EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin Targets Geoengineering Firm “Make Sunsets”
“This company is polluting the air we breathe. I’ve instructed my team that we need to quickly get to the bottom of this and take immediate action.”
The last time I wrote about geoengineering startup company Make Sunsets, which has been experimenting with releasing sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight and cool the Earth, the firm was forced to cease operations in Mexico when that government cracked down on solar geoengineering projects in 2023.
Unfortunately, Make Sunsets has continued its experimentation unabated in this country. The company continued to launch weather balloons filled with sulfur dioxide here, supposedly to release small amounts of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight and “offset” carbon emissions. As of this post, the company claims to have launched over 100 balloons for over 700 customers.
— Make Sunsets (@MakeSunsets) January 8, 2025
However, since then, a new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator has been installed…and this one is not a fan of questionable experiments with a gas that is actually harmful to humans and the environment. In fact, sulfur dioxide emissions are explicitly restricted under a number of Clean Air Act regulations (e.g. Primary Air Quality Standards, Acid Rain Program).
The EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation (OAR) has just submitted a demand for information to the start-up company. Concerns about the operation, were initially identified in 2023 during the last Administration, but no action was taken to find out more about this questionable start-up and activity.
Their website states they want to scale this activity significantly and have already conducted over 124 deployments. It is unclear where the balloons are launched and where the SO2 is from. Furthermore, it is not known if the company has been in contact with any state, local or federal air agencies. Thus, EPA is submitting a demand for information to get answers and plans to take additional actions as necessary.
Under Section 114 of the Clean Air Act (CAA), EPA is authorized to require facilities to provide information about their operations.
The agency is requesting a response within 30 days.
Sulfur dioxide has been regulated by EPA since 1971 as part of the National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) program. Sulfur dioxide can harm human health and the environment. Short-term exposures to SO2 can harm the human respiratory system and make breathing difficult. People with pulmonary diseases, particularly children, are sensitive to the effects of SO2. Additionally, SO2 can react in the atmosphere leading to acid rain or form particles that harm health and impair visibility.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin minced no words in his announcement.
This company is polluting the air we breathe. I’ve instructed my team that we need to quickly get to the bottom of this and take immediate action.
Make Sunsets is a startup that is geoengineering by injecting sulfur dioxide into the sky and then selling “cooling credits.” This company is polluting the air we breathe. I’ve instructed my team that we need to quickly get to the bottom of this and take immediate action. pic.twitter.com/9b6xPzMf4v
— Lee Zeldin (@epaleezeldin) April 15, 2025
I am going to conclude with a final thought from one of my favorite climate scientists.
There is no such thing as “taking climate action” or “combating climate change.”
The climate has always been changing and it always will. There is nothing you or I can do to stop it from doing so.
We either adapt or we die. That’s about all we can do. Worrying about it…
— Chris Martz (@ChrisMartzWX) April 15, 2025
Hopefully, Zeldin will be able to end this geoengineering insanity before another balloon is launched.
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Comments
If you have a power plant your will be fined for if releasing sulfur dioxide in too large quantities. Maybe they can start selling cooling credits for what they are allowed to release? Wouldn’t want to miss an opportunity to pay for the tens of millions spent on scrubbers.
The insanity goes further. Human beings cannot forecast the detrimental effects of trying to cool the earth. Like the Wu-flu, monkeying with natural processes that are otherwise chaotic can lead to outcomes that were never even expected.
The law of unintended consequences
Remembering my chemistry & geology classes – I found this an incredible scam & grift. One only someone totally bought into “climate science” but also simultaneously ignorant of actually science would buy into.
I.E – Liberals.
They are issuing “cooling credits”- which ONE energy utility company in Idaho accepts to reduce energy bills – for generating sulfur dioxide (SO2) gas – inflating balloons with it – and releasing said balloons to float away and – to eventually deflate naturally?
If this was arguably in any way “Good for the environment” like “carbon credits” purport to be – there should be a wide-spread market exchange of “cooling credits” like there is for “carbon credits” – which there is not.
If there was, every blessed remaining coal-burning plant (or coal-burning steel plant for that matter) in the US should throw away all that expensive sulfur-emission-scrubbing equipment the law and EPA has required for decades so they could make bank selling “cooling credits”.
Yeah, this is a scam.
Annually, volcanic activity alone releases between 20 and 25 million tons of SO2 into the atmosphere. A million of these balloons would have no effect the atmosphere’s albedo or the planet’s temperature. (If each balloon carries 5 lbs of SO2, a million balloons would increase 25 million tons of SO2 from volcanic activity by 0.0001%.)
The grift is strong in this one.
I prefer to think of it as entrepreneurship.
Technically, they could buy SO2 allowances to do this under the EPA’s acid rain cap and trade program. Right now they are very cheap because natural gas drove coal plants offline and hard manufacturing like steel has been offshored. If you *really* want to put SO2 in the air, fire up the coal plants again.
This is not the dumbest idea in the world: The clearing of SO2 after the US cap and trade acid program may be correlated with increased temps, because more solar radiation gets through the atmosphere. Plausible.
but also: a balloon full of sulfur dioxide wont do shit, except maybe get a lot of likes by these scammy money launder green climate types.
Oh no. It will get a lot more than likes. It will get serious “grants” and other money to be laundered into their pockets.
“may be” is the important part there.
AFAIK no one’s done extensive modeling or research on how long SO2 persists in the upper atmosphere – we know natural volcanic emissions can produce a miniature “nuclear winter” – but how much of that is due to SO2 vs other chemical components of volcanic releases (like CO2) or vs mere tiny particulates taking months to years to settle out is… not known.
So…. as far as we know it would be more effective global cooling to every year or so set off a few low-radiation-yield nukes to loft particulates aloft. Certainly more effective than releasing a minuscule amount of SO2 (100 balloons worth, really) could be.
Issue “cooling credits” and licenses for demolition nukes to dig the new larger Panama Canal north of the existing one. Or other huge scale construction plans as may make sense. 🤯🤯🤯 OC the same folks who in the 70s panicked that we were entering a new ice age (Hint – we’re currently exiting one) and panic that we’re entering a period of run-away warming (Hint- we’re not) and panic that if we build nuke power plants to reduce carbon emissions Godzilla will eat our major cities (Hint – he won’t) will literally go nuclear over the concept. So… a win, win.
Seems better than nukes would be to make the volcanoes erupt once a year. So we would have to put the nukes IN the volcanoes, right?
If by “immediate action” they mean “sue and fine them into oblivion,” I am all for it. But if there are no real consequences there will always be new climate grifters.
Nah,,,let’s lock them in a sealed room and let them inhale their product to prove how harmless it is to life.
Sulfur Dioxide, you say? Maybe that is why I keep smelling the aroma of flatulence…
Silly me, that is the smell of thousands and thousands of Democrats collectively soiling their britches over the pearl-clutching topic ‘o the day.
Sometimes while fishing I piss in the 412 billion gallon reservoir that supplies Boston with drinking water. I’d like to think that has an effect as great as releasing a few pounds of pollutants into the atmosphere, but I haven’t yet found a way to monetize it.
Here is why geoengineering is a good idea: anyone who thinks that the Earth is actually undergoing dangerous climate change should be absolutely IN FAVOR of geoengineering.
(And nuclear power)
But, every liberal you ask will contradict himself.