Stratospheric Mirrors from Aerosol Injections: Make Sunsets' Approach to Cooling Earth
Luke Iseman, founder of Make Sunsets, explains his company's approach to stratospheric aerosol injection by launching biodegradable balloons filled with sulfur dioxide to reflect sunlight and cool the planet. He details the hardware challenges of recovering payloads from the stratosphere, the unit economics of selling 'cooling credits' to individuals, and the ethical debates surrounding solar geoengineering. Iseman argues that immediate, scalable cooling is necessary alongside long-term decarbonization efforts, citing the low cost and high leverage of his current balloon-based MVP compared to academic proposals for aircraft fleets.