At first glance, what happened in the Tennessee Legislature this spring seemed a bit odd.
Republican lawmakers have introduced a bill that would ban solar geoengineering, a technique that releases aerosols into the atmosphere to block some of the sun’s radiation. As climate change causes global temperatures to rise, interest in geoengineering has grown as a way to cool the planet. But it’s still mostly theoretical, and there’s no evidence that anyone is trying it in Tennessee.
The lead witness who testified in support of the ban was a medical doctor with no qualifications in climate science who falsely claimed geoengineering was occurring nationwide. Democrats derided the bill as absurd and tried to amend it with references to Yeti, Bigfoot and Sasquatch to prove their point.
But the ban passed the legislature and was signed by Republican Governor Bill Lee, making Tennessee the first state to make geoengineering illegal.
Behind the scenes, the bill was the result of lobbying by activists known within the Republican Party for their work against vaccination mandates.
“We leveraged the connections and trust that we’d built over the past few years with medical freedom,” Danielle Goodrich of East Tennessee Freedom, which describes itself as “a group of patriots, mama bears, and conservative Christians,” explained on the podcast.
For many years, the debate over geoengineering has been fought mainly among academics and environmentalists, who agree that climate change is an existential threat but are divided on whether humans should try to mitigate it by manipulating natural processes.
Some, including prominent geophysicist David Keith, say geoengineering could save lives and that outdoor experiments are needed to understand the benefits and risks. Others, including the nonprofit Friends of the Earth, say geoengineering is a distraction from the urgent need to reduce the pollution that is causing global warming. They also worry that there are no international rules to ensure geoengineering is carried out safely and fairly.
Now those critics are being joined by groups from very different corners of American society: vaccine skeptics, conspiracy theorists and groups like East Tennessee Freedom, which seems motivated more by a deeper distrust of government than by what Goodrich calls a “perhaps climate crisis.”
This new wave of geoengineering opponents has support from the far-right wing of the Republican Party, and since January, lawmakers in at least six states have introduced similar bills to preemptively ban geoengineering.
“The politics of geoengineering are really strange,” said Benjamin Day, a senior campaigner in Friends of the Earth’s climate and energy justice team. It’s odd to share goals with a group that appears to be trying to discredit the government and reflect its so-called “departure from the truth,” Day said.
The fears and misinformation surrounding weather engineering were on display earlier this year in Alameda, California, where scientists sprayed water vapor mixed with sea salt just off the coast. They were testing a device that might one day be used to brighten clouds and reflect sunlight back into space. The Alameda experiment was harmless; the scientists just wanted to observe how the particles moved through the air.
But residents were so concerned that they convinced the city council to halt the experiment, even though the city’s own studies had found the experiment posed no risk to public health or the environment.
Researchers argue that a ban on geoengineering, including pilot tests, would hinder science. This month, Britain’s science agency announced it would provide $75 million for testing geoengineering technologies, including outdoor experiments, because without physical testing, “it is unlikely we can make a proper judgment” about whether geoengineering is feasible and safe.
“As pressure grows for geoengineering the planet, we need to be armed with the science to understand as much as possible of the benefits and drawbacks before we make any decisions,” said Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, which has committed millions of dollars to geoengineering research this year.
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The national movement to ban geoengineering dates back to 2014, when a Rhode Island lawmaker looked up at the sky and detected a conspiracy.
State Assemblywoman and educator Karen McBeth has introduced a bill that would impose fines or prison time on anyone who knowingly engages in geoengineering in Rhode Island, citing the potential damage it can cause to soil, water and air quality, and believes she is the first state legislator in the nation to propose such a ban.
MacBeth’s bill lists a number of potential harmful side effects of geoengineering, including changing precipitation patterns, increased acid rain, damage to the Earth’s ozone layer and reduced efficiency of solar panels.
McBeth, who retired from office in 2017, said in an interview that his concerns about geoengineering stemmed from something not mentioned in the bill: He believed someone was already using a plane to intentionally release chemicals into the atmosphere.
“As a kid, I would look up and see these big clouds and bright blue sky,” McBeth says, “and then all of a sudden I started seeing streaks from planes that just wouldn’t go away.”
She worried the streaks could have come from harmful substances. “This is happening all over the world now,” she added.
McBeth’s belief is better known as the “chemtrail” conspiracy theory, which suggests that rather than the natural release of water vapor from plane engines that leaves visible trails of ice crystals in the cold air, planes secretly emit trails of dangerous chemicals. There is no evidence to support the chemtrail theory, which has garnered many supporters via social media.
“Some say the local government or the United States is involved, while others say a secret global organization is behind it,” said Shijia Xiao, a postdoctoral researcher at Carnegie Mellon University who wrote a peer-reviewed paper on the conspiracy theory. “Some say it’s to poison the residents, others that it’s to manipulate the weather.”
McBeth, a Democrat-turned-Republican, introduced the bill multiple times but never brought it to a vote, but after he left office, other Rhode Island lawmakers picked up his voice and continued to reintroduce the bill.
The anti-geoengineering movement gained momentum after the White House, at the direction of Congress, released a federal research plan for solar geoengineering in June 2023. The Biden administration has made clear that federal research on geoengineering remains limited, but the report said that combining outdoor experiments with computer models and laboratory studies could be valuable.
That was enough to inundate X with mocking posts and spark headlines in conservative media like “White House report suggests openness to manipulating sunlight to prevent climate change.”
Since January, Republican lawmakers have introduced bills to ban geoengineering in New Hampshire, Tennessee, Kentucky, South Dakota, Minnesota, Ohio, South Carolina and Pennsylvania. Most of these bills are similar to the one introduced in Rhode Island.
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Many of the activists and lawmakers calling for a ban on geoengineering have liberal leanings.
State Rep. Jason Gerhardt, who introduced a bill to ban geoengineering in New Hampshire, said the federal income tax was too broad and served 12 years in prison after being convicted of supplying weapons to a couple who confronted U.S. marshals over unpaid taxes. He ran for sheriff of Merrimack County, New Hampshire, this year and promised to investigate geoengineering. “People are tired of the intentional pollution of our skies. No more geoengineering!” Gerhardt wrote on X.
Pennsylvania Sen. Doug Mastriano, a Republican who lost the 2022 gubernatorial election despite having the support of Donald J. Trump, introduced a bill in June to ban geoengineering in the state. “A total ban is justified because solar geoengineering can cause irreparable harm to life and property,” Mastriano, a Christian nationalist and follower of the QAnon conspiracy theory, said in a news release.
His office did not respond to a request for comment.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who last month ended his bid for the White House as an independent, has also expressed concerns about geoengineering, saying in a statement that it could have “serious unanticipated ecological effects.”
Speaking on the podcast “Are Chemtrails Real?” last year, Kennedy said the issue of climate change had been “hijacked” by the World Economic Forum and Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
“They’re doing to us the same thing the pharmaceutical industry is doing, which is making the problem worse and then selling us the solution,” Kennedy said. “And of course, the solution they want to the climate problem is more social control, and then the big solution is geoengineering projects, which of course Bill Gates is funding all over the world.”
A spokesman for Gates declined to comment.
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So far, the only state where the campaign has had success has been Tennessee, where the most vocal supporter of the ban was Dennis Sibley, a Johnson City, Tennessee, physician and founder of what would become East Tennessee Freedom.
Dr Sibley told lawmakers that geoengineering is taking place across the country, citing as evidence a White House report that says nothing of the sort.
Republicans praised her. “I appreciate you coming to us about this,” said state Sen. Janice Bowling. “I’ve been hearing from my constituents about this and that this is happening in Tennessee for quite some time.”
“This will probably be my wife’s favorite bill of the year. She’s been worried about this for about 10 years. She’s been worried about it for a really long time,” said Rep. Frank Nicely, another Republican.
Tennessee’s ban prohibits “the intentional injection, discharge, or dispersion into the atmosphere by any means within state boundaries of any chemical, compound, substance, or device for the express purpose of affecting temperature, weather, or the intensity of sunlight.”
That includes cloud seeding, the decades-old practice of injecting chemicals into clouds to stimulate rain. Augustus Dolicko, CEO of a cloud-seeding company, testified that the legislation would prevent farmers from using a common tool.
“If you support depriving Tennessee farmers of the best technology available in other states, then please support this bill as is,” Dolicho told lawmakers.
The bill was lobbied for by Goodrich, an anti-vaccine activist who spoke about the nationwide anti-geoengineering campaign on his podcast “Rebunked.”
Goodrich said geoengineering is an expansion of government power, similar to mandatory vaccinations.
“They’re experimenting without our consent,” she said on the podcast. “We were dirty germ emitters during the pandemic, and now we’re dirty carbon emitters. And, you know, both of those are lies, and they’re trying to violate our rights.”
Goodrich said East Tennessee Freedom got the model bill from a woman named Jolie Diane, who runs a website called Zero Geoengineering. “Jolie has an incredible wealth of information,” Goodrich said.
She praised Diane for introducing bans in states like New Hampshire, Kentucky and South Dakota.
In a statement, Diane said she was “unable to disclose details” about her interactions with state lawmakers. Goodrich and Dr. Sibley did not respond to requests for comment.
On her website, Zero Geoengineering, Diane also warns about other threats, including mandatory vaccinations, the fifth generation of wireless technology known as 5G and genetically modified crops.
Diane’s efforts to ban geoengineering nationwide appear to date back to at least a 2018 speech she gave at a library in Rhode Island, where she said the military, the Central Intelligence Agency and the “deep state” were spraying the chemicals.
“We’re using this bill as a model and a template as we visit other states,” Diane said at the event. “We’re tailoring it to each state and making it specific, and now there’s hope for them, too.”
Emily Cochran contributed reporting from Tennessee and David Gelles contributed reporting from New York. Susan C. Beachy and Julie Tate contributed research.
