Bill Gates is fighting climate change by blocking the sun

Question

Bill Gates's radical plan to "save the planet" from "climate change" by blocking out the Sun has officially launched as scientists began pumping chemicals into the sky this week.

Answer 1

It is true that Bill Gates, George Soros, and other billionaires support initiatives that will reduce the effects of climate change, however the part of the headline that states, he is "Blocking the Sun" is both misleading and highly exaggerated. Gates has funded projects that are designed to produce a global cooling effect, such as the SCoPex experiment at Harvard University. The objective of the experiment isn't to "block out the sun" but instead to release 4.4 pounds of calcium carbonate across the sky to investigate the impacts of solar geoengineering. Soros has suggested has supported solar geoengineering as his preferred method is brightening clouds over the Artic to reflect the sun's energy away from melting ice caps.

Claims that Bill Gates is going to ‘block the sun’ lack context - Poynter (Fact check for original article)

A Bill Gates Venture Aims To Spray Dust Into The Atmosphere To Block The Sun. What Could Go Wrong? (forbes.com) ( In - depth explanation of Bill Gates plan)

ttps://time.com/6258126/solar-geoengineering-billionaries-george-soros/ (Interest of multiple billionaires, including George Soros, in same initiative as Gates)

Comments

This fact check is great! I like how you found multiple sources that provide actual evidence to the claim. The ruling that this is a misleading fact check is great as well.

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I really like this fact check because of the valid sources and the thorough research. I also appreciate you dissecting the headline and proving what's misleading

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I thought you did a great job of fact-checking this claim! You provided clear and concise information. Your evidence strongly supports your argument very clearly.

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This is a great fact-check! I appriciate the in-depth answer about what it is that Bill Gates is doing instead of "blocking the sun" to show why it's misleading and where the claim originated from. Great work!

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I appreciate this fact-check! I think it is extremely important that you state how the claim can be misleading, as it is highly exaggerated. I also appreciate how you not only debunked the claim, but you found where the misinformation is coming from and how the experiment works. For your next fact-check, I think it would be important to address the validity of the website producing the claim. For example, in this fact-check, "Slay News" produced the claim. Based on the name "Slay News," the website does not sound accurate, evidence-based, or reliable. Therefore, I think it is important to address where the claim is coming from, to see if it is a reliable source or not.

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This is a great factcheck, I always enjoy the factchecks that are misleading but not entirely false. You did a good job explain why this is misleading and gave a lot of clear examples of what the title really meant.

Answer 2

This articles claims are misleading and exaggerated, but are true. Upon further investigation, Bill Gates wants to use Solar Geo-engineering to limit the heat that the sun produces. This would be blocking a portion of solar radiation reaching the planet. According the Forbes, Bill Gates has donated money to researching this idea that was studied by Harvard which looks into "spraying particles in to the stratosphere to, in theory, create a cooling effect."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidrvetter/2022/01/20/solar-geoengineering-why-bill-gates-wants-it-but-these-experts-want-to-stop-it/?sh=37d9c2dd1842

Upon further investigation, Times released an article that went into detail about all the billionaires who have backed this idea. Jeff Bezos was one of them, who backed the idea to "inject large amounts of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere."

https://time.com/6258126/solar-geoengineering-billionaries-george-soros/

Comments

I like how in depth you went with your fact check

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I think you did a good job fact-checking this claim. I think you cited a very reliable source, "Time". Do you think if simply the title of the claim was changed it would be less misleading?

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Nice take on this claim. it's important to point out that while this claim has truth, it lacks context and nuance.

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Great fact-check. I feel as though this is a tough subject and claim to debunk or find true but you did a fantastic jon by using multiple, highly-reliable sources to support your answer.

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This is a good fact check. I agree that the claim is misleading. Within your answer it might be helpful to add some information about what it means to "inject large amounts of sulfer dioxide into the air." Just more information about exactly what they are doing and why.

Answer 3

This isn't untrue, a few billionaires have discussed shooting debris into the sky in order to block the sun temporarily in order to prevent the ice caps from melting. Most of these are studies being backed by various billionaires primarily gates.

https://time.com/6258126/solar-geoengineering-billionaries-george-soros/

Comments

Good fact check. I think this could be even stronger with the use of direct quotes from more sources to explain your claim.

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Great job finding sources outside of the one provided to check on the validity of the information. I would expand your response a little bit to examine the specifics of this claim. If it isn't untrue, as you state, to what extent is it true/untrue? Why is the information exaggerated and what was their intent in doing so?

Answer 4

This article is exaggerated and misleading, but there is truth to it.

It is true that Bill Gates is financially supporting the Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment, a solar geoengineering experiment launched by Harvard University scientists.

The goal is not to "block out the sun" as the headline says but to "reflect sunlight out of Earth’s atmosphere," according to Forbes.

The project that Gates financially supports is not "pumping chemicals." According to Forbes, a single "non-toxic" calcium carbonate chemical dust is being sprayed into the atmosphere.

Bill Gates involvement: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidrvetter/2022/01/20/solar-geoengineering-why-bill-gates-wants-it-but-these-experts-want-to-stop-it/?sh=534e31f81842

George Soros involvement: https://www.forbes.com/sites/tylerroush/2023/02/16/soros-suggests-controversial-solar-technology-could-combat-global-warming/?sh=431ec042ec50

Gates and others backing solar geoengineering: https://time.com/6258126/solar-geoengineering-billionaries-george-soros/

marine cloud brightening Southern Cross University: https://www.wsj.com/science/environment/geoengineering-projects-cool-planet-weather-f0619bf7

the geoengineering project: https://www.keutschgroup.com/scopex#h.7p66o7gfag19 

Answer 5

The headline stating that Bill Gates is "Blocking the Sun" is a bit exaggerated and misleading. While it is true that Gates and other billionaires are supporting initiatives to reduce the effects of climate change, the objective of the SCoPex experiment at Harvard University is not to block out the sun. That isn't in a literal sense. However, the experiment is intended to investigate the impacts of solar geoengineering by releasing a certain amount of calcium carbonate into the sky. 

Sources to support this :https://time.com/6258126/solar-geoengineering-billionaries-george-soros/

Comments

Nice fact check and straight to the point. Your source seems credible but I always enjoy seeing more than one just to be sure unless there's a reason you feel that's unnecessary. Thank you!

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This is a good fact check, but I would try to find more sources to make your fact check more credible. I would also include who are the "other billionaires" supporting the initiative. Overall I think you should give more details to your fact check.

Answer 6

When doing a google search I found that this story and claim are over exaggerated. You can find in a couple articles that Bill Gates was doing experiments that sprayed something into the air. Time magazine reports, "Bill Gates, for instance, backed a project by Harvard University scientists to test an idea to spray calcium carbonate into the atmosphere in the skies over northern Scandinavia in 2021 (the project was ultimately canned after outcry from local Indigenous groups and environmentalists)"

https://time.com/6258126/solar-geoengineering-billionaries-george-soros/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/arielcohen/2021/01/11/bill-gates-backed-climate-solution-gains-traction-but-concerns-linger/?sh=141c8be793b6

Harvard's Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment, or SCoPEx, which is financially backed by Gates. If you look on USA today they talk about the misleading thought behind these claims and how they started from a social media post. 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/04/23/fact-check-bill-gates-not-trying-block-suns-rays/7310134002/

When I look on the actual website Keutsch Group at Harvard. They explain that right now they aren't sending chemicals in our atmosphere to interact but just to observe. According to the main website, "SCoPEx is a scientific experiment to advance understanding of stratospheric aerosols that could be relevant to solar geoengineering. It aims to improve the fidelity of simulations (computer models) of solar geoengineering by providing modelers with experimental results vital to addressing specific science questions....At the heart of SCoPEx is a scientific balloon, fitted with repurposed off-the-shelf airboat propellers. The repurposed propellers serve two functions. First, the propeller wake forms a well mixed volume (roughly 1 km long and 100 meters in diameter) that serves as an experimental ‘beaker’ in which we can add gasses or particles. Second, the propellers allow us to reposition the gondola to different locations within the volume to measure the properties of the perturbed air. The payload can achieve speeds of a few meters per second (walking speed) relative to the surrounding air, generally for about ten minutes at a time.

The advantage of the SCoPEx propelled balloon is that it allows us to create a small controlled volume of stratospheric air and observe its evolution for (we hope) over 24 hours. Hence the acronym, Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment. If we used an aircraft instead of a balloon, we would not be able to use such a small perturbed volume nor would we be able to observe it for such long durations."

https://www.keutschgroup.com/scopex#h.p_Xru29Emo-OMw

Comments

You did a great job of finding evidence to support that Gates was doing experiments. However, I wish that you would have further explained why this claim is "over-exaggerated" and misleading.

I would also recommend making sure your fact-check is consistent in format. I found it difficult to see what was a quote and what you were claiming because there were different fonts, sizes, and text colors. Staying consistent will make it more clear to your reader. It will also make it look more professional and therefore people are more likely to believe your fact-check.

Answer 7

Although there is some truth to this article it is misleading. Saying that scientists are "pumping chemicals into the sky" is exaggerated and induces fear. Gates is funding scientists working to develop new technology that has the potential to cool the effects of global warming by releasing CaCO3 into the stratosphere.

https://www.poynter.org/tfcn/2021/claims-that-bill-gates-is-going-to-block-the-sun-lack-context/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/arielcohen/2021/01/11/bill-gates-backed-climate-solution-gains-traction-but-concerns-linger/?sh=643ec0ef793b

Comments

This fact-check is concise and hits all of the main points. Both articles cited are credible sources that make this fact-check stronger. Acknowledging the effect of including details like "pumping chemicals into the sky" is important to point out exaggerated claims.