Imagine you are on a train track and a train is coming. On both sides of the track it is pitch black, so you don’t know which way to safely jump. But for sure, if you stay rooted on the track, you will be smashed to death.
That’s my pitch about Global Warming. We know world temperatures are increasing and ultimately going to devastate earth’s ecosystem. That’s the train that’s coming. But what do we do about it? That’s the unknowable dark … for most people.
Options include an exodus of chosen adventurers by spacecrafts to populate Mars (Musk’s proposal). Or, there is Norway’s operative plan of kelp gardens in its frigid seas combatting climate change while improving the health of the ocean.
Another plan is presented in Ben Kalina’s film, “Plan C for Civilization.” It details a gigantic, inclusive world intervention to alter the stratosphere, decreasing available sunlight so that a rise in temperature is mitigated and global warming stopped.
But how can this operation be acceptably and accurately controlled? Which country would like to volunteer to offer itself for the experiment? And could the experiment be contained over one specific geographic area?
Messing with the stratosphere has its risks. It could be used as a threat or weapon. Or, it could be given to a company with incomplete scientific expertise to correctly operate it. Experimenting with and developing this technology could be catastrophic.
The stratosphere is the second-lowest layer of earth’s atmosphere. It is composed of temperature zones, with warmer layers found as you go out towards the sun and the cooler closer to earth. The decrease in temperatures closer to earth is related to the protective nature of the ozone layer.
“Plan C for Civilization” is about a geoengineering focus on a deliberate, large-scale manipulation of the stratosphere to counteract the effects of climate change through something called Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI).
Kalina’s film focuses on two experimental projects in this domain, The SCoPEx and Make Sunsets. The first, using a traditional academic approach, has been infused with interest and financing from Harvard and the University of Chicago. The other is a rogue effort led by an Asian with a fancy van and a white guy with a mohawk. Both efforts hypothesize that by “releasing reflective particles (like sulfur dioxide) into the upper atmosphere to mimic the temporary cooling effect seen after large volcanic eruptions” global warming can effectively and almost immediately be reversed.
This is ground-breaking, exciting physics! But as Kalina follows both projects, they run into frustrating challenges when they try to orchestrate an experimental attempt.
Frankly, I had to talk to a retired science teacher and then do a little research to understand what Kalina was trying to show in “Plan C.” Who is his audience and what is his purpose? He’s got a grand topic of interest and the proponents on both sides, especially the Make Sunsets guys, are eccentric, entertaining people.
But the science and the challenges were hard for me to grasp. That one factor makes this truly important, fascinating film a hard view for general viewing. But it shouldn’t be an excuse to avoid it, because that train is coming and we need to know the safest way to escape destruction.
Credits
Director: Ben Kalina
Producer: Jamila Paksima
Featuring: David Keith, Taber MacCallum Jane Poynter (Biospherians), Hina Rabbani Khar, Asa Larsen Blind, Asia Diamond Springs, and others
Website: https://goodpitch.org/project/plan-C-for-civilization
Release: World Premier at Doc NYC on Nov. 13 and 15, 2025. Online Nov. 14-30, 2025
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