Stardust- Israel's Answer to Global Warming, a Scam or Something Else?

[Benjamin]

A version of the original article in question has already been posted here (in German published Oct. 25, 2025). There's nothing I can find on SOTT which makes me wonder if this is nothing. Geoengineering is not new so perhaps the goal of this research is a cover story for something else?

The original story by Ramin Skibba was published on Undark on Mar. 17, 2025 and was republished by Wired on Mar. 22, 2025.

How One Company Wants to Make Geoengineering Profitable

Stardust, an Israeli-U.S. startup, intends to patent its unique technology for temporarily cooling the planet.

undark.org

I found another write-up from Mar 26, 2025.

STARDUST, a secretive Israeli-US startup, plans risky solar geoengineering experiment to BLOCK OUT THE SUN

Stardust, a shadowy Israeli-U.S. startup, is developing proprietary aerosol technology to block sunlight and artificially cool the planet. The company, founded in 2023, is backed by military-linked venture capital and former nuclear scientists, operating with zero transparency. Critics warn the...

www.newstarget.com

Later, along with the German article, The New Yorker is running the Nov. 20 story but it's behind a paywall. This story seems to have some traction but is it legit?

The story is that there is an Israeli startup company called Stardust registered in the USA. *As a note, out of all the articles posted, the German one is the only one that says Stardust is registered in Delaware, and if you've been following Candace Owens then that should be interesting right away. Founded in 2023 by Yanai Yedvab (a former deputy chief scientist at the Israel Atomic Energy Commission) and Amyad Spector (a physicist and a former employee of the Israeli government’s nuclear research program), the company supposedly consists of 25 physicists, chemists, and engineers. The only other known employee working there is lead scientist Eli Waxman (an astrophysicist at the Weizmann Institute of Science who formerly served as Spector’s academic supervisor).

Their ambitious plan is to block sunlight on a localised, short term (and repeatable?) basis from reaching the Earth in order to curb global warming.

For decades, researchers have explored a variety of approaches to hacking the climate. Today, the most common approach is a type of solar geoengineering that involves flying high-altitude aircraft or balloons to release reflective particles in the high atmosphere, well above the flight paths of commercial planes. The technique, known as stratospheric aerosol injection, requires deploying tiny, carefully- chosen particles in precise amounts. In order to work well, the particles need to be periodically replenished.

Scientists have accumulated evidence for this approach by studying natural events that have flung small particles into the atmosphere. For instance, after an eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991, sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide hung in the atmosphere and measurably cooled the planet for more than a year.

Volcanic eruptions are the basis for their research.

Those experimental particles do not appear to involve sulfates, meaning there is little data showing how well they might work. “It might be better in some respects, but on the other hand it’s going to be much harder to be confident about knowing what its risks are,” Keith said.

In his emailed statement, Yedvab confirmed the company is testing non-sulfate particles: “The ability to tailor particle properties to meet a broad set of requirements — safety, effectiveness, cost, and dispersibility — is a key advantage of our approach, giving it a distinct edge over sulfates and other candidate particles.”

So they're trying to 'build a better particle' to combat global warming.

The company is attempting to patent its geoengineering technology. “We anticipate that as U.S.-led [geoengineering] research and development programs advance, the value of Stardust’s technological portfolio will grow accordingly,” Yedvab wrote. Pasztor’s report adds that if governments decide not to pursue geoengineering, investors “risk not receiving a return on their investment.”

The prospect of proprietary, privately held geoengineering technology worries some experts. Pasztor recommends that Stardust work with its investors to explore ways to give away their intellectual property, akin to how Volvo made its patented three-point seatbelt design freely available to other manufacturers 60 years ago. Alternatively, Stardust could work with governments to purchase the full rights to the IP, who can then make the technology freely available themselves.

In any case, Pasztor argues, Stardust can only proceed in an ethical manner if they do so with full transparency and independent oversight: “They are operating in a vacuum, in the sense that there is no social license to do what they are trying to do.”

Other experts have also questioned Stardust’s conduct so far. When it comes to principles of governance, like transparency and public engagement, “they’re not adhering to any of them,” said Shuchi Talati, founder of The Alliance for Just Deliberation on Solar Geoengineering, a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit. “Pasztor’s report is the only public thing we know about them,” she added.

...

If governments choose to use geoengineering, they may become heavily dependent on Stardust if they’re ahead of the competition — of which there currently is none, Day said. “There’s no private market for geoengineering technologies. They’re only going to make money if it’s deployed by governments, and at that point they’re kind of trying to hold governments hostage with technology patents.”

...

In Stardust’s case, they’ve received an estimated $15 million in venture capital funding, primarily from Awz Ventures, Canadian-Israeli VC firm, in addition to a small investment from SolarEdge, an Israeli energy company. Neither company responded to Undark’s requests for comment.

Stardust said that it receives no funding from the Israeli Defense Ministry, and made clear to Pasztor that it has no connection to the Israeli government. Awz’s partners and strategic advisers have strong ties to Israeli military and intelligence agencies, including former senior directors of agencies like the Mossad, Shin Bet, and Unit 8200, as well as of the CIA and FBI, according to its website. Awz also invests in AI-based surveillance and security tech in Israel, such as through the company Corsight, which has provided facial recognition tech for Israel’s war in Gaza.

Defense scholars and security experts don’t see geoengineering technology as a potential weapon, but they do view it as something a government might use for its advantage, and as something that would disrupt international relations, said Duncan McLaren, a researcher with the Institute for Responsible Carbon Removal at American University.

It's a long article but on one hand, it sounds like another green grift trying to redirect attention and profit from natural dust loading of the atmosphere. On another hand, it sounds like an aerosol weaponisation program. I could be seeing something that isn't there, and $15 million isn't that much. Still, something is going on.

 

[axj]

At a time when even Bill Gates admits that "global warming" is not such a big problem, it seems unlikely that harebrained ideas like this are going anywhere.