In the past few years, scientists have hatched some pretty crazy-sounding schemes in the name of protecting Earth and its inhabitants. From building an underwater wall 120 kilometers long to try to save a glacier to cloud seeding an area three times the size of Spain to increase rainfall, it seems there’s no project too outlandish to at least consider—if not put into action.
Now there’s another such project to add to the list. The Controlled Stratospheric Disturbance Experiment—ScoPEx for short—has been in the works since 2014. The big-picture idea of ScoPEx is to release enough (non-toxic) dust into the upper atmosphere to block some of the sunlight that reaches Earth, producing a cooling effect to offset human-caused climate change.
The project is being run by the Keutsch Research Group at Harvard University, and it’s getting ready for an important step in its research process: a test flight that’s scheduled to take place in Sweden in June.
If you’re thinking this sounds like a questionable idea, you’re not alone. But let’s hash out some of the details of how it would work before getting to the looming ethical questions behind it all.