Solar geoengineering gold rush sparks outcry as elites muscle into climate policy

By willowt // 2025-07-29

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Wealthy tech and finance elites are escalating funding for solar geoengineering amid public backlash over secretive experiments.
California’s Alameda City Council halted a University of Washington cloud-altering project over lack of transparency and community input.
Quadrature Climate Foundation and the Simons Foundation plan tens of millions in grants despite ethical concerns over private control of climate science.
Critics warn high-net-worth donors with ties to fossil fuels risk undermining trust in research and enabling reckless environmental interventions.
Scientists debate the urgency of studying “plan B” climate fixes but emphasize need for global governance and public oversight.

Wealthy philanthropists linked to Silicon Valley and Wall Street are forging ahead with multimillion-dollar investments in solar geoengineering research—despite public condemnation of botched cloud-altering experiments in California and Sweden—raising alarms about unchecked corporate influence over the Earth’s climate systems. The abrupt termination of a controversial $10 million Alameda experiment in April, which involved spraying seawater mist from a decommissioned aircraft carrier, exposed deepening tensions between secretive elite-funded science and democratic accountability.

Alameda’s “failed experiment” and the slippery slope of power

The California city council’s unanimous decision to block the University of Washington’s CAARE project—a bid to increase ocean cloud reflectivity and counteract global warming—took the scientific community by surprise. City officials accused researchers of circumventing regulatory oversight, launching an international experiment via a museum boat lease without local permitting. “This wasn’t some small experiment—it was a precedent-setting step toward altering the atmosphere under a privileged loophole,” said Alameda Mayor Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft during heated council hearings. The project’s 20-minute operational lifespan ended after residents and environmentalists condemned the lack of independent reviews. Similar pushback halted a parallel stratospheric aerosol test in Sweden this spring, underscoring global skepticism toward unilaterally tinkering with the climate.

“Private funding, public risks”: Tech billionaires rewrite climate science rules

While the Alameda setback sent shockwaves, donors like Bill Gates, cryptocurrency moguls Chris Larsen and Quake Capital’s Quadrature Foundation are doubling down. Quadrature alone plans to pour $40 million into solar geoengineering over three years, nearly doubling global private funding from 2008–2018. “We need to act fast on solar radiation management — that’s why the private sector must step up,” stated David Spergel, president of the Simons Foundation, which has committed $50 million toward modeling studies. Critics decry this “gold rush” as a dangerous parallel to fossil fuel lobbying. “This isn’t science—it’s a play to monopolize control of the skies,” said Professor Holly Buck of the University of Buffalo, noting Quadrature’s $400 million in fossil fuel investments. Copenhagen-based policy analyst Duncan McLaren warned that secretive funding streams risk skewing research outcomes, citing cases where review boards are hand-picked to greenlight proposals.

Global South unjustly outgunned in climate governance

Despite funders’ pledges of “equitable” global oversight, marginalized communities remain sidelined. Researchers from the Global South received only 1% of global geoengineering funding between 2008–2018, even as island nations and arid regions face existential climate threats. “Poor countries will suffer first if something goes wrong,” said Kelly Wanser of SilverLining, a nonprofit steering millions from private donors to research grants. Yet advocacy campaigns funded by elites—including Meta’s ex-CTO Mike Schroepfer’s Outlier Projects—face accusations of tokenizing marginalized voices while prioritizing tech-centric solutions. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine urged $100–200 million in U.S. federal research funding by 2026, but progress lags. “When will governments shoulder this responsibility instead of letting billionaires dictate the agenda?” demanded environmental ethicist Molly Macauley (Resources for the Future), noting only 11% of current geoengineering budgets from public sources.

The stakeholders, not the science, are unstoppable?

As Quadrature and Sims Foundation pledges solidify, the message grows clear: the climate policy landscape is now being written not just by scientists or governments, but by ultra-wealthy investors pursuing what they deem “moral” technical fixes. Yet with Alameda as a cautionary tale, the stakes extend beyond ethics—a single misstep in spraying sulfates or destabilizing cloud systems could trigger droughts or floods for millions. For opponents, the fight is as much about democracy as the environment. “These billionaires see climate solutions as their playthings,” said longtime environmental attorney David Bookbinder (Niskanen Center). “And if we let them write the rules, the Earth itself becomes their private laboratory.” Sources for this article include: Politico.com TechnologyReview.com Politico.com