Florida: Clear vote in favour of bill to ban geoengineering

HB 477, a bill to ban geoengineering and weather manipulation in Florida, is moving quickly in the state legislature. The bill, introduced by Senator Ileana Garcia, R-Miami, aims to ban the use of experimental technologies designed to mitigate climate change through direct intervention. Specifically, the bill would prohibit the release of substances that could alter weather, sunlight or temperature, banning weather modification practices nationwide.

What is prohibited:

Prohibition of weather modification techniques: The bill prohibits the intentional manipulation of weather conditions, including temperature changes, precipitation or sunlight exposure, through the introduction of chemicals or other substances into the atmosphere.

Techniques such as cloud seeding, in which substances such as silver iodide are introduced into clouds to promote precipitation, are prohibited under this law.

Previous Florida laws that allowed regulated weather modification activities under state-issued licences are repealed by this bill.

However, the bill touches on the wider debates about weather modification and geoengineering. Weather modification is about localised interventions such as setting clouds to create precipitation, while geoengineering refers to large-scale interventions such as the introduction of aerosols into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight globally.

While some scientists see geoengineering as a possible solution to rapidly warming regions, others express concerns about the risks. However, opponents of the bill argue that banning such practices in Florida could set a precedent that harms farmers in other states.

“Many of us senators regularly receive concerns and complaints about these contrails, which many also refer to as chemtrails. There’s a lot of scepticism around this issue, and basically what I wanted to do with this was to try to find a way to separate fact from fiction,” Garcia said at a meeting of the Agriculture, Environment and General Government Appropriations Committee last week.

The reality of weather change

The bill passed the second Senate committee by a vote of 10:2 and must now pass one more Senate committee and two House committees before it is finally passed.

Violations of this law can result in civil penalties of up to $10,000 per offence, which is a strong deterrent against weather-related experimentation or interference with the state’s atmosphere.

The bill still needs to be passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate and then signed by the Governor to become law. If it is signed, HB 477 will come into force on 1 July 2025.

The proposed bill, based in part on the contrail conspiracy, focuses on a much more controversial question: should humans be able to alter the environment?

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration defines weather modification as “any activity conducted with the intent to produce artificial changes in the composition, behaviour, or dynamics of the atmosphere”.

In practice, this can take various forms, from the release of aerosols that reflect sunlight back into space to the triggering of rainstorms. The extent also varies. Weather manipulation is hyperlocal, while geoengineering is traditionally discussed in a global sense, Clement explained.

“Greenhouse gas emissions that take place in one part of the atmosphere affect the entire planet,” she said. “Some of the geoengineering measures under discussion, such as the injection of aerosols into the stratosphere, are actually distributed very efficiently across the entire globe.

Scientists see these practices as a necessary alternative to long-term, sustainable changes that have not yet materialised.

“I think that globally we are looking at what we can do about fossil fuel and greenhouse gas emissions and we are increasingly recognising that some places are warming to a degree that needs to be avoided,” said Clement.

“The only way to avoid them is to intervene, for example by geoengineering or controlling solar radiation.”

Cloud seeding, the release of particles into the atmosphere to create precipitation, has been around for decades, has been around for decades and is used in several states to support drought-stricken farmland.

Rainmaker CEO Augustus Doricko spoke out against SB 56 at last week’s committee meeting.

“Florida is a very important state in the United States, and if weather modification is banned here, it sets a precedent that will deny farmers in even drier regions of the country access to cloud-seeded water,” he said.

Concerns about geoengineering began after scientists conducted the first open-air experiment with release of aerosols into the atmosphere in 2024 in the hope of lightening the clouds. The authorities, concerned about human health, ordered the experiment to be halted shortly afterwards.

The unease about the test combined with the fear of contrails led to a wave of measures against weather modification, which have now also reached Florida.

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Garcia criticised the actions of Make Sunsets, a company that releases “reflective clouds”, or water vapour, to deflect sunlight.

“No one in the Sunshine State of Florida should be allowed to take such action,” she said. “It’s important that we prevent the arbitrary alteration of something as important as sunlight.”