MakeSunsets has raised ~$1.8M from angels + VCs and another ~$133K in Cooling Credit sales over the past 12 months from individuals [1]. These purchases directly fund stratospheric aerosol injection — bringing awareness and cooling the Earth.
We’ve applied to SBIRs, explored DAOs, crowdfunding platforms, and are in conversations with family offices and UHNWI.
Most of our closed deals? They’ve come from Twitter and Substack. The key: talking directly to decision-makers — not committees.
Uh... I feel like pumping more pollution into the atmosphere isn't really the best solution here. I could see funding research into it, to prove its safety and efficacy, but jumping ahead to doing it sounds reckless. It would likely be illegal if the amount weren't so small as to be useless.
Not all particulates are the same. Their site says they're injecting materials that are biodegradable and seed clouds. Such a thing should be fine, but also needs more physical testing.
> I could see funding research into it
If they're on SBIR then it should be pretty small scale.
SBIR == Small Business Innovation Research. Phase I is up to ~$314k and pretty short term. Phase 2 is up to ~2M and a bit longer. I've worked on and won some NASA, DoD, and DARPA and these were usually around $150k and 6mo for Phase I and $750k for 2 years on Phase II (those were STTRs)[0]. So those maximums aren't always being handed out. (The first few Phase I awards I saw for 2025 were $140k and the first Phase II was <$650k)
So yeah, it's not much and they're not going to have a huge impact.
> It would likely be illegal if the amount weren't so small as to be useless.
... What? ...
=> @andyjsong <=
do you have a link to your proposals? I can't seem to find them by searching "make sunsets" or "makesunsets" on the SBIR award site[1]. Even "sunsets" isn't showing up and "sunset" is only showing Sunset Laboratory, Inc. That you?
Or are you just saying you applied and have no award? Good luck, these can be tricky to write but once you get the hang of it it isn't too bad.
[0] They've since bumped the numbers, but not a ton. You can go look at awards on [1] to see actual numbers.
Yeah I was just looking for confirmation in case I was missing it. Thanks! Good luck next round.
Also it can help getting some STTRs first. They like to promote the collaboration and from what I'm aware of it's considered less risky. Once you have a few under your belt they become easier to get
Augment and repair are not the right words here. Since the Industrial Revolution, we've already been cooling the Earth by influencing radiative forcing; we're just doing it the worst way possible, by applying sunscreen at the wrong altitude (troposphere) and using too much of it.
TL;DR India should be hotter, but due to sulfur dioxide emissions at ground level the rate of warming is a third less. For reference, the current rate of warming is ~0.25C per decade.
Termination shock is already happening as we've been decreasing the amount of SO2 in the air we breathe. Peak global SO2 emissions were 131 million tons in 1979. Now it's 69 million as of 2022. We've been removing the sunscreen that unintentionally cooled the Earth, and one of the reasons why 2023 and 2024 were the hottest in recorded history.
The next step is to redeploy the SO2 that has unintentionally cooled Earth and do it better in the stratosphere with a fractional amount that we've tolerated since the start of the Industrial Revolution.
The last point about "fossil fuels can continue" is also called moral hazard. Regardless of SAI or not, we're going to keep using whatever is the cheapest and accessible fuel we have available, and right now, it's hydrocarbons pulled from the ground. We've already gotten good at recklessly warming our planet and unintentionally cooling it, so we might as well get good at cooling intentionally.
It's not banned, where are you getting this information? We've deployed 124 times for our customers mostly in Northern California. If you want to learn more: https://makesunsets.com/pages/new-faq
Thanks for sharing the link! The article focuses on Marine Cloud Brightening (MCB), an unscalable method of solar radiation management. MCB would require thousands of autonomous boats (ideally running without fossil fuels) to locate suitable low-altitude ocean clouds and spray them with finely misted saltwater to increase their reflectivity. At best, this method might achieve localized cooling over ocean areas, but its net impact on global temperatures remains uncertain—scientists are still debating whether it would result in overall cooling or even exacerbate warming in some regions.
The specific experiment mentioned in the article was halted due to a lack of community engagement. The organizers failed to inform or invite the local mayor to the deployment event, leading to public backlash when residents learned about it from the New York Times. Much of the misunderstanding came from a perception that the experiment involved risky technology, though in reality, it was as simple as using a patio mister mounted on a retired warship.
What I was referencing, however, is Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI), which differs significantly from MCB in both the type of aerosol used (typically sulfur dioxide, SO₂) and the location of the injection (the stratosphere, rather than the lower atmosphere). If you're interested in learning more about SAI, here's an excellent primer: https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/so2-injection
Nah, we can also debate about it some more as we cook to death...
Fucking democracy, the EU governments wanted to improve environmental protections and fucking farmers protested all over.
It feels like a dictatorship would work better, e.g. in China there are no NIMBYs about nuclear plants or solar panels. Well there are, but a visit by the police would quieten them. No I wouldn't like to live like that but the alternative is having to be considerate to every fucking Karen's opinion as the world burns...
https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/china-climate-change-polici...:
> In 2019, renewables accounted for nearly 15 percent of China’s energy mix, compared to 7 percent a decade earlier. China has used hydropower for years, and it is installing more solar panels and wind power generators as the world’s leading manufacturer of those technologies. It is also boosting its nuclear power capacity, with seventeen reactors under construction as of mid-2021.
Whereas in the US, in 10 months the climate policy could be "It's a hoax, folks. Just a big hoax. The biggest hoax ever.".
MakeSunsets has raised ~$1.8M from angels + VCs and another ~$133K in Cooling Credit sales over the past 12 months from individuals [1]. These purchases directly fund stratospheric aerosol injection — bringing awareness and cooling the Earth.
We’ve applied to SBIRs, explored DAOs, crowdfunding platforms, and are in conversations with family offices and UHNWI.
Most of our closed deals? They’ve come from Twitter and Substack. The key: talking directly to decision-makers — not committees.
[1] Climate dads: https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0685/0042/2976/files/Make_...