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Comment by matthewdgreen | Hacker News Reader

The red states have begun banning geoengineering and even small-scale tests. It seems to be spreading across these states, which suggests that we'll soon see similar laws being proposed at the Federal level.

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the uproar over minor, localized cloud-seeding (which had nothing to do with the Texas floods) is probably a death knell for aerosol injection.

we are going to see countries going to war over unilateral solar radiation management efforts

This is the plot of the Stephenson novel Termination Shock. Not endorsing the book but the hypothetical it poses is interesting.

I don't see this as a truly organic reaction. When I see the same laws popping up in multiple states, my suspicion is that it's driven centrally by right-wing think tanks, probably to benefit the fossil fuel lobbies. You don't need aerosol injection if there's no climate change, so we need to make it illegal (just as we need to defund Earth sciences, fire climate scientists, etc.) Similarly, if we need aerosol injection, then climate change is real. It's all one big package.

Possibly. Seems like a mix of conspiracy-theory induced paranoia and right-wing influencers pushing a coordinated narrative.

Ironically, aerosol injection will probably benefit fossil fuel companies, with less pressure to meet aggressive emissions targets.

The irony is that this is probably true, but the greater project of suppressing any acknowledgement of climate change exceeds the possible benefits that aerosol injection might afford even to GHG emitters. It’s actually pretty goddamn frightening because it means these people are ready to take the whole damn ship down around them.

ETA: Don’t get me started on how weird it is that there’s a pre-spun conspiracy theory in chemtrails, one that makes zero sense but happens to align perfectly with making geoengineering even more difficult. But now I’m being conspiratorial.

The strategy still seems pretty bad to me. Even if fossil fuel lobbies convince MAGA-types in America that there's no climate change, other countries may do their own geonengineering. Nothing prevents areas like China and EU from starting their own programs, and thanks to more successful education systems their populations mostly don't have such anti-science sentiment.

Having the political system with the largest military on earth doing your bidding is a very good first step, if your goal is to make sure we do nothing while the whole world burns.

Check out the open letter to ban geoengineering research by European scientists

https://www.solargeoeng.org/

I think is pretty reasonable for people to be suspicious of spraying aerosols into the atmosphere. What's the effect of breathing this stuff in long term? Can you even construct an effective experiment around here? Do you know what the second and third order effects are?

It wasn't too long ago since another aerosol punctured a giant hole into our ozone, what was the effect of that?

If countries prefer that nothing would be done about climate change, they can go get bombed for all I care.

Countries are often gigantic though? There's plenty of state and local efforts going on in the United States despite the federal government currently backtracking for instance. Does that count as... worth burning tons of fossil fuels to bomb out of existence?

If they want to go to war over geoengineering efforts done by someone else, then yes.

They can sit on their asses, but going against people who actually try to do something to address climate change is a step too far.

I seriously hate this political nonsense.

There's currently 31 states who have bills to ban geoengineering. Its not just red states, there are plenty of "blue states" on the list as well. Painting this as a partisan political issue is just stupid. California is set to join the list as well.

March 2025:

As of this week, 31 out of 50 U.S. states—well over half the nation—have introduced legislation to ban or severely limit geoengineering and weather modification operations. Just days ago, on March 24th, that number stood at 24. Seven new states have joined in under a week, reflecting an undeniable groundswell of public awareness and political will.

https://sayerji.substack.com/p/weve-crossed-the-tipping-poin...

You “hate this political stuff” and then you link to a bizarre Substack where the first quote is from noted non-partisan scientist RFK Jr, and he’s claiming that because multiple states have introduced legislation that implies a groundswell of public opinion against evil geoengineering.

Anyone can introduce legislation. Keep this off HN.

A) Quotes from politicians don't discount the facts of the matter.

B) Had you spent five minutes researching what's going on, you would've seen an article from last year about Alameda City, a city in California (yes, THAT California, the supposed VERY BLUE STATE California) that banned geoengineering:

June 2024:

A Northern California city council voted early Wednesday morning to cancel the nation’s first outdoor experiment into the potential to limit global warming by altering cloud behavior.

The five-member Alameda City Council voted unanimously to reject University of Washington researchers’ aerial spraying of liquefied salt from the deck of a retired aircraft carrier in San Francisco Bay, two months after the experiment began.

And shockingly, the report isn't in some strange substack. Its actually a well known LEFT LEANING site - Politico:

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/05/california-geoengin...

But hey man, just keep believing that this is simply some red state conspiracy to block climate change.

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