Researchers and former officials gathered at Queen Mary University of London for a war-game exercise simulating how nations, companies and NGOs would respond to solar radiation modification technologies that could cool the planet by reflecting sunlight. Participants, including climate researcher Colleen Golja, played roles ranging from national governments to indigenous groups and tech firms, testing how a race to deploy such technology might unfold. The exercise revealed that reaching consensus on ethical, science-based deployment proved far harder than expected.
arstechnica.com
· 2026-10-13
Researchers at Queen Mary University of London ran a tabletop exercise last September simulating how nations, NGOs, indigenous groups and companies would respond to emerging solar radiation modification technologies. Participants, including roles for governments and tech firms, struggled to agree on ethical guardrails for deploying methods such as spraying reflective particles into the atmosphere to cool the planet. Climate researcher Colleen Golja, who advised players on the science, said she expected easy agreement on ethical research but instead encountered sharp disagreement.
wired.com
· 2026-10-12
A Big Story investigation from MIT Technology Review, done with Type Investigations, examines how pastor Eli Regalado and his wife launched INDXcoin after claiming divine instruction, raising over $3 million from more than 500 people before the project collapsed within a year with investors losing everything. Separately, the nonprofit Reflective has published a detailed plan outlining the experiments and infrastructure needed to better understand solar geoengineering before any real-world deployment decisions are made.
technologyreview.com
· 2026-09-10
Reflective, a nonprofit funding solar geoengineering studies, published a research roadmap for stratospheric aerosol injection outlining what scientific work is still needed before governments could make informed deployment decisions. The plan estimates coordinated research would take about a decade and cost roughly $370 million, versus 20 years and nearly $1.4 billion if uncoordinated, and it recommends conducting outdoor experiments releasing sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere.
technologyreview.com
· 2026-09-10
GoKawiil