Dieses Startup behauptet, es könne Blitze stoppen und katastrophale Waldbrände verhindern
https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/03/03/1133848/this-startup-claims-it-can-stop-lightning-and-prevent-catastrophic-wildfires/?utm_medium=tr_social&utm_source=reddit&utm_campaign=site_visitor.unpaid.engagement
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On June 1, 2023, as a sweltering heat wave baked Quebec, [thousands of lightning strikes](https://www.heliopsmag.com/airattack/articles/coping-with-extremes-the-2023-quebec-fire-season/#:~:text=Then%2C%20on%20June%201%2C%20a,saving%20woods%2C%E2%80%9D%20Dugas%20stated.) flashed across the province, setting off [more than 120](https://natural-resources.canada.ca/stories/simply-science/canada-s-record-breaking-wildfires-2023-fiery-wake-call) wildfires.
The blazes ripped through parched forests and withered grasslands, burned for weeks, and compounded what was rapidly turning into Canada’s worst fire year on record. In the end, nearly 7,000 fires scorched tens of millions of acres across the country, generated nearly [500 millions tons of carbon emissions](https://www.undrr.org/resource/canada-wildfires-2023-forensic-analysis#:~:text=The%202023%20fire%20season%20emitted,wildfire%20carbon%20emissions%20that%20year.), and forced [hundreds of thousands](https://natural-resources.canada.ca/forest-forestry/wildland-fires/forest-fires) of people to flee their homes.
Lightning sparked almost 60% of the wildfires—and those blazes [accounted for 93% of the total area burned](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-51154-7#:~:text=Fig.,-2:%20Annual%20area&text=There%20were%20about%20~6700%20reported,2015%20average%20=%2091%25%294).
Now a Vancouver-based weather modification startup, [Skyward Wildfire](https://www.skywardwildfire.com/), says it can prevent such catastrophic fires in the future—by stopping the lightning strikes that ignite them. It just raised millions of dollars in a funding round that it plans to use to accelerate its product development and expand its operations.
The company states it demonstrated that it “can prevent the majority of cloud-to-ground lightning strikes in targeted storm cells.” So far, Skyward hasn’t publicly revealed how it does so. But online documents suggest the company is relying on an approach that US government agencies began evaluating in the early 1960s: seeding clouds with metallic chaff, or narrow fiberglass strands coated with aluminum.
bending over backwards to fuck with the environment even more just to protect some industries that refuse to change how they are polluting the planet and sending our species towards extinction.
Wildfires are a natural and critical element of many ecosystems. Smaller wildfires also play an important role in preventing large wildfires. So maybe they can do this, but *should* they?
Without reading the article I assuming they are just building giant lightning rods…… and I read the article and they refuse to say how they do it and essentially offers no proof it works. So I’m sticking with lightning rods.