LAST FEBRUARY, TWO balloons that were launched from Reno, Nevada, flew to Northern California. Along the way, as planned, they released a small amount of sulfur dioxide, a gas that has a cooling effect when erupting volcanoes release it.
In their six-to-eight-hour journey, according to a High Country News flight-path analysis, the balloons crossed the airspace of at least five tribes, including the Colfax-Todds Valley Consolidated Tribe. But when I called Pam Cubbler, the tribe’s vice chair and lead cultural preservation officer, in April, she said it was the first she’d heard of it.
Her response? “What a strange thing to do.”
Make Sunsets, the company behind the balloons, believes that releasing sulfur dioxide could mitigate global heating. Cubbler, however, had questions: What research supported this? What does sulfur dioxide do to the environment, and can it be cleaned up? “It’s the unknown that concerns me,”
