural phenomenon. While canna corruptions sometimes spew so much sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere, it can temporarily lower global temperatures. In 1991, the eruption of Mount Pinatubo and the Philippines injected them enough into the atmosphere to produce cooling of .9 degrees Fahrenheit for more than a year. As humans burn fossil fuels and heat the planet, question of whether solar geoengineering can and should move from theory to reality is gaining prominence. The technology is a critical tool for governments to consider, as the global thermostat runs terrifyingly

11:19hot, said Stardust CEO Yenai Yedvab. Although he stressed it's either a silver bullet for climate change nor a substitute for addressing its root causes. And you can say that all you would like, but if this could be produced as cheaply as they say, it will be treated as a bandaid and a replacement for exactly that. Many scientists however have expressed fears that solar geoengineering could have disastrous global implications, including dramatically altering weather patterns, and some experts are raising red flags that a for-profit company is developing proprietary technology that could have huge and unpredictable repercussions. When the whole world is at stake, says Raymond Pierre Humbert, a professor of planetary physics at the University of Oxford, satisfying the needs of venture capitalists for profits should not enter at all into decisions about what if anything should be deployed. Scientists have been researching solar geoengineering for decades, but private companies are starting to pop up. Of these, Stardust is arguably the most high profile, not least because it's the best funded, having raised $75 million from investors.

12:20The company was formed in the wake of the pandemic. Yedvab and his co-founder, Amyad Specter, landed on solar geoengineering as they explored ways to help address the climate crisis. When it comes to spraying particles in the atmosphere, most solar geoengineering research and development focuses on sulfur dioxide, mimicking volcanic eruptions. But sulfur dioxide can have negative impacts, including contributing to acid rain and ozone layer depletion. Stardust wanted to develop a material that will be better, will be safer, that could be controlled. According to Yedvab, earlier this year it revealed its particle designs in a series of scientific papers which await peer review. Fall flavors are waiting for you at Whole Foods Market, cozy picks all through the store, like maple leaf cookies from 365 brand. Swing by the bakery for pumpkin cheesecake, here for a limited time, and pumpkin turmeric bread freshly baked every single day. Sip the season with 365 brand cinnamon spice coffee and pumpkin spice creamer, while

13:22you still can, spice up fall at Whole Foods Market. Therapy's biggest impact doesn't show up in some dramatic breakthrough. It shows up in the smallest moments. You bite your tongue instead of escalating. You put your phone down, instead of firing off that text. You say what you actually mean, instead of what would hurt someone else the most. Nobody applaud those moments, but they quietly change your life. That's what growing feels like, and that's exactly what growth therapy is here for. No is therapy that works, covered by insurance. Sessions average $21 with insurance, and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan. There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments, you just pay per session. Grow connects you with thousands of high-quality licensed therapists across the US, offering both virtual and in-person sessions, nights and weekends. You can search by what matters, like insurance, specialty, identity, or availability, and you can book a therapy session in minutes and begin in as little as two days, not the national

14:2448-day average. See if you could pay as little as $0 for therapy in seconds at growthherapy.com slash acast. That's growthherapy.com slash acast. Growtherapy.com slash acast. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan. Availability has produced two particles. One from amorphous silica, commonly used as an anti-kaking additive in foods, toothpaste and cosmetics. The other is made from a core of calcium carbonate, the main component in eggshells, surrounded by a shell of amorphous silica. Both compounds occur naturally but can be created synthetically. And these are commonly used substances, says Yedvab. Availability. A amorphous silica for example was released into the New York City subway in 2016 as part of a Department of Homeland Security test designed to simulate the impacts of a potential biological attack. It's an anecdote that helps highlight how safe silica is considered to be. Every million tons of particles would lead to 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit of cooling and would

15:28need to be replenished every year, said Yedvab. Each million ton deployment would cost roughly $10 billion. It's a lot, he acknowledged, but still a small fraction of the damaged climate change-related disasters are already causing. Okay, we'll stop there for a second. So Yedvab, which I believe we have mentioned to this company and this guy in the past, probably a year or so,ish ago on the podcast, as we talked about SRM and sort of the attempts being made at it. Again, this is a private company, so there are a lot of questions and sort of just issues around regulatory requirements. Who gives the green light for this? Is it just the Israeli government? And they pay the consequences if there were any from this attempt and how could justice be served if things went awry? The article says, experts have raised concerns. In addition to being queasy about private business attempting to alter the climate, some are also concerned about the impacts on global climate and weather as well as human health. David Keith, a professor of geophysical sciences at the University of Chicago, who is best known

16:31for his research on solar geoengineering, said Stardust is, quote, greatly overclaiming to say that they are confident the risks of their particles are lower than with sulfur. One concern is the hitchhiker hypothesis that particles in the air can pick up metals or other substances that can cause harm when people breathe them in. Stardust said its particles design takes these risks into account, but whether they will work at scale and how they might behave in the atmosphere is unclear, said Kelly Wanzer, executive director of Silver Lining, a non-profit climate research organization. Pierre Humbert said that solar geoengineering engages some of the least understood aspects of the climate system, adding that no small scale experiment can indicate how Earth systems would respond to a full-scale deployment. So far, the company has limited its tests to the lab, launching outdoor tests as the next step, but history suggests this will be fraught. Plans by Harvard scientists to conduct test flights for solar geoengineering in Arctic Sweden were abandoned in 2021 after intense local opposition. A rogue experiment by US startup Make Sunsets in Mexico in 2022 led the country to ban

17:36solar geoengineering experiments. Stardust, which hopes to start outdoor tests in the next few years, would only run them under supervision and direct guidance of governments, yet VAP said. He compared the process to testing life-saving drugs. They would start with very small-scale tests, with clearly defined success criteria before graduating to larger-scale tests. The company says it's already engaging policy makers to try to build a regulatory framework around testing. Decisions on whether the tech is ever deployed belong solely in governments, yet VAP says. Still, Stardust is a for-profit company with a financial incentive in the deployment of this technology, and that has raised alarms. Quote, proprietary technology and profit motives are directly at odds with the transparency needed to legitimize solar geoengineering research. Sarah Doherty, an associate professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington, said the current science does not support making financial bets on or driving society toward specific approaches. The stakes are achingly high. Solar geoengineering could open the door to a host of unintended consequences, including

18:38the potential to alter rainfall patterns and shift monsoons, which could have big repercussions for food production. Perhaps most alarming is the prospect of termination shock. This is the idea that, once started, solar geoengineering would have to be maintained indefinitely. If stopped suddenly, the world is then faced with a catastrophic sudden warming playing out over just a few years. Stardust said its technology can be tuned up or down, meaning deployment can be scaled down gradually. The particles fall out of the atmosphere after roughly a year, so the level of cooling remains a continuing, adjustable choice in the hands of governments and termination shock can be avoided. Some remain unconvinced, deploying the technology would bring profound systemic uncertainty, and the potential to destabilize the global climate system further. Thorne ethical issues also abound, including who gets to choose when and how solar geoengineering is deployed, who pays for it, and what happens if some countries benefit while others are harmed. Then there's the fear this technology will be seized on as a reason not to make deep cuts to planet heating pollution, which means significantly reducing the amount of fossil fuels

19:41we burn. Yedvab said this is a valid concern, but it should be balanced with what he called moral imperatives. Stardust's argument is that as the impacts of climate change get increasingly severe and deadly, governments must have options. Solar geoengineering could buy humanity the decades needed to address the underlying causes of climate change. Interesting perspectives. Look, I get why geoengineering is a part of the conversation. I get the temptation to say, you know, we've technologyed our way into this problem, let's technology our way out. But if there is this band-aid solution that seems like it could, like he says, buy decades, like I get why that might be a desirable solution. But the number of risks are so high. And not only the number of risks, but the fact that the underlying problem isn't necessarily solved, as a matter of fact, it might go the opposite direction. I imagine a world based off of the way that our current world works, in which geoengineering functions. Maybe it even doesn't do a ton of unexpected damage or consequences right to earth.

20:46Maybe they're able to deploy this stuff and it functions in the way they intended with minor consequences. Well how does society react to that? Of course, governments want to keep growing. Capitalism, private institutions want to continue to expand. And so instead of saying we need to double down on green initiatives, sustainable energy, whatever it might be, it's pedal to the metal. Let's go all the way. Let's go super hard. And then what happens when in the future, we do find that there's negative consequences. Maybe it takes decades for those consequences to be known. And maybe they're severe. And maybe it does result in having to cease using or deploying this solar radiation management. Maybe underlying the whole thing while we've put our pedal to the metal, gone all out on growth. Maybe we've grown to four or five degrees Celsius above pre-industrial average. And then you have this termination shock and they can say, well, we can slow it down over years or decades if needed. But okay, you're still talking about going from whatever the current temperature is to

21:47four or five degrees Celsius over the matter of a couple of years or decades. That is catastrophic. In that case, you're not buying yourself decades. You're setting yourself up for a deeper failure. Anyway, there's so many interesting thoughts and ideas around this. So much of it is still theoretical. We don't know. But to me, that's the biggest problem. We don't know. And I certainly agree with the premise of this article and what many of the scientists are saying that this should not be in the hands of a for-profit company. We are witnessing what's happening in the hands of for-profit companies when it comes to technologies like AI and others. Okay, that's it for today. We'll see you tomorrow for a fascist Friday episode. Imagine taking your music from Passion Project to polished masterpiece. At the LA Recording School, a division of the LA Film School, our music production degree equips you with the skills and knowledge to take your sound to the next level, from recording and mixing to music theory and the music business. Our program empowers you to create, collaborate and succeed.

22:49Give your inner artist the reins. Visit LARecordingSchool.com to learn more. Hey, Corey here. If you are listening to the back catalog of Breaking Down Collapse, thank you. Those episodes are so vital. They're so important. But I also wanted to let you know that I am now doing daily episodes. Yes, that's right. Here on the podcast, daily episodes. So if you are enjoying the back catalog, great. Please also feel free to zoom forward to the most recent episodes. Catch us daily. They are quick little episodes and I think you'll enjoy them. Thanks.