Two Kentucky lawmakers have filed identical bills seeking to follow Tennessee as the second state to ban what they call “geoengineering” — controversial methods to counteract climate change with atmospheric particulates that remain at the theoretical stage of academic debate among scientific researchers.
However, some people — including the sponsor of the Tennessee bill that passed into law in 2024 — believe such geoengineering methods are already happening in the sky and being covered up, essentially rebranding the baseless, decades-old conspiracy theory about so-called “chemtrails.”
One untested geoengineering method the Kentucky legislation seeks to prohibit this year is stratospheric aerosol injection, in which a plane would release particles in the stratosphere that would reflect a certain amount of sunlight before it reaches the earth. Also known as solar radiation management, many scientists theorize methods like this could temporarily slow the planet’s rising temperatures if global emissions of fossil fuels don’t subside, though others are deeply skeptical and wary …