What Exactly Is Weather Hacking and Why It Would Be A Bad Thing If Countries Starting Doing It

Veuer

It’s very much looking like the world is going to quickly pass the 2.8 degrees Fahrenheit Paris Climate agreement threshold and possibly then some. Now climate experts say, countries that are caught in the crosshairs of the first wave of these climate events might decide to take drastic measures unilaterally and that could have far reaching effects. Veuer’s Tony Spitz has the details.

Transcript

00:00It's very much looking like the world is going to quickly pass the 2.8 degree Fahrenheit Paris

00:05Climate Agreement threshold, and possibly then some. That will mean our planet will see climate

00:09catastrophes the likes humanity has never dealt with, including droughts, flooding,

00:14and record-setting storms, wildfires, and heat waves. Now climate experts writing for the

00:19conversation say countries that are caught in the crosshairs of the first wave of those climate

00:23events might decide to take drastic measures unilaterally, and that could have far-reaching

00:28effects. This infographic from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows

00:33just a few of those methods, from space-based sun reflection to increasing the amount of

00:37stratospheric aerosol. These geoengineering or solar climate intervention methods are theoretically

00:43effective. Some mirror the same cooling effects volcanoes have when they erupt by spewing massive

00:48amounts of reflective particles into the atmosphere. The problem with any one nation using pretty much

00:53any of these methods, however, is that they could lead to issues for their neighbors, and that's sort

00:57of the underlying problem. If one country changes the weather within their borders, it could have

01:01cascading effects for their neighbors and beyond, possibly affecting their rainfall or causing inclement

01:06weather events. And even if it doesn't, and those weather events would have happened anyways, they could

01:11still be blamed, leading to possible military conflicts, literally, over the weather.

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