A Growing Number of US States Consider Bills to Ban Geoengineering

The proposed bans on solar geoengineering in the US reflect the widespread concern about its potential environmental and health risks. Placing a moratorium or ban on the advancement of a particular technology can, in certain instances, be a suitable response, particularly when such a ban removes the risk of harm. However, in the context of solar geoengineering, a ban on research would affect our ability to better understand its risks alongside those of climate change. A research ban does not necessarily eliminate the risk of potentially uninformed or unilateral deployment elsewhere, nor does it address the risks for which solar geoengineering was originally proposed – namely, climate change. Policymakers are right to be cautious, but nuance and context are critical to consider the implications of certain governance interventions, particularly for research.

Legislation similar to what became law in Tennessee has not advanced in Kentucky, where the Republican bill sponsors express concern about the potential environmental impacts of geoengineering – a departure from their typical voting record of opposing air and water pollution controls related to the coal industry and other businesses.

Supporters of this legislation often stray far from the facts around the theoretical concepts of geoengineering, implying or outright stating that these methods are already underway and being covered up by the government, observable in the sky in the form of contrails from airplanes. Bill sponsors also conflate geoengineering with cloud seeding – an 80-year-old rain-inducing practice only taking place in around 10 western states – and imply that governments control the weather and cause flooding or hurricanes.

Bill sponsors in Kentucky are also under the impression that the federal government under the Trump administration will take efforts to restrict geoengineering – citing Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s flirtation with chemtrails conspiracy theories – whereas a hypothetical Kamala Harris administration would have pushed research and implementation forward.

These bills may be aiming at an important target – the need to responsibly govern SRM research – but they are far afield from the bullseye. The trouble is that most of them lump together what could be, if better designed, legitimate bars on unpermitted experimentation with sweeping blocks on research by everyone, from governments to universities. That’s not too surprising considering their general origin in the fringe chemtrail and anti-vax corners of the internet. We can do better. My hope is that more thoughtful legislators reject these first wild swings, but do think seriously about how to properly channel research on these important questions with sensible government oversight.

For a long time, many people in the SRM research community – myself included – have worried that conservative political actors might promote SRM as an alternative to cutting emissions. This makes the recent surge in proposed US state-level bans puzzling, since it is being driven by conservatives but with the aim to prohibit, not promote, SRM. This can be partly explained by unexpected turns in conservative politics, particularly the rise of MAGA, with its willingness to entertain conspiracy theories like chemtrails and its preoccupation with grievances real or imagined. The Trump Administration, backed by fossil fuel interests and allied with tech entrepreneurs like Elon Musk, might have appeared primed to embrace SRM as a substitute for mitigation. Yet, ironically, any such effort would now seem destined to face serious opposition from elements of the MAGA base itself.