Dear Adrian -- do you have a reference for the Chapman talk? Fascinating
Gordon McDonald of UCLA, a JASON and a noted figure in the assessment of
weather modification and environmental science more generally, wrote about
the possibility of deliberately creating a hole in the ozone layer over
enemy territory as a military possibility in a 1968 essay called "How to
Wreck the Environment". He also worked on the MEDEA program at CIA in the
1990s, a Gore-inspired effort to see what environmental data from national
intelligence sources might usefully be declassified for use by environmental
scientists.
On Monday, 16 February 2015 01:22:31 UTC, dr.adrian.tuck wrote:
Anyone interested in some history here might like to look
up:-John von Neumann, Collected Works, Volume VI, Macmillan, New
York, 1963, pages 499-525.
Herman Hoerlin, United States high altitude test experiences,
Technical Report LA-6405, Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, 1976. Page
35 especially, has remarks about affecting weather and climate by
injecting condensation nuclei in the upper troposphere and lower
stratosphere.
Sidney Chapman, no less, said in 1934 in his presidential address to
the Royal Meteorological Society that if UV astronomers wanted to make
a hole in the ozone layer they would need to deploy a catalytic agent.
I remember Michael McElroy speculating about a “bromine bomb” to
destroy the ozone layer above an enemy’s territory, some time around
1975-6. As far as I know though, he had no connection to the
intelligence agencies.
As was recognised as long ago as 1958, atmospheric motions and
turbulence would rapidly degrade any hole made by weapon bursts.
Adrian Tuck
'ATMOSPHERIC TURBULENCE: A Molecular Dynamics Perspective'.
Oxford University Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-19-923653-4.
http://www.oup.com/uk/catalogue/?ci=9780199236534
***************************************************
On 15 Feb 2015, at 20:49, Alan Robock <[email protected]>
wrote:
Dear Greg,
Yes, those are the questions. And I would like to know
how much money each agency put into the report. There
should be a public record of that.
With respect to Ken's claims:
1. There is absolutely no evidence that any US
intelligence agency has any interest in climate
intervention for anything other than
defense-related informational purposes.
Why would you expect there to be evidence? It's the CIA.
2. Furthermore, there is no plausible scenario in which
climate intervention could be used effectively as a
weapon.
I agree that it would be hard to target, given what we
know now. But if cooling the planet gives agriculture in
my country an advantage over agriculture in your country,
there might be pressures to proceed. Anyway, as the
research goes on, it might be clearer how to weaponize
control of climate. Is that a motivation for supporting
research?
Alan
Alan Robock, Distinguished Professor
Editor, Reviews of Geophysics
Director, Meteorology Undergraduate Program
Department of Environmental Sciences Phone: +1-848-932-5751
Rutgers University Fax: +1-732-932-8644
14 College Farm Road E-mail: [email protected]
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8551 USA http://envsci.rutgers.edu/~robock
http://twitter.com/AlanRobock
Watch my 18 min TEDx talk at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsrEk1oZ-54
On 2/15/15, 12:38 PM, Greg Rau wrote:
Relatedly, I must say I felt a little chill when
reviewing the NAS report where support from "US
intelligence community" was acknowledge without
providing any specifics as to what agencies. More
importantly, there was no subsequent discussion in
the report as to the reason the intelligence
community might be interested in doing this. This
support was again acknowledged by Marcia McNutt at
the AAAS session yesterday without any details. At
least support by DOE and NOAA, the "US
energy/environmental community"?, was clearly
stated, while Depts. of Agriculture, Interior and
EPA were conspicuously absent given the heavy
emphasis on land ecosystems in the report.
Anyway, it would be nice to know to what extent my
research or anyone else's in this field is serving the
intelligence community and how. I have no doubt that there
are national security implications for successfully or
unsuccessfully dealing with climate change, but then
should these implications be classified, which ones, and
who decides? What role does the NAS and as well as
ordinary US scientists have in this, and are they serving
US interests or global interests?
Greg
____________________________________________________________________________
From: Jamais Cascio <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Cc: Ken Caldeira <[email protected]>; Alan
Robock <[email protected]>; Mick West
<[email protected]>;
[email protected]
Sent: Sunday, February 15, 2015 10:56 AM
Subject: Re: [geo] Chill factor at 'cia'
weather query | Daily Mail Online and BBC
interview
It’s not a question of whether or not it's a weapon,
it’s a question of whether or not it’s perceived as
a threat.
At the Berlin event, I told some of you about the
CIA Center for Climate Change and National Security
simulation exercise I was asked to do four or five
years ago. What started as a climate
disruption/storms & droughts & bears scenario
evolved (as the China and US teams responded) into a
potential SRM scenario. By the final turn, the
possible deployment of SRM on one side had been
perceived as a real threat to agriculture on the
other, and missiles were being put on alert.
Perception trumps objective reality when it comes to
national security.
On that note, the CIACCCNS is no longer around, as
the Republican house determined that since climate
change wasn’t real, the center wasn’t needed.
Seriously.
-Jamais Cascio
Proof: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jamais_cascio/6214330683/
On Feb 15, 2015, at 10:27 AM, Andrew
Lockley <[email protected]> wrote:
Respectfully, I disagree.
The status of geoengineering is perhaps more
likely to be akin to trade sanctions.
Imagine a bipolar world which is divided up
purely into a Chinese superpower zone and an
American superpower zone. There may be various
skirmishes going on at any one time, as we see
in Ukraine. Simultaneously, we may see ongoing
trade, diplomacy and cooperation in other
ways. (This pattern is common among
'frenemies'.)
Where the parties have a clearly different CE
preference, the concept of weaponisation
becomes extremely blurred. Using CE becomes a
bargaining chip like all others. In extremis,
such a tool may cause profound food shortages
in the counterparty's zone, or expose key
infrastructure to natural disasters.
How could we agree whether that constituted a
weapon, or not?
A
On 15 Feb 2015 16:38, "Ken Caldeira"
<[email protected]> wrote:
Based on the history of our
intelligence agencies involvement
in secret kidnappings and torture,
killing noncombatants with drones,
spying on our telecommunications,
etc, we can take it as a given
that secret US governmental
organizations will engage in
criminal behavior.
However, we should be entirely clear:
There is absolutely no evidence that any
US intelligence agency has any interest
in climate intervention for anything
other than
defense-related informational purposes.
Furthermore, there is no plausible
scenario in which climate intervention
could be used effectively as a weapon.
So, while I share Alan's contempt for
the criminal behavior of our secretive
governmental agencies, I do not think it
is helpful to speculate that in this
instance, the agencies are looking for
new ways that they might inflict
suffering on others.
Best,
Ken
_______________
Ken Caldeira
Carnegie Institution for Science Dept
of Global Ecology
260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA 94305
USA
+1 650 704
7212 [email protected]
http://kencaldeira.com
https://twitter.com/KenCaldeira
My assistant is Dawn Ross
<[email protected]>, with access
to incoming emails.
On Sun, Feb 15, 2015 at 8:08 AM, Alan
Robock <[email protected]>
wrote:
Dear Mick,
The Daily Mail article is
true.
But you might also be
interested in the more
informative BBC interview:
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-31475761
Alan
Alan Robock, Distinguished Professor
Editor, Reviews of Geophysics
Director, Meteorology Undergraduate Program
Department of Environmental Sciences Phone: +1-848-932-5751
Rutgers University Fax: +1-732-932-8644
14 College Farm Road E-mail: [email protected]
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8551 USA http://envsci.rutgers.edu/~robock
http://twitter.com/AlanRobock
Watch my 18 min TEDx talk at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsrEk1oZ-54
On 2/14/15, 10:30 PM, Mick
West wrote:
The Daily Mail story
about CIA inquiries
concerning covert
geoengineering is
interesting because I
actually posed a very
similar question to
the Geoengineering
list three years ago,
to which both of you
(Alan and Andrew)
responded directly.
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/geoengineering/UzNzNyJIZ2g/Qvs7XFNK5d
oJ
So I was wondering Alan, if
is this the Daily Mail's
dramatic retelling of this
exchange, or were there
actually "CIA" men calling
you asking similar
questions?
Mick
On Sat, Feb 14, 2015 at 6:56
PM, Andrew Lockley
<[email protected]>
wrote:
Poster's note :
Robock tweeted
this, so it's
probably not
entirely
inaccurate.
(Members outside
the UK may not
be aware that
the Daily Mail
is widely
derided.)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/pa/article-2954051/Chill-factor-CIA-weathe
r-query.html
Chill factor at 'CIA'
weather query
By Press Association
00:43 15 Feb 2015,
A leading American
climate scientist has
said he felt "scared"
when a shadowy
organisation claiming
to represent the CIA
asked him about the
possibility of
weaponised weather.
Professor Alan Robock
received a call three
years ago from two men
wanting to know if
experts would be able
to spot a hostile
force's attempts to
upset the US climate.
But he suspected the
real intention was to
find out how feasible
it might be to
secretly interfere
with the climate of
another country.
The professor, from
the Department of
Environmental Sciences
at Rutgers University,
New Jersey, has
investigated the
potential risks and
benefits of using
stratospheric
particles to simulate
the climate-changing
effects of volcanic
eruptions.
Speaking at the annual
meeting of the
American Association
for the Advancement of
Science in San Jose,
California, where he
took part in a debate
on geoengineering to
combat climate change,
Prof Robock said: " I
got a phone call from
two men who said we
work as consultants
for the CIA and we'd
like to know if some
other country was
controlling our
climate, would we know
about it?"I told them,
after thinking a
little bit, that we
probably would because
if you put enough
material in the
atmosphere to reflect
sunlight we would be
able to detect it and
see the equipment that
was putting it up
there."At the same
time I thought they
were probably also
interested in if we
could control somebody
else's climate, could
they detect it?"
Asked how he felt when
the approach was made,
he said: "Scared. I'd
learned of lots of
other things the CIA
had done that haven't
followed the rules a
...
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