{US expert Alan Robock raises concern over who would control climate-altering technologies if research is paid for by intelligence agencies
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A senior US scientist has expressed concern that the intelligence services are funding climate change research to learn if new technologies could be used as potential weapons.<\/p>\n
Alan Robock, a climate scientist at Rutgers University in New Jersey, has called on secretive government agencies to be open about their interest in radical work that explores how to alter the world\u2019s climate.<\/p>\n
Robock, who has contributed to reports for the intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC), uses computer models to study how stratospheric aerosols can cool the planet in the way massive volcanic eruptions do.<\/p>\n
But he was worried about who would control such climate-altering technologies should they prove effective, he told the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Jose. <\/p>\n
\u200bLast week, the National Academy of Sciences published a two-volume report on different approaches to tackling climate change. One focused on means to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, the other on ways to change clouds or the Earth\u2019s surface to make them reflect more sunlight out to space.
\nIs geoengineering a bad idea?<\/p>\n
Read more <\/p>\n
The report concluded that while small-scale research projects were needed, the technologies were so far from being ready that reducing carbon emissions remained the most viable approach to curbing the worst extremes of climate change. A report by the Royal Society in 2009 made similar recommendations.<\/p>\n
The $600,000 report was part-funded by the US intelligence services, but Robock said the CIA and other agencies had not fully explained their interest in the work. \u201cThe CIA was a major funder of the National Academies report so that makes me really worried who is going to be in control,\u201d he said. Other funders included Nasa, the US Department of Energy, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
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The CIA established the Center on Climate Change and National Security in 2009, a decision that drew fierce criticism from some Republicans who viewed it as a distraction from more pressing terrorist concerns. The center was closed down in 2012, though the agency said it would continue to monitor the humanitarian consequences of climate change and the impact on US economic security, albeit not from a dedicated office.<\/p>\n
Robock said he became suspicious about the intelligence agencies\u2019 involvement in climate change science after receiving a call from two men who claimed to be CIA consultants \u200bthree years ago. \u201cThey said: \u2018We are working for the CIA and we\u2019d like to know if some other country was controlling our climate, would we be able to detect it?\u2019 I think they were also thinking in the back of their minds: \u2018If we wanted to control somebody else\u2019s climate could they detect it?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
He replied that if a country wanted to create a stratospheric cloud large enough to change the climate, it would be visible with satellites and ground-based instruments. The use of the weather as a weapon was banned in 1978 \u200bunder the Environmental Modification Convention (Enmod).<\/p>\n
Asked how he felt \u200babout the call, Robock said he was scared. \u201cI\u2019d learned of lots of other things the CIA had done that didn\u2019t follow the rules. I thought that wasn\u2019t how my tax money was spent,\u201d he said. The CIA did not respond to requests for comment over the weekend.<\/p>\n
The US dabbled in weather modification before Enmod was introduced. In the early 1960s, researchers on Project Storm Fury seeded thunderstorms with various particles in the hope of diminishing their destructive power. A similar process was adopted during the Vietnam war, with clouds seeded over the Ho Chi Minh trail in a bid to make the major supply route for North Vietnamese foot soldiers too muddy to pass.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think this research should be out in the open and it has to be international so there won\u2019t be any question that this technology will used for hostile purposes,\u201d Robock said.<\/p>\n
{{Source: The Guardian}}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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