Harvard researchers announced Wednesday they will postpone a test flight for a controversial environmental engineering project â the Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment â after pushback from an Indigenous peoplesâ group in Sweden.
Through the project, known as âSCoPEx,â School of Engineering and Applied Sciences engineering professor Frank N. Keutschâs research group plans to release a small amount of particles into the stratosphere to test whether those particles could reflect sunlight back to space.
According to the Keutsch research groupâs website, the projectâs goal is to better understand solar geoengineering, a controversial strategy that could be used to curb global warming. The project is supported in part by philanthropist Bill Gates through SEASâs Solar Geoengineering Research Program.