Since the beginning of human history, man has sought to control his environment. What started with building shelters and fences, has grown to controlling the weather. Make Sunsets, a startup company with primary offices in Mexico, claims to have released two weather balloons with sulfur particles in April 2022 in the state of Baja California, Mexico1 located on the Baja California Peninsula, bordering the U.S.
The term is geoengineering, which describes manipulating the weather by either removing carbon dioxide to prevent it from trapping heat in the lower atmosphere or reflecting sunlight back into space, also called solar geoengineering. Advances in technology and an increasing understanding of meteorological processes have led scientists to discover ways to control the weather.
According to Live Science,2 projects are currently in place to increase rainfall, remove carbon dioxide and prevent extreme weather events. While extreme weather varies from country to country, manipulating the weather may have unknown consequences that can precipitate the end of life as we know it on our planet.
A 2012 paper3 article published in Nature concludes that from the perspective of environmental ethics, manipulating the environment through geoengineering is a poor choice. While it is a widely held belief that humans should minimize the impact they have on the planet, other options should be pursued with potentially much less risk.