by Michel Chossudovsky
December 5, 2009
from
GlobalResearch Website
The term,
"environmental modification techniques"
refers to any technique for changing - through the deliberate
manipulation of natural processes - the dynamics, composition or
structure of the Earth, including its biota, lithosphere, hydrosphere
and atmosphere, or of outer space.
(Convention
on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental
Modification Techniques, United Nations, Geneva: 18 May 1977)
"Environmental warfare is defined as the intentional modification or
manipulation of the natural ecology, such as climate and weather, earth
systems such as the ionosphere, magnetosphere, tectonic plate system,
and/or the triggering of seismic events (earthquakes) to cause
intentional physical, economic, and psycho-social, and physical
destruction to an intended target geophysical or population location, as
part of strategic or tactical war."
(Eco News)
"[Weather modification] offers the war fighter a wide range of possible
options to defeat or coerce an adversary... Weather modification will
become a part of domestic and international security and could be done
unilaterally… It could have offensive and defensive applications and
even be used for deterrence purposes. The ability to generate
precipitation, fog and storms on earth or to modify space weather… and
the production of artificial weather all are a part of an integrated set
of [military] technologies."
(US
Air Force document AF 2025 Final Report)
World leaders are meeting in Copenhagen in
December 2009 with a view to reaching an agreement on Global Warming.
The debate on Climate Change focuses on the
impacts of greenhouse gas emissions and measures to reduce manmade CO2
emissions under the Kyoto Protocol.
The underlying consensus is that greenhouse gas emissions constitute the
sole cause of climate instability. Neither the governments nor the
environmental action groups, have raised the issue of "weather warfare" or "environmental
modification techniques (ENMOD)"
for military use. Despite a vast body of scientific knowledge, the issue of
climatic manipulations for military use has been excluded from the UN agenda
on climate change.
John von Neumann noted at the height of the Cold War (1955), with
tremendous foresight that:
"Intervention in atmospheric and climatic
matters... will unfold on a scale difficult to imagine at present... [T]his
will merge each nation’s affairs with those of every other, more
thoroughly than the threat of a nuclear or any other war would have
done."
(Quoted in Spencer Weart,
Environmental Warfare: Climate Modification
Schemes, Global Research, December 5, 20090
In 1977, an international Convention was
ratified by
the United Nations General Assembly which
banned,
"military or other hostile use of
environmental modification techniques having widespread, long-lasting or
severe effects."
(AP, 18 May 1977).
Both the US and the Soviet Union were
signatories to the Convention.
Guided by the interest of consolidating
peace, ...and of saving mankind from the danger of using new means of
warfare, (...)
Recognizing that military... use of such
[environmental modification techniques] could have effects extremely
harmful to human welfare, Desiring to prohibit effectively military...
use of environmental modification techniques in order to eliminate the
dangers to mankind... and affirming their willingness to work towards
the achievement of this objective, (...)
Each State Party to this Convention
undertakes not to engage in military ... use of environmental
modification techniques having widespread, long-lasting or severe
effects as the means of destruction, damage or injury to any other State
Party.
(Convention
on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental
Modification Techniques,
United Nations, Geneva, May 18, 1977. Entered into force: 5 October
1978, see full text of Convention in Annex)
The Convention defined,
"'environmental modification techniques' as
referring to any technique for changing - through the deliberate
manipulation of natural processes - the dynamics, composition or
structure of the earth, including its biota, lithosphere, hydrosphere
and atmosphere or of outer space."
(Environmental Modification Ban
Faithfully Observed, States Parties Declare, UN Chronicle, July, 1984,
Vol. 21, p. 27)
The substance of the 1977 Convention was
reasserted in very general terms in the Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC)
signed at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro:
"States have... in accordance with the
Charter of the United Nations and the principles of international law,
the (...) responsibility to ensure that activities within their
jurisdiction or control do not cause damage to the environment of other
States or of areas beyond the limits of national jurisdiction."
(UN
Framework Convention on Climate Change, New York, 1992)
Following the 1992 Earth Summit, the issue of
Climate Change for military use was never raised in subsequent climate
change summits and venues under the auspices of the UNFCCC. The issue was
erased, forgotten. It is not part of the debate on climate change.
In February 1998, however, the European Parliament's Committee on Foreign
Affairs, Security and Defense Policy held public hearings in Brussels on
the U.S based weather warfare facility developed under
the HAARP
program.
The Committee's "Motion for Resolution" submitted to the European
Parliament:
"Considers HAARP [The High Frequency Active
Auroral Research Program based in Alaska]... by virtue of its
far-reaching impact on the environment to be a global concern and calls
for its legal, ecological and ethical implications to be examined by an
international independent body...; [the Committee] regrets the repeated
refusal of the United States Administration... to give evidence to the
public hearing... into the environmental and public risks [of] the HAARP
program."
(European Parliament, Committee on
Foreign Affairs, Security and Defense Policy, Brussels, doc. no.
A4-0005/99, 14 January 1999).
The Committee's request to draw up a "Green
Paper" on "the environmental impacts of military activities", however, was
casually dismissed on the grounds that the European Commission lacked the
required jurisdiction to delve into "the links between environment and
defense".
Brussels was anxious to avoid a showdown with
Washington (see European Report, 3 February 1999).
In 2007, The Daily Express reported - following the release and
declassification of British government papers from the National Archives -
that:
"The [declassified] documents reveal that
both the US, which led the field, and the Soviet Union had secret
military programs with the goal of controlling the world's climate. "By
the year 2025 the United States will own the weather," one scientist is
said to have boasted.
...
These claims are dismissed by skeptics as
wild conspiracy theories and the stuff of James Bond movies but there is
growing evidence that the boundaries between science fiction and fact
are becoming increasingly blurred. The Americans now admit that they
invested L12million over five years during the Vietnam war on "cloud
seeding" - deliberately creating heavy rainfall to wash away enemy crops
and destroy supply routes on the Ho Chi Minh trail, in an operation
codenamed
Project Popeye.
It is claimed that rainfall was increased by a third in targeted areas,
making the weather-manipulation weapon a success. At the time,
government officials said the region was prone to heavy rain.
(Weather
War?, Daily Express, July 16,
2007)
The possibility of climatic or environmental
manipulations as part of a military agenda, while formally acknowledged by
official government documents and the US military, has never been considered
relevant to the Climate debate. Military analysts are mute on the subject.
Meteorologists are not investigating the matter,
and environmentalists are strung on global warming and the Kyoto protocol.
The HAARP Program
The High-Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP)
based in Gokona, Alaska, has been in existence since 1992. It is part of a
new generation of sophisticated weaponry under the US Strategic Defense
Initiative (SDI).
Operated by the Air Force Research Laboratory's
Space Vehicles Directorate, HAARP constitutes a system of powerful antennas
capable of creating "controlled local modifications of the ionosphere"
[upper layer of the atmosphere]:
HAARP has been presented to public opinion
as a program of scientific and academic research.
US military documents seem to suggest,
however, that HAARP's main objective is to, "exploit the ionosphere for
Department of Defense purposes."
(See Michel Chossudovsky,
The Ultimate Weapon of Mass Destruction: "Owning
the Weather" for Military Use, Global Research, September 27,
2004)
Without explicitly referring to the HAARP
program, a US Air Force study points to the use of "induced ionospheric
modifications" as a means of altering weather patterns as well as disrupting
enemy communications and radar. (Ibid)
HAARP also has the ability of triggering blackouts and disrupting the
electricity power system of entire regions:
"Rosalie Bertell, president of the
International Institute of Concern for Public Health, says HAARP
operates as ‘a gigantic heater that can cause major disruptions in the
ionosphere, creating not just holes, but long incisions in the
protective layer that keeps deadly radiation from bombarding the
planet’.
Physicist Dr Bernard Eastlund called it ‘the largest ionospheric heater
ever built’. HAARP is presented by the US Air Force as a research
program, but military documents confirm its main objective is to ‘induce
ionospheric modifications’ with a view to altering weather patterns and
disrupting communications and radar.
According to a report by the Russian State Duma:
‘The US plans to carry out large-scale
experiments under the HAARP program [and] create weapons capable of
breaking radio communication lines and equipment installed on
spaceships and rockets, provoke serious accidents in electricity
networks and in oil and gas pipelines, and have a negative impact on
the mental health of entire regions.’
Weather manipulation is the pre-emptive
weapon par excellence. It can be directed against enemy countries or
‘friendly nations’ without their knowledge, used to destabilize
economies, ecosystems and agriculture. It can also trigger havoc in
financial and commodity markets.
The disruption in agriculture creates a
greater dependency on food aid and imported grain staples from the US
and other Western countries."
(Michel Chossudovsky,
Weather Warfare: Beware the US military’s
experiments with climatic warfare, The Ecologist, December
2007)
An analysis of statements emanating from the US
Air Force points to the unthinkable: the covert manipulation of weather
patterns, communications systems and electric power as a weapon of global
warfare, enabling the US to disrupt and dominate entire regions of the
World.
According to an official US Air force report:
"Weather-modification offers the war fighter
a wide-range of possible options to defeat or coerce an adversary... In
the United States, weather-modification will likely become a part of
national security policy with both domestic and international
applications.
Our government will pursue such a policy,
depending on its interests, at various levels."
(US Air Force.
Air University of the US Air Force, AF 2025 Final
Report - large file)
Copenhagen CO15
The manipulation of climate for military use is potentially a greater threat
to humanity than CO2 emissions.
Why has it been excluded from the debate under COP15, when the UN 1977
Convention states quite explicitly that,
"military or any other hostile use of such
techniques could have effects extremely harmful to human welfare"?
(Convention
on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental
Modification Techniques, United Nations, Geneva, 1977)
Why the camouflage?
Why are environmental modification techniques (ENMOD)
not being debated by the civil society and environmentalist organizations
under the auspices of the Alternative Forum KlimaForum09?
ANNEX
Adopted by Resolution 31/72 of the United Nations General Assembly on 10
December 1976.
The Convention was opened for signature at
Geneva on 18 May 1977.
Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any
Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques
The States Parties to this Convention, Guided by the interest of
consolidating peace, and wishing to contribute to the cause of halting
the arms race, and of bringing about general and complete disarmament
under strict and effective international control, and of saving mankind
from the danger of using new means of warfare,
Determined to continue negotiations with a view to achieving effective
progress towards further measures in the field of disarmament,
Recognizing that scientific and technical advances may open new
possibilities with respect to modification of the environment,
Recalling the Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human
Environment, adopted at Stockholm on 16 June 1972,
Realizing that the use of environmental modification techniques for
peaceful purposes could improve the interrelationship of man and nature
and contribute to the preservation and improvement of the environment
for the benefit of present and future generations,
Recognizing, however, that military or any other hostile use of such
techniques could have effects extremely harmful to human welfare,
Desiring to prohibit effectively military or any other hostile use of
environmental modification techniques in order to eliminate the dangers
to mankind from such use, and affirming their willingness to work
towards the achievement of this objective,
Desiring also to contribute to the strengthening of trust among nations
and to the further improvement of the international situation in
accordance with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United
Nations,
Have agreed as follows:
Article I
-
Each State Party to this Convention
undertakes not to engage in military or any other hostile use of
environmental modification techniques having widespread,
long-lasting or severe effects as the means of destruction,
damage or injury to any other State Party.
-
Each State Party to this Convention
undertakes not to assist, encourage or induce any State, group
of States or international organization to engage in activities
contrary to the provisions of paragraph 1 of this article.
Article II
As used in article 1, the term
"environmental modification techniques" refers to any technique for
changing - through the deliberate manipulation of natural processes
- the dynamics, composition or structure of the Earth, including its
biota, lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere, or of outer space.
Article III
-
The provisions of this Convention
shall not hinder the use of environmental modification
techniques for peaceful purposes and shall be without prejudice
to the generally recognized principles and applicable rules of
international law concerning such use.
-
The States Parties to this
Convention undertake to facilitate, and have the right to
participate in, the fullest possible exchange of scientific and
technological information on the use of environmental
modification techniques for peaceful purposes. States Parties in
a position to do so shall contribute, alone or together with
other States or international organizations, to international
economic and scientific co-operation in the preservation,
improvement and peaceful utilization of the environment, with
due consideration for the needs of the developing areas of the
world.
Article IV
Each State Party to this Convention
undertakes to take any measures it considers necessary in accordance
with its constitutional processes to prohibit and prevent any
activity in violation of the provisions of the Convention anywhere
under its jurisdiction or control.
Article V
-
The States Parties to this
Convention undertake to consult one another and to co-operate in
solving any problems which may arise in relation to the
objectives of, or in the application of the provisions of, the
Convention. Consultation and co-operation pursuant to this
article may also be undertaken through appropriate international
procedures within the framework of the United Nations and in
accordance with its Charter. These international procedures may
include the services of appropriate international organizations,
as well as of a Consultative Committee of Experts as provided
for in paragraph 2 of this article.
-
For the purposes set forth in
paragraph 1 of this article, the Depositary shall within one
month of the receipt of a request from any State Party to this
Convention, convene a Consultative Committee of Experts. Any
State Party may appoint an expert to the Committee whose
functions and rules of procedure are set out in the annex which
constitutes an integral part of this Convention. The Committee
shall transmit to the Depositary a summary of its findings of
fact, incorporating all views and information presented to the
Committee during its proceedings. The Depositary shall
distribute the summary to all States Parties.
-
Any State Party to this Convention
which has reason to believe that any other State Party is acting
in breach of obligations deriving from the provisions of the
Convention may lodge a complaint with the Security Council of
the United Nations. Such a complaint should include all relevant
information as well as all possible evidence supporting ItS
validity.
-
Each State Party to this Convention
undertakes to cooperate in carrying out any investigation which
the Security Council may initiate, in accordance with the
provisions of the Charter of the United Nations, on the basis of
the complaint received by the Council. The Security Council
shall inform the States Parties of the results of the
investigation.
-
Each State Party to this Convention
undertakes to provide or support assistance, in accordance with
the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations, to any
State Party which so requests, if the Security Council decides
that such Party has been harmed or is likely to be harmed as a
result of violation of the Convention.
Article VI
-
Any State Party to this Convention
may propose amendments to the Convention. The text of any
proposed amendment shall be submitted to the Depositary, who
shall promptly circulate it to all States Parties.
-
An amendment shall enter into force
for all States Parties to this Convention which have accepted
it, upon the deposit with the Depositary of instruments of
acceptance by a majority of States Parties. Thereafter it shall
enter into force for any remaining State Party on the date of
deposit of its instrument of acceptance.
Article VII
This Convention shall be of unlimited
duration.
Article VIII
-
Five years after the entry into
force of this Convention, a conference of the States Parties to
the Convention shall be convened by the Depositary at Geneva,
Switzerland. The conference shall review the operation of the
Convention with a view to ensuring that its purposes and
provisions are being realized, and shall in particular examine
the effectiveness of the provisions of paragraph 1 of article I
in eliminating the dangers of military or any other hostile use
of environmental modification techniques.
-
At intervals of not less than five
years thereafter, a majority of the States Parties to this
Convention may obtain, by submitting a proposal to this effect
to the Depositary, the convening of a conference with the same
objectives.
-
If no conference has been convened
pursuant to paragraph 2 of this article within ten years
following the conclusion of a previous conference, the
Depositary shall solicit the views of all States Parties to this
Convention concerning the convening of such a conference. If one
third or ten of the States Parties, whichever number is less,
respond affirmatively, the Depositary shall take immediate steps
to convene the conference.
Article IX
-
This Convention shall be open to all
States for signature. Any State which does not sign the
Convention before its entry into force in accordance with
paragraph 3 of this article may accede to it at any time.
-
This Convention shall be subject to
ratification by signatory States. Instruments of ratification or
accession shall be deposited with the Secretary-General of the
United Nations.
-
This Convention shall enter
into force upon the deposit of instruments of ratification by
twenty Governments in accordance with paragraph 2 of this
article.
-
For those States whose instruments
of ratification or accession are deposited after the entry into
force of this Convention, it shall enter into force on the date
of the deposit of their instruments of ratification or
accession.
-
The Depositary shall promptly inform
all signatory and acceding States of the date of each signature,
the date of deposit of each instrument of ratification or
accession and the date of the entry into force of this
Convention and of any amendments thereto, as well as of the
receipt of other notices.
-
This Convention shall be registered
by the Depositary in accordance with Article 102 of the Charter
of the United Nations.
Article X
This Convention, of which the Arabic,
Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish texts are equally
authentic, shall be deposited with the Secretary-General of the
United Nations, who shall send duly certified copies thereof to the
Governments of the signatory and acceding States.
In witness whereof, the undersigned, being
duly authorized thereto, have signed this Convention
Done at Geneva, on the 18 day of May 1977.
Annex to the Convention
Consultative Committee of Experts
-
The Consultative Committee of Experts
shall undertake to make appropriate findings of fact and provide
expert views relevant to any problem raised pursuant to paragraph 1
of article V of this Convention by the State Party requesting the
convening of the Committee.
-
The work of the Consultative Committee
of Experts shall be organized in such a way as to permit it to
perform the functions set forth in paragraph 1 of this annex. The
Committee shall decide procedural questions relative to the
organization of its work, where possible by consensus, but otherwise
by a majority of those present and voting. There shall be no voting
on matters of substance.
-
The Depositary or his representative
shall serve as the Chairman of the Committee.
-
Each expert may be assisted at meetings
by one or more advisers.
-
Each expert shall have the right,
through the Chairman, to request from States, and from international
organizations, such information and assistance as the expert
considers desirable for the accomplishment of the Committee's work.