Geoengineering
Recent years have seen a proliferation of dangerous geoengineering proposals – 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.
Friends of the Earth campaigns against the development and deployment of geoengineering technologies that have the potential to inflict catastrophic side-effects on Earth’s systems, such as reducing monsoon rainfall in Asia and Africa, increasing heat waves in Europe to cool California, or killing off phytoplankton at the base of the marine food chain in oceans across the planet.
A proposal to dump 60,000 gallons of sodium hydroxide into the ocean was met with outrage and opposition from environmental groups.
It is incredibly disturbing that a group of researchers is developing technology that could have catastrophic impacts on the weather.
Several environmental organizations have filed a letter with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to express concern about potentially illegal statements made by the "eco-restoration" firm Planktos.
Sodium hydroxide is a dangerous, caustic chemical that causes chemical burns on contact with skin, and would be dumped into waters frequented by at least eight endangered species.
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.
What is marine geoengineering? Attempts to manipulate the Earth’s oceans to counteract the effects of climate change.
What is solar geoengineering? Technologies that would reflect a portion of the sun’s rays back into space.
-
DownloadLetter to NOAA on Weather Modification Reporting Act of 1972