David Keith's SCoPEx Geoengineering Program is Dead

Frank Keutsch has officially ended the program, but the agenda to block the sun continues on: likely in secret.

David Keith and Frank Keutsch are done with SCoPEx.

The principal investigator, Harvard researcher Frank Keutsch, is “no longer pursuing the experiment,” the university announced Monday.

Known as SCoPEx, short for “stratospheric controlled perturbation experiment,” the project focused on a form of geoengineering often referred to by scientists as solar radiation modification. The idea — largely hypothetical for now — is that humans can artificially lower the Earth’s temperatures by spraying reflective materials, such as sulfates, into the atmosphere. These reflective aerosols could then beam sunlight back out to space, cooling the planet and combating the effects of climate change. SOURCE - ARCHIVE

According to Frank Keutsch:

“The field of [solar radiation management] has undergone a significant transformation in the last few years, expanding the community and opening new doors for research and collaboration,” he added. “I felt that it was time to focus on other innovative research avenues in the incredibly important field of SRM that promise impactful results.” SOURCE - ARCHIVE

Though the Harvard Solar Geoengineering Research Program has ended the SCoPEx, they will continue the program focusing on other endeavors.

While SCoPEx has come to an end, Harvard will maintain its Solar Geoengineering Research Program. The university noted that the program will continue to “explore the many dimensions of this issue, including the science and engineering, governance, and political and social implications.” SOURCE - ARCHIVE

David Keith, the originator of the SCoPEx project has moved on to teaching the youth to come up with their own geoengineering ideas.

At UChicago, Keith will lead a new Climate Systems Engineering initiative, which will explore multiple such strategies, including methods to reflect sunlight away from Earth—ranging from injecting particles into the stratosphere, to using ocean salt crystals to brighten low-lying clouds. Other strategies could include ways to remove carbon from the atmosphere, and more localized interventions, such as protecting glaciers. SOURCE - ARCHIVE

Death of Transparency

To many David Keith is the face of an evil cabal hell bent on blocking the sun. What separates Keith from many other geoengineering scientists was his insistence that transparency matters. I emailed Dr. Keith and asked him if he would support my addendum to the ENMOD treaty: The Environmental Modification Accountability Act. His response:

Dr. David Keith, December 29, 2017

I think public notice make sense because I think transparency is very important for building trust. I think 48 hours is much too short a period, I think a longer period is make sense to enable public comment on experiments.

Obviously one challenge is to define what constitutes an experiment.

Most sensor networks already have public data access. Happy to lobby for more public access.
Yours,
David. via Email

David Keith attempted to launch the Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment (SCoPEx) StratoCruiser from Tuscon, Arizona and Kiruna, Sweden but was stopped by pressure from the ETC Group.

These failures to launch his experiment due to public pressure led to the eventual shut-down of SCoPEx. This is a good and bad thing.

His email response to me was echoed in the reports of the end of SCoPEx:

Gernot Wagner, a climate economist at Columbia Business School and the former executive director of Harvard's Solar Geoengineering Research Program, said in an email that the cancellation of the project was “unfortunate,” as it had taken on larger significance in the field. 

He stressed that the effort “widened the operating space for other, younger researchers to look into this important topic.” In addition, by publishing the plans in a peer-reviewed journal and operating transparently, the group “set a standard of sorts for responsible research in this area,” he added.

“Responsible researchers deciding not to conduct this kind of research, meanwhile, gives ample room for irresponsible actors with all sorts of crazy ideas,” Wagner said. SOURCE - ARCHIVE

SCoPEx’s failures have emboldened others to follow a different path.

“It’s better to ask forgiveness than permission”

As I covered in a previous stack, Israel's Stealth Geoengineering Project, the next generation of geoengineering experiments have gone stealth. They do not want to face public scrutiny or explain away the mountain of evidence that stratospheric aerosol injection will kill people and all the risks associated with blocking sunlight with chemical dumps:

Robock, Alan. "Stratospheric Sulfur Geoengineering - Benefits and Risks." 21st Conference on Planned and Inadvertent Weather Modification, American Meteorological Society 98th Annual Meeting (2018).

In Summary

SCoPEx has come to an end. Harvard will continue studying solar radiation management. David Keith will indoctrinate a new generation of students at the University of Chicago. Solar geoengineering experiments will likely avoid public disclosure and transparency and truth will die in darkness. The irony is: one bad idea just ended, and the result is tighter lips and more secrecy.

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