Experts Urge Government Ban On Solar Geoengineering
There is limited understanding of these techniques, which could have an effect on the ozone layer, crop yields, rain, snowfall, and even respiratory health. ~Environmental Protection Agency
T.J. Muscaro via The Epoch Times
The United States should lead an international effort to prohibit the use of solar geoengineering, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, Roger Pielke Jr., told members of Congress on Sept. 16.
AP photo
Pielke testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Delivering Government Efficiency during a hearing on weather manipulation, specifically cloud-seeding and geoengineering.
While geoengineering is a broad category that covers processes to intentionally cool the Earth’s temperature—which could even include painting buildings a certain way—the subset known as solar geoengineering or solar radiation modification drew Pielke’s concern.
Those modification techniques involve the dispensing of reflective elements such as sulfur dioxide into layers of the atmosphere to prevent the sun’s rays from reaching the Earth’s surface.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), there is limited understanding of these techniques, which could have an effect on the ozone layer, crop yields, rain, snowfall, and even respiratory health.
Described as an expert in climate, science, and technology policy—as well as the politicization of science and government science advice—Pielke was one of more than 500 scientists and academics from around the world calling for an international non-use agreement for solar geoengineering.
He argued that no outdoor experimentation of solar geoengineering should be allowed and that governments should work to monitor the atmosphere to track and enforce that ban.
“We have one Earth, and experimenting on it carries considerable risks,” he said in his opening remarks. “I have likened geoengineering to risky gain-of-function research on viruses with uncertain benefits and catastrophic risks.”
Pielke was joined by Christopher Martz, a meteorologist and policy analyst at the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, who also saw a need for prohibition.
“Solar geoengineering should be prohibited, given the uncertainties about climate change itself, as well as the uncertainties that geoengineering could have on both the environment and life on Earth,” Martz said in his opening statement.
Martz went on to say that while he believes the planet got warmer over the past 100 years, he still saw uncertainty in how much of an impact humanity has truly had on that.
On top of that, he said there has been no distinction made between humanity’s specific contributions to such change in climate and nature’s own doing, such as through volcanic eruptions and deep-sea vents on the ocean floor.
He later pointed out how quickly people blamed weather modification for disasters such as Hurricane Helene and the Texas floods, despite the lack of evidence, and he argued that any geoengineering used to cool the Earth could face blame for making any subsequent winter even colder.
“These uncertainties need to be resolved in the peer-reviewed literature before world governments try to, much less, consider intentionally altering the radiation balance with novel technologies that have not been tested,” he said in his opening statement.
However, the third expert witness called to testify disagreed with them.
Michael MacCracken has served as the chief scientist for climate-related programs at the Climate Institute on a pro bono basis since his retirement in 2002.
He is on the steering committee of the Healthy Planet Action Coalition, which he said favors climate intervention or geoengineering.
He said that it was evident that changes in the climate seen in the past century were directly caused by humans, and that climate intervention could be examined by studying any cooling that has already occurred naturally.
“Volcanic eruptions put sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere,” he said in his opening statement. “It turns to sulfate. It reflects maybe 1 percent of solar radiation. It’s not like it blanks out the sun in any sense, and that can sort of exert a cooling influence.”
MacCracken cited the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, which he said caused a momentary climate cooling when the sulfur was mixed in the atmosphere, but it was then naturally removed, and the climate returned to normal.
“Nature has really done the experiments on this, on whether these approaches will work,” MacCracken said.
“That’s not something that science really has to go back and do.
“What we have to do is see if the tailoring and the optimizing … will work. Will it be beneficial or not? So there are a host of questions for research to consider.”
The subcommittee’s chairwoman, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), an outspoken opponent to any form of weather modification, called out one company in California called Make Sunsets, which has already decided to start geoengineering on its own by launching balloons that release reflective particles into the atmosphere.
According to the company’s FAQ page, the particles can stay in the atmosphere for between six months and three years, depending on the altitude at which they are released.
The company claimed that its work was legal, falling under the Weather Modification Act of 1976.
Under an FAQ that stated, “I would like you to stop doing this,” it replied with the following: “And we would like an equitable future with breathable air and no wet bulb events for generations to come. Convince us there’s a more feasible way to buy us the time to get there, and we‘ll stop. We’ll happily debate anyone on this, just confirm an audience of at least 200 people, and we’ll find the time to try and convince you.”
Both Martz and Pielke denounced the company’s practice and extreme view of the climate.
Ranking member Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.) then turned to Greene and said: “I do believe we have actually discovered the purpose of the EPA.
“Literally, this is why the EPA exists. It is to regulate, study, and understand how modifications to the environment impact human health and the environment, and in fact, that is the primary purpose of the Science Advisory Committee for the EPA.”
Standbury and the other Democratic subcommittee members used a significant portion of their speaking time to criticize the Trump administration for its cuts to the EPA, investments in climate science, and departure from international climate agreements.
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Header featured image (edited) credit: Plane&Pilot article tease. Emphasis added by (TLB)
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