The Florida House of Representatives last week passed a bill to ban and criminalize\u00a0geoengineering and weather modification<\/a>,\u00a0Newsweek<\/a>\u00a0reported.<\/p>\n The\u00a0bill<\/a>\u00a0makes it a third-degree felony to\u00a0release any chemical<\/a>, substance or apparatus into Florida\u2019s atmosphere to affect the weather or climate.<\/p>\n It imposes a penalty of up to $100,000 for any person or corporation and up to $5,000 and five years in prison for an aircraft controller or pilot involved in such releases.<\/p>\n It also requires Florida\u2019s Department of Environmental Protection to develop protocols to investigate reports of geoengineering and directs the department to send the reports to other state agencies, including the health department, when appropriate.<\/p>\n The bill has cleared both the House and the Senate and awaits Gov. Ron DeSantis\u2019 signature.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is\u00a0a lot of unauthorized activity<\/a>\u00a0that is currently not regulated, both at a federal and a state level, and this is where we wanted to start,\u201d Sen. Ileana Garcia, who introduced the bill, told members of the Senate.<\/p>\n GreenMedInfo\u2019s\u00a0Sayer Ji praised the bill<\/a>\u00a0on his Substack. \u201cFlorida has drawn a bright line in the sky: It will not allow\u00a0corporate<\/a>\u00a0interests, climate interventionists, or covert operations to tamper with its atmosphere or pollute its environment.\u201d<\/p>\n Since the bill was introduced, the Florida Legislature has received more than 100,000 emails demanding action on geoengineering, Ji reported.<\/p>\n Health Freedom advocacy organizations, including\u00a0Stand for Health Freedom<\/a>\u00a0supported the bill, arguing that such practices \u201cendanger human health and safety and the environment; threaten air, water, soil, and wildlife resources; disrupt agricultural operations; and potentially interfere with aviation, state security, and the economy of the Commonwealth.\u201d<\/p>\n Rep. Kevin Steele introduced the bill in the House. Neither of the bill\u2019s sponsors immediately responded to\u00a0The Defender<\/a>\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n Nearly half of U.S. states consider action on geoengineering<\/strong><\/p>\n Last year, a similar bill passed in\u00a0Tennessee<\/a>. Kentucky, Arizona, and\u00a0Iowa<\/a>\u00a0have introduced legislation proposing similar bans, and an\u00a0Alabama<\/a>\u00a0legislative committee discussed a similar bill in March. Ji reports that 24 states are\u00a0proposing action to stop geoengineering<\/a>.<\/p>\n U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary\u00a0Robert F. Kennedy Jr.<\/a>\u00a0recently posted on X that HHS would \u201cdo its part\u201d to fight geoengineering.<\/p>\n Mainstream media coverage of the\u00a0proposed laws<\/a>\u00a0has consistently portrayed the legislation as driven by right-wing\u00a0conspiracy theories<\/a>, claiming that geoengineering is \u201clargely theoretical.\u201d<\/p>\n However, those same outlets have reported that\u00a0geoengineering experiments<\/a>\u00a0to remove carbon dioxide from the air, and to brighten clouds to deflect the sun, are already underway.<\/p>\n Many scientist-entrepreneurs, like\u00a0David Keith, Ph.D.<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 formerly at Harvard and now at the University of Chicago \u2014 have long advocated for climate geoengineering and have launched companies that have made tens of millions of dollars trying to implement it. Keith has received backing from\u00a0billionaire investors like Bill Gates<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Biden administration in 2022 set up a five-year research plan to study ways to modify the amount of sunlight that reaches the Earth. Proposed methods include\u00a0stratospheric aerosol injection<\/a>,\u00a0marine cloud brightening<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0cirrus cloud thinning<\/a>,\u00a0CNBC<\/a>\u00a0reported.<\/p>\n The\u00a0European Union<\/a>\u00a0in 2023 called for an analysis of the risks of geoengineering and said countries should discuss how to develop a regulatory structure for the eventual deployment of the technology.<\/p>\n Last year, officials in Alameda, California, halted a secret experiment to\u00a0spray sea particles into the air<\/a>\u00a0to test\u00a0global warming<\/a>\u00a0mitigation, following news reports about the experiment. The council had not been informed of the plans.<\/p>\n Other geoengineering practices \u2014 aimed at local weather modification, rather than at climate change \u2014 have existed for decades. For example, it has been widely reported that\u00a0Chinese weather authorities<\/a>\u00a0have successfully controlled weather for important events, such as the Olympics, at least since 2008, and that they continue to expand those programs.<\/p>\n They use a method called\u00a0cloud seeding<\/a>, where small particles of the chemical silver iodide are added to clouds to cause weather droplets to cluster around them and increase the chances of precipitation.<\/p>\n The Guardian<\/a>\u00a0reported that by 2021, cloud seeding was underway or planned in many drought-stricken U.S. states. States that have programs for\u00a0weather modification through cloud seeding<\/a>\u00a0include California, Nevada, Colorado,\u00a0New Mexico<\/a>, Wyoming, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, North Dakota, Utah and Idaho.<\/p>\n Critics of the practices aren\u2019t only on the political right \u2014 people across the political spectrum have raised concerns.<\/p>\n Friends of the Earth<\/a>\u00a0says the side effects of the practices are \u201cunknown and untested,\u201d and that attempts to use the technology to influence climate would need to be massive and global.<\/p>\n The Defender is 100% reader-supported. No corporate sponsors. No paywalls. Our writers and editors rely on you to fund stories like this that mainstream media won\u2019t write.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThese \u2018experiments\u2019 would not only take action in the absence of scientific consensus, hence violating the precautionary principle, but could also easily have unintended consequences due to mechanical failure, human error, inadequate understanding of ecosystems, biodiversity and the Earth\u2019s climate, unforeseen natural phenomena, irreversibility or funding interruptions.\u201d<\/p>\n Keith\u2019s attempt to implement a geoengineering experiment at Harvard was canceled after\u00a0years of pushback<\/a>\u00a0from scientists and indigenous environmental activists.\u00a0Keith later stated<\/a>\u00a0he would be less \u201copen\u201d about his future experiments.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, other controversial projects have gone forward. The venture-capital backed startup\u00a0Make Sunsets<\/a>\u00a0has\u00a0launched several weather balloons<\/a>\u00a0containing sulfur dioxide that it claims will likely burst in the stratosphere. Between February 2023 and September 2024, the startup\u00a0released 53 kilograms of sulfur dioxide<\/a>\u00a0into the atmosphere, outraging many members of the public.<\/p>\n U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin last month opened a federal inquiry into Make Sunsets,\u00a0Ji reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/typewriter-lg.png\")
<\/p>\nThis article was funded by critical thinkers like you.<\/h3>\n
by Brenda Baletti, Ph.D.<\/p>\n
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