by John Greenewald, Jr. – The Black Vault

In July of 2013, Dana Liebelson and Chris Mooney of MotherJones.com reported the following:

The Central Intelligence Agency is funding a scientific study that will investigate whether humans could use geoengineering to alter Earth’s environment and stop climate change. The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) will run the 21-month project, which is the first NAS geoengineering study financially supported by an intelligence agency. With the spooks’ money, scientists will study how humans might influence weather patterns, assess the potential dangers of messing with the climate, and investigate possible national security implications of geoengineering attempts.

The total cost of the project is $630,000, which NAS is splitting with the CIA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and NASA. The NAS website says that “the US intelligence community” is funding the project, and William Kearney, a spokesman for NAS, told Mother Jones that phrase refers to the CIA. Edward Price, a spokesman for the CIA, refused to confirm the agency’s role in the study, but said, “It’s natural that on a subject like climate change the Agency would work with scientists to better understand the phenomenon and its implications on national security.” The CIA reportedly closed its research center on climate change and national security last year, after GOP members of Congress argued that the CIA shouldn’t be looking at climate change. (Source and special thanks: MotherJones.com)

I filed a Freedom of Information Act request to the CIA, and received what is known as a GLOMAR response, wherein they can neither confirm nor deny the material that I request actually exists.

I then requested the entire case file, to see what kind of search was done, what communications/emails were sent behind the scenes during the processing of this request, etc. The entire case file is received below, and you will note additional pages were classified and would not be released.

CIA F-2013-02231 Case File on Weather Modification (GLOMAR Response) [ 12 Pages, 0.8MB ]