Delegates to a landmark United Nations meeting on biodiversity have agreed to a moratorium on geoengineering experiments to deliberately alter the earth to decrease the level of greenhouse gas emissions. The agreement means that governments of the 193 countries that are signatories to the UN Biodiversity Convention must ensure that no geoengineering projects take place until risks to the environment as well as social, cultural and economic impacts have been properly assessed. The prohibition, however, does not apply to the United States, which has yet to ratify the convention. In a recent appearance on Democracy Now!, the Indian scientist and activist Vandana Shiva warned about the dangers of geoengineering.

Vandana Shiva: “These shortcuts that are attempted from places of power — and I would add, places of ignorance — of the ecological web of life, are then creating the war solution, because geoengineering becomes war on a planetary scale, with ignorance and blind spots, instead of taking the real path, which is helping communities adapt and become resilient.”