Environmental Groups Demand Transparency over Geoengineering Experiments

Friends of the Earth and the Center for Biological Diversity, along with 9,317 Friends of the Earth members across the country, demanded that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) impose public transparency requirements on any attempts to test or use geoengineering technologies.

"Geoengineering" describes attempts to manipulate Earth's atmosphere and oceans in order to address the effects of climate change. These range from injecting megatons of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight back into space, to every container ship in the world dumping limestone in its wake to draw carbon dioxide down from the atmosphere. Once considered a fringe idea, geoengineering has received growing attention from researchers and commercial interests who see a potentially profitable future industry. However, the current lack of transparency around geoengineering is dangerous, and is exacerbating public distrust around the existence and scope of weather modification occurring in the country.

The Weather Modification Reporting Act of 1972 requires that all activities that attempt to produce "artificial changes in the composition, behavior, or dynamics of the atmosphere" must file public transparency reports with the Federal Government. Currently, only cloud seeding operations - which attempt to increase rainfall or snowfall, or reduce fog - are filing these reports. However, a range of geoengineering activities including "carbon dioxide removal" projects conducted by the oil and gas industry are already in operation, but are not filing public reports as required by the law.

We demanded that NOAA:

1. Explicitly require that people conducting any geoengineering activities (including both greenhouse gas removals and solar radiation modification) must file weather modification reports prior to conducting the activity, and these reports will be made easily accessible to the public
2. Collect very detailed information on geoengineering experiments, which would enable the public to evaluate their potential impacts and safety
3. Require all geoengineering activities be reported if they are conducted in the United States, conducted by a U.S. national or corporation anywhere in the world, on a U.S.-flagged vessel or aircraft, or if materials used for geoengineering are sourced from the U.S.
4. Increase enforcement efforts, including taking geoengineering proponents to court if they knowingly refuse to file required reporting forms

Geoengineering technologies are potentially very dangerous, with inadequate oversight to protect our vital natural systems and communities. NOAA has the legal obligation to track and create transparency around such technologies and should collect all information needed to evaluate their potential impacts, including methodology, scale, and compliance with other local, state, and federal laws.