Politics of Climate Tech: Billions spent on geo-engineering despite objections

As wildfires raged in California last month, The Drudge Report mocked Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's suggestion to "make it rain" with cloud seeding.

Days later, the news aggregation website contradicted itself with the headline, "AI Drones to 'Make It Rain' in Weather-Control Breakthrough.” 

The dichotomy highlighted a little-known war over climate technology, in which billions are being invested not only in cloud seeding (Utah, for example, spends about $700,000 annually spraying silver iodide to make it snow and enhance its water supply), but also more controversial practices.

At the top of the list are “geo-engineering” techniques like Solar Radiation Management (SRM) and Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI) – each designed to reduce global temperatures by reflecting a portion of the sun’s energy back into space.

While geo-engineering isn’t a secret, there’s not yet a consensus as to whether it will do more harm than good. And the processes are expected to undergo more scrutiny as Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is reportedly delving into the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which has funded research into geoengineering, even though it says it is not yet conducting experiments in the atmosphere.

In fact, climate scientists can’t even agree about whether geo-engineering is already in use or not by any entity, let alone the NOAA. And if it is going on, is it visible? Chemtrail activists, often dismissed as conspiracy theorists, certainly believe so. 

The Political Divide

According to recent polls, approximately 85% of Democrats see climate change as a major problem, thus they are generally supportive of aggressive action. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a porgressive Democrat, said at the recent World Economic Forum, "We must explore all avenues to combat climate change, even those that seem science fiction."

Conversely, only about 30% of Republicans view climate change with the same urgency.

At a recent conservative think-tank event, Ohio GOP Rep. Jim Jordan said, "Playing God with our weather systems could lead to unintended consequences, affecting not just our environment but our sovereignty.”

Some lawmakers are taking notice. 

Tennessee recently banned geoengineering, cloud seeding and other technologies aimed at controlling the climate, and at least 10 other states are considering similar action.

Seemingly siding with conservatives are many environmentalists and the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) crowd who fear the potential for misuse.

In addition to that are the so-called "chemtrail" activists who have warned for years that something nefarious is afoot, pointing to suspicious patterns in the sky that most scientists say are long-lasting condensation trails created by aircraft. 

Environmentalist and health activist Nicole Shanahan posted to X on Jan. 24 that “Chemtrails are tagged as a conspiracy theory, but geoengineering, weather modification, atmospheric manipulation, etc. are the terms used in practice. Using the colloquial word ‘chemtrails' triggers gaslighting.”

Shanahan, who was Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s. running mate before he ended his campaign and endorsed Donald Trump for president (he was sworn in as secretary of Health and Human Services this month), linked to her post a 2018 study dubbed, “California Wildfires: Role of Undisclosed Atmospheric Manipulation and Geoengineering.”

The study hails from a couple of scientists not easily dismissed as promoters of mere conspiracies:  Dr. Mark Whiteside, the recently retired medical director for the Florida Department of Health in Monroe County, and J. Marvin Herndon, a doctor of nuclear chemistry, once dubbed a “maverick geophysicist” by The Washington Post. 

Their study suggests that aerosolized coal fly ash, used in geoengineering, could increase combustibility by drying out vegetation and altering weather patterns, leading to more intense fires and droughts.

Unlike many in the scientific community, the study does not present geo-engineering as theoretical, but as ongoing. Activities include jets spraying particulates into the atmosphere to suppress solar radiation.

Whiteside has delved into what he describes as a covert operation affecting global climate: tropospheric aerosol geoengineering (TAG). He and Herndon have spent years documenting the environmental and health implications of these activities.

Geo-engineering, Whiteside told this reporter, involves large-scale environmental manipulation intended to mitigate global warming. Contrary to mainstream narratives presenting geoengineering as a future strategy, Whiteside asserts that such practices have been in operation for 75 years, evidenced by historical efforts like Project Cirrus and military operations during the Vietnam War.

He argues there's a deliberate cover-up, pointing to patents, military documents and the 1978 UN ENMOD treaty, which he describes as a "Trojan Horse” that enables environmental modifications. 

The funding for these operations, he speculates, might come from misallocated public funds, including billions unaccounted for in the Pentagon's budget, which is being audited by DOGE.

Whiteside says that geo-engineering is sold as “sunscreen for the Earth,” and that the public is “bombarded with lies, misinformation, and distraction to the point they believe they are not seeing what they are seeing, and conditioned to cry ‘conspiracy theory’ when  shown an obvious particulate trail.”

In a lengthy study at the European Journal of Applied Sciences published last year, he and Herndon noted that President Lyndon Johnson spoke about controlling the weather in 1962.

They say in the study that the ozone layer has been damaged and ultraviolet radiation now penetrates the Earth’s surface, adding: “This situation has been made unimaginably worse by the deliberate, covert planetary modification, euphemistically called geongineering.” 

The mainstream media and the masses “look the other way and ignore the obvious atrocities,” Whiteside says.

Contrails vs. Chemtrails

The science behind “contrails” isn’t in dispute, described as line-shaped clouds of condensed water vapor made from aircraft engines. Chemtrails, though, are typically dismissed as the stuff of conspiracy theorists who say that aircraft are purposely dispersing chemicals.

While Whiteside and Herndon say the concept of chemtrails are real, and central to the discussion of geo-engineering, they appear at odds with most of their colleagues, and with official pronouncements from NASA and the NOAA, both of which say chemtrails are scientifically illegitimate. 

Professor David Keith, who helped develop Harvard University’s Solar Geoengineering Research Program before moving to the University of Chicago, told this reporter that chemtrail theories are “so implausible.”

Given satellites, cell phones and open-source intelligence, evidence of chemtrails “would be trivially easy to expose,” he said. “Yet nothing remotely credible has come to light.”

Keith and his colleagues are focused on solar geo-engineering, or albedo modification, which could – in the future – enable people to add materials to the atmosphere to reflect more sunlight into space.

But on a Harvard blog, he notes that he is confident there’s no currently active program to test or implement albedo modification outdoors. Those linking the technology to chemtrails are wrong to do so, he writes

"We receive many letters and emails about chemtrails, often with threats, showing how deeply this issue affects people,” he writes. "The confusion arises because there's been a lot of real research on geoengineering, but this is open, peer-reviewed science, not secret spraying."

Researcher Peter Kirby, known for his YouTube content on geo-engineering and his book, "Chemtrails Exposed: A New Manhattan Project,” told this reporter that those who object to climate-altering technologies are among the most passionate activists he’s encountered.

He argues that chemtrails are the result of “hydroscopic particles” sprayed into the atmosphere that “attracts moisture, dries plantation, puts toxins in soil and leads to wildfires.”

“They’re spraying us with death,” Kirby says, adding that President Trump should release all government documentation pertaining to climate control.

“In most people’s minds it’s a crazy conspiracy theory,” he said. “In time, these things will be addressed, especially if MAHA wants to put something together with subpoena power, maybe a congressional investigation.”

There are myriad documentaries about chemtrails that feature acclaimed scientists from the likes of Harvard and California Institute of Technology, along with retired U.S. Air Force pilots and government agents.

The documentary, “What in the World Are They Spraying?” begins with clips of journalists from NBC News, Fox News and others. Some are seen years ago delivering ominous reports about the suspected origins of chemtrails, while others reporter are seen focusing on modern descriptions of climate technology.

“It is called ‘geoengineering.’ Fighting global warming, by putting a chemical dust in the atmosphere,” one reporter says in a clip used in the film. A former science adviser to President Barack Obama is shown confirming the validity of the report.

“They’re absolutely not contrails. Contrails do not linger,” says retired U.S. Air Force Brigadier Gen. Charles Jones in “The Dimming,” a documentary that hails from geoengineeringwatch.org.

Who’s Behind Weather Control?

At Americans4acleanatmosphere.com, Dhanasree Jayaram, a professor in the Department of Geopolitics and International Relations at India’s Manipal Academy, speculates that China will use weather-modifying technology “more aggressively and more unilaterally, and the truth is we really don’t know what that means for various ecosystems.”

At Zeroengineering.com, Stanford University climate scientist Ken Caldeira is cited saying that “geoengineering is not a plan B; it’s more like a plan Z, something you do when everything else has failed and, even then, it’s fraught with risks.”

Nevertheless, venture capitalists are poring money into several companies that are developing the technology, presumably to turn a profit while saving the planet.

While SRM research typically focuses on planes delivering sulfur dioxide, a company called Make Sunsets is using balloons to do so, perhaps settling the debate as to whether geo-engineering is happening or not (though Keith, the science professor, disagrees, claiming Make Sunsets is engaging in a “stunt”.)

“It’s semantics. Ivory tower folks keep changing the terminology,” counters Luke Iseman, the co-founder of Make Sunsets.

In an interview, Iseman told this reporter that his company has launched 110 balloons in the past three years, each of which dispersed roughly 1,500 grams of sulfur dioxide, about what a Boeing 747 emits every 10 seconds.

The difference between harmful and useful sulfur dioxide is in the altitude, Iseman says. “We’re going much higher, so we generate a lot more reflectivity with a lot less sulfur dioxide.”

Make Sunsets is a for-profit company that has raised $1.7 million from prominent venture capitalists like Boost VC, Draper Associates and Pioneer Fund.

Its business model involves selling “cooling credits” to anyone hoping to reverse climate change; some have have given just $1, others give thousands of dollars on a monthly basis.

On December 2, Make Sunsets told some of those who purchased cooling credits that their money paid for three balloons that were sent about 20 kilometers into the stratosphere, where they exploded while disbursing 4,845 grams of sulfur dioxide.

The balloons, usually launched in Northern California, are biodegradable and the sulfur-dioxide particles remain in the atmosphere for about two years before falling. 

Iseman doesn’t buy into the notion that governments are using planes to spray particles, thus creating chemtrails, and notes that the particles distributed by his balloons are too hight to be visible.

He acknowledges that his efforts aren’t nearly enough to reverse climate change, because to drop the temperature by a half-degree celsius — “enough to get us out of species-going-extinct” mode — he’d need to launch much larger balloons from six locations globally, thousands of times annually.

Highlighting the political divide over his efforts, he calls himself  “far-left of Bernie Sanders,” and he laments that climate-change activist Al Gore lost his presidential bid 25 years ago and that Trump has again initiated the process to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement.

Make Sunsets reports its activities to the NOAA. But given that its balloons burst at twice the altitude of a commercial jet, it’s unresolved whether it is using any country’s territory, thus regulations are minimal, akin to cloud-seeding or even snowmaking at ski resorts. And the balloons are small enough that the FAA isn’t concerned.

Conversely, an experimental project unrelated to Make Sunsets was abruptly terminated by the Alameda City Council last year. The project, which involved spraying artificial seawater into the air from the decommissioned USS Hornet aircraft carrier reportedly lasted about 20 minutes before being shut down.

The decision was driven by a failure to communicate the plans directly to city officials, opting instead to reveal their work through a New York Times article. "You didn’t start out on the right foot," Mayor Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft told the group of University of Washington scientists who were behind the effort, along with a non-profit called SilverLining.

Thus, public distrust fueled by the secretive nature of the project led to its demise, though only until an alternative location might be identified.

One person with knowledge of the experiment who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the episode has harmed legitimate climate research into geo-engineering, including Marine Cloud Brightening (MRC), which seeks to increase the reflective nature of clouds over the ocean.

SilverLining didn’t respond to a request for comment.

There’s also an Israeli company called Stardust Solutions that is focused on SRM that has raised $15 million, according to Bloomberg. 

And a spokesperson for Bill Gates told Bloomberg last year that the founder of Microsoft has invested billions in emissions-cutting technology and adaptation.

“Given the realities of the pace and potential impact of climate change, he’s also spending a small fraction to support basic research into interventions, including geoengineering, to ensure we fully understand the risks,” the spokesperson told Bloomberg.

Paul Bond is a veteran journalist who has written for Newsweek, USA Today, The Hollywood Reporter and the Los Angeles Times. He has appeared as a guest on dozens of TV and radio shows and podcasts. Follow him on X @WriterPaulBond.