The U.S. federal government is considering solar geoengineering—manipulating the amount of sunlight reaching the earth—as a possible “solution” to the “problem” of so-called climate change, despite the potentially deadly risks of such technology.
Records obtained by ICAN show the federal government has been ramping up a solar geoengineering research program since at least 2021. The focus has been on stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) which would inject chemicals into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight back into space in an effort to cool the earth. The federal government appears serious about this potential option even though prevailing research on solar geoengineering cautions that it could lead to drought, heat waves, acid rain, food shortages, ozone layer depletion, and geopolitical conflict.
The program, called SABRE, is operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), in collaboration with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). According to SABRE’s website, researchers are using NASA WB-57 high-altitude research aircrafts to build a “comprehensive database of stratospheric aerosol” to establish the baseline state of the stratosphere and build climate models to predict the impact of man-made changes to “stratospheric aerosol loading.”
ICAN even obtained a 2021 contract between NASA and NOAA for SABRE’s flight operations researching “the potential injection of material into the stratosphere to combat global warming.” The contract shows the program is expanding quickly as the agencies increased the original award from $3.9 million to $12.85 million and extended it two more years.
When producing these documents, NOAA completely redacted 12 pages of the contract because it claims disclosure of those pages would invade an individual’s personal privacy. NOAA did not explain how or whose privacy would outweigh the public’s interest in knowing whether the government is considering deploying SAI to intentionally alter our climate. ICAN’s legal team will, of course, be suing to lift these redactions.
ICAN’s legal team has also sent multiple other requests for the emails of the researchers leading SABRE. We will keep you updated as ICAN digs further into these government geoengineering research programs.
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