Geoengineering Madness

Written by Dr. Matthew Wielicki on March 24, 2025. Posted in Current News

Growing up in the 1980s and 1990s, I recall vividly how the mainstream media relentlessly portrayed acid rain as a catastrophic threat.

While acid rain posed genuine environmental issues, certainly more legitimate than today’s inflated hysteria over carbon dioxide (CO₂), its dangers were exaggerated to justify costly and burdensome regulations.

Trillions of dollars later, after severely regulating sulfur emissions from diesel engines and ships, we’re faced with a stunning and dangerous reversal: companies like Make Sunsets propose deliberately injecting sulfur particles into the atmosphere to “save” us from climate change. This isn’t just paradoxical; it’s outright environmental insanity, far more dangerous than any hypothetical warming of a couple of degrees.

Diesel Engines: Efficiency Sacrificed for Regulation

Diesel engines operate efficiently through compression ignition, where diesel fuel ignites due to compressed, heated air. These engines can achieve remarkable fuel efficiency, frequently over 50 miles per gallon under ideal conditions. Diesel fuel naturally contains sulfur, originating in crude oil, and historically had concentrations up to 5000 ppm. Regulatory zeal drastically reduced this to today’s standard of just 15 ppm or lower, incurring massive costs and complexity.

Despite the simplicity and efficiency, regulations for ultra-low-sulfur diesel (ULSD) were neither cheap nor simple. Initiated in the U.S. in 1993, regulations intensified in 2006, paralleling stringent EU standards. The maritime industry faced dramatic upheaval in 2020 when the IMO slashed sulfur limits from 3.5% to 0.5% practically overnight, forcing costly retrofits or the adoption of expensive new fuels, costing shipping companies many millions per vessel.

Inflating Costs, Negligible Gains

These sulfur regulations significantly raised operational expenses, driving up consumer costs and disproportionately affecting lower-income families. We’ve paid heavily for these environmental measures through inflated prices of nearly every product we buy. But did we truly achieve a proportionate environmental gain?

Real Pollution vs. Imaginary Threats

Sulfur emissions are undeniably harmful pollutants, far different from the beneficial role CO₂ plays in plant growth. Atmospheric sulfur compounds form sulfur dioxide (SO₂) and subsequently sulfuric acid (H₂SO₄), responsible for genuine environmental harm, including soil acidification, forest degradation, infrastructure corrosion, and severe aquatic ecosystem damage. Human-generated sulfur emissions vastly exceed natural sources, with approximately 69 million tons annually compared to volcanic sources of just 10-20 million tons.

This tangible harm justified sulfur regulations. Yet now, geoengineering advocates want to intentionally pump sulfur into our atmosphere, ignoring decades of clear scientific evidence regarding sulfur’s proven environmental and health damage.

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