In a plot twist straight out of a sci-fi B-movie, enter Stardust Solutions, the plucky startup armed with $60 million from Silicon Valley sugar daddies and Italian tycoons, ready to play God with the thermostat. Their big idea? Spray fancy aerosol confetti into the sky to dim the Sun, turning our toasty planet into a cosmic fridge—because who needs sunscreen when you’ve got geoengineering swagger? CEO Yanai Yedvab, ex-Israeli physicist turned mad climate scientist, swears it’s not volcano-vomit sulfates (too icky for the ozone), but a “safe as flour” magic dust they’ll patent faster than you can say “global warming whoopsie.” Sure, skeptics like David Keith are rolling their eyes harder than a climate denier at a polar bear picnic, warning it’s a VC cash grab with governance gremlins—who decides the dimmer switch, Elon or the UN? And don’t get us started on halted Harvard balloon parties or Alameda officials playing weather cop. It’s controversial, it’s risky, it’s basically humanity’s Hail Mary with a side of hubris: cool the Earth or kick off a sci-fi acid rain rave. Fingers crossed it’s not the plot of our extinction-level sequel.
Startup Raises $60 Million to Artificially Cool the Planet
