Geoengineering was once all about how to maximize farmland production. However, circumstances have changed. We’re in the post-911, post-COVID world now. Climate alarmism combined with the dystopian lockdowns and vaccine mandates pushed along by technocratic non-governmental backers (WEF, IMF, the World Bank, etc…) has presented new stakes and new opportunities for those seeking to squeeze the planet into a global totalitarian one-world order – or as they call it, “unity.” Just a few years ago, those words were considered to be woo-woo conspiracy jargon sequestered to the cyber-ghettos of the internet. Welcome to 2022 where it’s all out in the open.
With this article and the links we’ve shared, we intend to explain what you need to know about the government’s open proclamation to study geoengineering, what that has to do with climate change, and finally, where your focus should be as a Christian living in the New World Order. Buckle up.
U.S. congress funds geoengineering research to cool Earth by reflecting sunlight back into space. What could go wrong?
October 2022, CNBC
White House is pushing ahead research to cool Earth by reflecting back sunlight
- The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy is coordinating a five-year research plan to study ways of modifying the amount of sunlight that reaches the Earth in order to temporarily temper the effects of global warming.
- There are several kinds of sunlight-reflection technology being considered, including stratospheric aerosol injection, marine cloud brightening, and cirrus cloud thinning.
- Stratospheric aerosol injection involves spraying an aerosol like sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, and because it has the potential to affect the entire globe, often gets the most attention.
- While arguments of moral hazard have handicapped research efforts, the idea is getting more urgent attention in the worsening climate crisis.
January 2020, Science Magazine
U.S. geoengineering research gets a lift with $4 million from Congress
- The federal government is ready to examine the science behind “geoengineering.”
- David Fahey, a physicist, and director of the Chemical Sciences Division of NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory dubbed the study “Plan B” for climate change.
- One method is to inject sulfur dioxide or a similar aerosol into the stratosphere (to mimic volcanic eruptions) to help shade the Earth from more intense sunlight.
- The second approach would use an aerosol of sea salt particles to improve the ability of low-lying clouds over the ocean to act as shade.
In December 2019 President Trump signed a $1.4 trillion spending package to keep the government funded through 2020. Buried deep within the budget was a climate policy milestone. For the first time ever, the government allocated funding for a federal agency to conduct geoengineering research. (That statement needs qualification. It was the first time publicly acknowledged.) $4 million was allocated to study the stratosphere. Language in the bill states, “including the impact of the introduction of material into the stratosphere…proposals to inject material to affect climate, and the assessment of solar climate interventions.”1
But in a sign of how controversial the topic is, Fahey recommended changing the nomenclature from geoengineering to “climate intervention,” which he described as a “more neutral word. Geoengineering is this tangled ball of issues and science is only one of them,” he said.
There would be drawbacks, he noted, after being asked by a researcher whether injections of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere might reduce seafood by acidifying the oceans.
Fahey added, “When you put aerosols up into the atmosphere, it does a lot of things…That opens up this whole menu of things that you’d have to worry about…but nobody knows.”
The most likely area of research needed on this matter is unintended consequences, or God forbid, some intended consequences from the minds of those who desire to feed the world bugs, stack humanity into smart grid cities, and track our every breath.
“There could be more than $100 million attached to this, I’m told,” Fahey added.
Cui bono
Cui bono is a Latin phrase that means “who benefits?”, and is used to suggest that there’s a high probability that those responsible for a certain event are the ones who stand to gain from it. ‘Cui bono’ is a useful principle to understand, since it can help guide your reasoning process in a variety of situations for example; who is responsible for spreading certain news releases in the media, who is behind the push for legislation or policies that will suppress or promote new technology, etc.
In an article for Fortune magazine in 2011, environmental journalist Marc Gunther wrote, “Climate scientists and their billionaire backers, like Bill Gates, are trying to turn down the global thermostat – and make money doing it…So the Microsoft billionaire and philanthropist has stepped into the breach to become the world’s leading funder of research into geoengineering… Since 2007, Gates has given about $4.6 million of his money to David Keith of the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada, and Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution for geoengineering research.”2
The NRC, the major body in the US providing scientific and technical information to policymakers, released two reports. They show two very different approaches to reducing climate change from greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide (CO2) removal and albedo modification.
In short, follow the money.
Jeff Goodell, of Grist Magazine and author of How To Cool the Planet writes, “An obvious question: who will be the financial winners in a geoengineered world? Here are my top five:3
- Lobbyists: Geoengineering could turn out to be the 21st-century equivalent of industrial agriculture…Either way, lobbyists make out.
- Carbon retrieval entrepreneurs: Here’s a simple truth: anyone who figures out a cheap, simple way to suck CO2 out of the air is going to make a lot of money. David Keith, a physicist at the University of Calgary has a company called Carbon Engineering that has attracted $5 million in funding from investors, including Bill Gates.
- Early investors in albedo engineering companies: Manipulating the earth’s reflectivity is the most dangerous and complex type of geoengineering. The hardware for this method is likely to be built by private contractors, similar to how the fighter planes used by the U.S. Air Force are built by private contractors like Lockheed Martin — a company with a market cap right now of about $32 billion.
- Geoengineering conference organizers: The whole idea of geoengineering is so fraught with technical, political, moral, and cultural complexities that, no matter how the future of geoengineering plays out, there are going to be plenty of issues to fret about. So we may as well gather up and fret together, even if we have to pay for the privilege.
- Fundamentalist preachers: If we start trying to deliberately manipulate the earth’s climate, you can be sure that some will see this as trespassing into forbidden realms, and they will raise their voices against it. Imagine the war over abortion played out in the stratosphere and you’ll have a pretty good idea of where we might be headed.
With the political, and financial layers of our study established, let’s ensure we understand what all these terms mean. Our goal is to understand the topic so that we can all speak with knowledge about it to others as these practices become more common and the risks more apparent.
Contrails and Chemtrails
When a jet aircraft engine burns fuel, it produces waste in the form of heat and various gases, including water vapor. Since the exhaust comes out at a high temperature, the water vapor remains in a gaseous state and is usually invisible to the naked eye. However, at high altitudes, low pressure and ambient air temperature cool the vapor quickly, creating a line of visible condensation—artificial clouds behind the engine. This visual effect is known as a “contrail,” shorthand for “condensation trail.”
Chemtrails are contrails that are filled with agents other than remnants of fuel combustion or the direct spraying of aerosols into the upper atmosphere for some purpose that has up until now been mostly unknown and considered to be of nefarious origin. This is known as geoengineering.
Geoengineering
The large-scale manipulation of a specific process central to controlling Earth’s climate for a specific purpose (benefit or detriment depending on one’s perspective and/or stake in the outcome).
Geoengineering proposals were first developed in the middle of the 20th century. Relying on technologies developed during World War II, such proposals were designed to alter weather systems in order to obtain more favorable climate conditions on a regional scale (depending on one’s perspective and/or stake in the outcome). One of the most common techniques is cloud seeding, a process that attempts to bring rain to parched farmland by dispersing particles of silver iodide or solid carbon dioxide into rain-bearing clouds.
Global climate is controlled by the amount of solar radiation received by Earth, and how it interacts within the Earth system—that is, how much is absorbed by Earth’s surface and how much is reflected back into space. The reflectance of solar radiation is controlled by several mechanisms, including Earth’s surface albedo (the proportion of light or radiation that is reflected by a surface), cloud coverage, and the presence of greenhouse gases such as CO2 in the atmosphere. If geoengineering proposals are to influence global climate in any meaningful way, they must intentionally alter the relative influence of one of these controlling mechanisms.
Schemes to increase solar reflectance
The idea of sunlight reflection first appeared prominently in a 1965 report to President Lyndon B. Johnson, entitled “Restoring the Quality of Our Environment.” The report floated the idea of spreading particles over the ocean at a cost of $100 per square mile or $500 million per year, which does “not seem excessive,” the report said, “considering the extraordinary economic and human importance of climate.”
The current estimate is $10 billion per year to run a program that cools the Earth by 1 degree Celsius, said Edward A. Parson, a professor of environmental law at UCLA’s law school. But that figure is seen to be remarkably cheap compared to other climate change mitigation initiatives.
“Remarkably cheap” (depending on one’s perspective and/or stake in the outcome). Cui bono?
It is important to note that a great deal of controversy and debate surrounds each of these schemes, and the feasibility of each is difficult to ascertain. Clearly, their deployment at global scales would be difficult and expensive, and small-scale trials would reveal little about their potential effectiveness.
A landmark report released in March 2021 from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine addressed three kinds of solar geoengineering:
- stratospheric aerosol (sulfur) injection
- marine cloud brightening
- cirrus cloud thinning
Stratospheric sulfur injection
One option for an aerosol is sulfur dioxide, the cooling effects of which are well-known from volcanic eruptions. The 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo, for instance, spewed thousands of tons of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, causing global temperatures to drop temporarily by about 1 degree Fahrenheit, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
The formation of an aerosol layer of sulfur in the stratosphere would increase the scattering of incoming solar radiation. In theory, this would cool the troposphere, the lower level of the atmosphere where weather primarily occurs.
Producing an artificial aerosol layer would involve flying aircraft between 10 and 30 miles skyward, and spraying a fine mist that would hang in the air, reflecting some of the sun’s radiation back into space.
Edward A. Parson, a professor of environmental law at UCLA said, “The stratosphere is calm, and things stay up there for a long time. The atmospheric life of stuff that’s injected in the stratosphere is between six months and two years” (emphasis added).
Let’s recall what physicist David Fahey said, “When you put aerosols up into the atmosphere, it does a lot of things…That opens up this whole menu of things that you’d have to worry about…but nobody knows.”
Two years. What could go wrong?
Does anyone remember acid rain? Oh yeah, that was caused by sulfur dioxide rising into the atmosphere and falling back to earth as acid rain. But, of course, it’s all about protecting the climate, right?
Marine cloud brightening
The process of cloud whitening relies upon towering spraying devices placed on land and mounted on oceangoing vessels. Such devices would expel a mist of pressurized seawater droplets and dissolved salts to altitudes up to 300 meters (1,000 feet). As the water droplets evaporate, proponents believe, bright salt crystals would remain to reflect incoming solar radiation. Later these crystals would act as condensation nuclei and form new water droplets, which in turn would increase overall marine cloud coverage, reflecting even more incoming solar radiation into space.
Marine cloud brightening generally gets less attention than stratospheric aerosol injection because it affects a half dozen to a few dozen miles and would potentially only last hours to days.
Cirrus cloud thinning
The third category addressed in the 2021 report from the National Academies, involves thinning mid-level clouds, between 3.7 and 8.1 miles high, to allow heat to escape from the Earth’s surface. It is not technically part of the “solar geoengineering” umbrella category because it does not involve reflecting sunlight, but instead involves increasing the release of thermal radiation.
One other method that we found in our research that sounds very DARPA-ish is,
Orbital mirrors and sunshades
This proposal involves the placement of several million small reflective objects to be launched from rockets beyond Earth’s atmosphere. It is thought that concentrated clusters of these objects could partially redirect or block incoming solar radiation. The premise is that as inbound solar radiation declines, there would be less energy available to heat Earth’s lower atmosphere. Thus, average global air temperatures would fall.
Ok, so it seems that blocking the sun is a primary motivation of governments, the scientists they fund, and investors as they figure out how to profit. What happened to solar panels? Wasn’t that the great solution 5 minutes ago? The more one looks into the industry and science of geoengineering, it truly seems that most of the ideas are kooky at best, and dimly disturbing at worst. Nevertheless, the current power brokers of the world have proven at least since early 2020 that they are serious about clamping down on the earth and all its creatures. Can they do it? Should they do it? How should a Christian think about all of this? We want to be good stewards of the planet and we want to be good citizens always seeking unity (Romans 13). The best approach is to consider all of this from the perspective of climate change since that is the stated purpose for all of these newest endeavors into control and profit.
The Bible calls on Christians to fact-check what they hear (Acts 17:11), apply reasonable skepticism (1 Thessalonians 5:21), and avoid buying into ideas simply because they are popular, seem important, or what we want to hear (2 Timothy 4:3).
Christians and Climate Change
God’s awesome creation is something humanity must appreciate, respect, and preserve Genesis 1:26-28 and every person should be mindful of our great God as the force behind its creation. God’s command to mankind to rule over and subdue the earth means that we must not abuse it.
Some scientists/climatologists believe that human activity is affecting the average global temperature so severely that humanity is in grave danger of being eliminated by climate catastrophes. Essentially, the climate change message is this: greenhouse gas emissions are damaging the environment, and, while we are not certain what the effect will be, we know it will be bad.
While it is true that the activity of mankind affects the environment including the average global temperature, the facts show that the climate alarm is unwarranted and significantly oversold. The facts are that over the last 170 years the average global temperature has increased by 1 degree celsius while over the last 100 years the rate of climate-related disaster deaths has decreased by 98%.4
Climatologists, ecologists, geologists, etc., are unanimous in recognizing that the earth has undergone significant temperature/climate changes. Despite the fact that these climate changes were obviously not caused by human activity, many of these same scientists are convinced that human activity is the primary cause of climate change today. Why? Our friends at GotQuestions.org have compiled three primary motivations.
First, some truly and fully believe that greenhouse gas emissions are causing climate change. They honestly examine the data and come to that conclusion.
Second, some hold to the climate change mindset with an almost religious fervor. Many within the environmentalist movement are so obsessed with protecting “Mother Earth” that they will use any argument to accomplish that goal, no matter how biased and unbalanced it is.
Third, some promote the climate change mentality for financial gain. Some of the strongest proponents of climate change legislation are those who stand to have the greatest financial gain from “green” laws and technologies. It should be recognized that not everyone who promotes climate change is doing so from an informed foundation and pure motives.
Climate alarmism for the purpose of advancing some other agenda for gain or control is not new. In the 1970s, “global cooling” was the prevalent narrative from the higher-ups with the primary scare tactic being the threat of a new ice age. The truth is, nobody on earth knows exactly what the impact of a small rise in global average temperature will be.
Climate alarmism and its totalitarian global agenda are not the only problems. A significant movement within the global agenda has deified the earth and begun to worship the creature rather than the Creator. The Bible is not silent on this matter. The apostle Paul explained in his letter to the church in Rome that one sign of the wrath of God upon rebellious humanity would be when they suppressed the truth in unrighteousness and “…exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen” Romans 1:25.
The earth is neither to be worshipped nor praised as many in the climate movement promote as they push agendas meant to reduce the freedoms of people worldwide in order to protect “mother earth.” Psalm 19:1 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” This verse is not “praising creation” at all; rather, it speaks of the creation praising the Creator, God. Likewise, misusing Scripture such as Matthew 14:23 to assert that Jesus praised the earth is also obviously false. Matthew 14:23 reads, “After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone.” This verse definitely does not say that Christ went up to the mountain “to commune with nature.” He went up to pray, literally to commune with His Father, God. This goes far beyond stretching the meaning of a verse and actually amounts to deifying nature, which is nothing short of idolatry.
So we must ask, is there anything wrong with going green? No. Is reducing your carbon footprint a good thing? It could be. Are solar panels, windmills, and other renewable energy sources worth pursuing? If they are efficient and feasible, yes. But, the most important question to be asked and addressed regarding this new world movement is this, should Christians make any of these things their primary focus? Definitely not!
As Christians, our focus should be proclaiming the truth of the gospel, the message that has the power to save souls. Saving the planet is not within our power or responsibility. Climate change may or may not be real, and may or may not be human-caused.
What we can know for certain is that God is good and sovereign and that Planet Earth will be our habitat for as long as God desires it to be. Psalm 46:2-3 tells us, “Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.”
How, then, should a Christian view climate change? We should view it skeptically and critically, but at the same time honestly and respectfully. Most importantly, though, Christians should look at climate change biblically. What does the Bible say about climate change? Not much. A Christian must remember that God is in control and that this world is not our home. God will one day erase this current universe.
“7 But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. 8 But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. 10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. 11 Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, 12 waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn!” 2 Peter 3:7-12.
And God will replace the old with the New Heavens and New Earth.
“1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. 5 And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “6…It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.” Revelation 21:1-6.
See Revelation, chapters 21 and 22 for more.
There is nothing wrong with Christians being involved in a conscious effort to appreciate and even preserve God’s wonderful creation. But how much effort should be made by a Christian in “saving” the planet? While our command to be good stewards is clear, any effort directed at preserving the planet forever runs counter to God’s revealed plan. The “urgent agenda” for the Christian community is not to save the earth but to be about our Father’s business of sharing the good news of the gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ with as many people as possible to save the souls on the earth from a destiny of God’s eternal wrath in hell. Anything that distracts Christians from this duty and the basic reason for our existence is antithetical to God’s plan for His people.
Light is not to be covered or hidden, it is meant to be revealed and by its nature, light reveals what was hidden. It is the same with truth. The Lord of all Creation promises that it will be revealed.
As followers of Christ, it is our calling to reveal the light we have been given. If you have the truth of God, you have a solemn responsibility to spread that truth through whatever means He has given you to do it. Just as someone who has the cure for a life-threatening disease has the moral responsibility to spread that cure. God lit our lamps so that His light would be revealed to the world. He doesn’t need us, but he has chosen to use us, therefore we walk with Him, innocent as doves and wise as serpents, building His kingdom as we shed the light of the gospel on the world one testimony at a time.
AoT, October 2022
Notes
- Pontecorvo, E. (2021, April 6). The climate policy milestone that was buried in the 2020 budget. Grist. Retrieved October 17, 2022, from https://grist.org/climate/the-climate-policy-milestone-that-was-buried-in-the-2020-budget/
- Gunther, M. (2011, October 11). The companies that will make a business out of geoengineering. Greenbiz. Retrieved October 17, 2022, from https://www.greenbiz.com/article/companies-will-make-business-out-geoengineering
- Goodell, J. (2021, April 7). Who gets rich in a geoengineered world? Grist. Retrieved October 17, 2022, from https://grist.org/article/2010-04-16-who-gets-rich-in-a-geoengineered-world/
- “HadCRU’T5,” Met Office Hadley Centre Observations Datasets, metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcrut5. For every million people on earth, annual deaths from climate-related causes (extreme temperature, drought, flood, storms, wildfirés, …) declined 98 percent—from an average of 247 per year during the 1920s to 2.5 per year during the 2010s.
Data on disaster deaths come from EM-DAT, CRED/UCLouvain, Brussels, Belgium-emdat.be (D. Guha-Sapir).
Population estimates for the 1920s come from the Maddison Database 2010 at the Groningen Growth and Development Centre, Faculty of Economics and Business at University of Groningen (for years not shown, the population is assumed to have grown at a steady rate), rug.nl/ggdc/historicaldevelopment/maddison/releases/maddison-database-2010.
Population estimates for the 2010s come from World Bank, United Nations Population Division, World Population Prospects: 2019 Revision, Census reports and other statistical publications from national statistical offices, Eurostat: Demographic Statistics, United Nations Statistical Division, Population and Vital Statistics Report, U.S. Census Bureau: International Database, Secretariat of the Pacific Community: Statistics and Demography Programme, “Population, Total,” data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL.
Links
White House is pushing ahead research to cool Earth by reflecting back sunlight | CNBC
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/13/what-is-solar-geoengineering-sunlight-reflection-risks-and-benefits.html
U.S. geoengineering research gets a lift with $4 million from Congress | Science
https://www.science.org/content/article/us-geoengineering-research-gets-lift-4-million-congress
Congress Now Funding ‘Controversial’ Geoengineering ‘Plan B’ to Spray Particles in the Sky to Cool Earth – The Free Thought Project
https://thefreethoughtproject.com/the-state/congress-now-funding-controversial-geoengineering-plan-b-to-spray-particles-in-the-sky-to-cool-earth
Geoengineering | Britannica
https://www.britannica.com/science/geoengineering
How should a Christian view climate change? | GotQuestions.org
https://www.gotquestions.org/climate-change.html
What is the Green Bible? | GotQuestions.org
https://www.gotquestions.org/Green-Bible.html
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