by Paul Bean
A group of 40-50 environmentalist and climate activists gathered Sunday, January 24 at the Barre American Legion Hall to discuss an under-reported, misunderstood environmental problem: Geoengineering.
“Geoengineering” involves deliberate activities to change any of Earth’s biogeochemical systems, preeminently the climate, either through manipulation of the atmosphere’s chemical composition or through heating the upper atmosphere with electromagnetic technologies.
”If someone told me three years ago that today I would be in front of a group of people talking about this subject, I never would have believed them,” says Nathan Guest, one of the organizers of the event. “I could not be more thankful to be here with you all.”
Guest, one of the founders and main contributors to the Facebook Page, “VT Skies,” got the idea to throw this event together after seeing his page grow from around 250 members in 2023, to now emmassing nearly 700 members in the past few months.
Following a number of unusual weather events here in Vermont in the past year, more and more people are questioning the “natural” causes of these disasters.
The Chronicle has covered Vermonter’s weather skepticism following a summer of unusual, frequent, and intense rain, leading to the July 11th catastrophic flood. The most recent weather event of course being the late December flood, which many Vermonters noted geoengineered skies in the 48 hours leading up to the flood.
This group of activists did not merely sit around, gripe, and air grievances. Nor did they argue the validity of geoengineering claims. Rather they created a plan of action to influence local legislation to regulate, and at the very least grow awareness, of the subject.
To many that have never even considered the possibility of humans controlling the weather, geoengineering seems ridiculous – even a joke. However, as discussed within the meeting, the government has had an invested interest in controlling the weather since the 1960s and even before.
“He who controls the weather, controls the world,” said by Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson while speaking to the graduating class of Texas State University in 1962. Vice President Johnson’s notion in 1962 was shared by many at the gathering.
“It’s about depopulation” says Debora Chandler, who drove from the Berkshires in Northern Massachusetts to be at the meeting. “They’re controlling the weather in part to enhance their warfare efforts, and to control the food supply.”
Suzanne Seymour, an organizer of the event, says “It is to keep us suppressed, to keep us cowed down, and it’s clearly working. However, some of us can rise above it.”
This meeting was in part sparked by the movement building in states across the country including Maine, New Hampshire, Road Island, and New Mexico. Each of these states have had legislation introduced in their Legislatures, with the goal to ban the testing and or use of Stratospheric Aerosol injections and other forms of Geoegineering technologies.
This comes at a time when climate interest is at its peak. People across the political spectrum are becoming more and more concerned about global warming, climate change, and the implications for human life. This has even lead some to argue that we should in fact be controlling the weather to save the planet from climate change.
Vermont’s very own Bill McKibben wrote in a New Yorker article in 2022 that geoengineering as a solution to climate change is “something we are inching towards.”
University of Chicago academic David Keith has been arguing since the early 2000s that geoengineering might be a solution. One of the most prominent examples of this was Bill Gates’ idea to “block out the sun.”
The Sunday meeting was an opportunity for like minds to gather and discuss their options for overcoming what they consider an environmental detriment and to look at what other states are doing.
However, they realized it will take a lot more than local activism.
“The airplanes don’t stop flying over the state of Vermont,” says Seymour. “This is going to take national and even international coordination. We need to be working closely with other states to get this done.”
Further resources to learn more about Geoengineering: https://www.ourgeoengineeringage.org and at The Facebook group VT Skies, hosted by Nathan Guest.
The author is the VDC Social Media Director and is active in a Vermont group studying geoengineering.
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