Zack Denfeld, a self-described information ecologist and lecturer at Pacific Northwest College of Art — and my good friend — is developing a creative form of resistance through his Center for Genomic Gastronomy. Taking a Yes Men-inspired, tongue-in-cheek approach, Zack is extending the logic of genetically modified organisms to their unnatural conclusion by putting them in situations their inventors never considered.

In his first experiment with the Center, Zack made sushi rolls out of GloFish — a patented, genetically engineered fluorescent zebrafish, which is publicly available as a pet. The idea, as Zack explains in the above video, is to give people the opportunity to beta-test transgenic fish before the FDA approves transgenic salmon — likely to soon be the first such animal approved for human consumption.

Says Zack:

What’s really interesting about [GloFish] is they’ve been existing in science labs and all of a sudden one guy had a really interesting market strategy, which was to make them available to the public. And we think that’s really innovative and we’re building on his innovation by cooking with them.

I don’t know how happy he is about that, but I want to ask you how happy you are with these recipes. If you’re all for transgenic foods, you’ll love my sushi rolls. If you don’t like my glowing sushi rolls, you may want to tell the US FDA to hold off on that transgenic salmon.

The decision is up to you. You are no longer passive. You are active in this process.

In another experiment — this time going after the secret nature of biotechnology research — Zack created a recipe for Vegetarian Bouillabaisse. It calls for a Fish Tomato, a somewhat mythical beast that involves a tomato being inserted with a cold-tolerant gene from a fish.

Is the Fish Tomato vegetarian? Is it an animal? Is it a plant? We don’t know.

But it’s important to eat this, taste this, and find out. The problem is, we can’t because both the genome and the data that came out of the research vanished in a cloud of confidential business information and corporate appropriation. The issue here is that if we don’t have the data, we’re not doing science. Science is about verifiability and repeatability.

So we need to stop calling the people who don’t give us data scientists. They’re not scientists. They’re just biohackers like me and you. Until they make their data public, we should not call them scientists.

When I spoke with Zack about his work, he stressed the importance of being able to reach these so-called scientists with our concerns. They are people, after all, who presumably can be reasoned with and persuaded to reconsider their actions.

In just the past few months, French activists have uprooted GM vines at a research center, Spanish activists have destroyed experimental GM maize crops, and Haitian farmers have burned Monsanto seeds. 

When these biohackers’ work is challenged destructively, they, like most people, respond with indifference. They just write off the protesters. If, however, we expose their inability to anticipate their work’s consequences, they may be far more willing to listen. Having scientists on our side, instead of on the corporations’, may be the key to wresting back control over our food systems.

Stop & Glow roll created for the Glowing Sushi cooking show.Photo: Catherine Kramer/Center for Genomic Gastronomy

A version of this post first appeared on Waging Nonviolence.

Geoengineering had its coming out party earlier this year when White House science adviser John Holdren told reporters that he had mentioned it to President Obama as a possible, admittedly desperate, option to combat climate change. Before then, the idea of hacking the planet was largely outside the realm of public discussion, which is why few people know that when Lyndon Johnson became the first president to be warned about global warming, his science advisers offered up geoengineering as the only possible solution.

Watch the movie trailer at the bottom of this article.4th Row FilmsThis insistence upon the manipulation of nature as the answer to the climate problem is the subject of a new documentary called Owning the Weather, which chronicles attempts over the last century to unlock the planet’s most mysterious and intricate of systems for both personal and societal gain. Director Robert Greene makes the case that the large-scale, biosphere-altering effects of geoengineering can’t be understood without examining smaller scale weather modification, such as cloud seeding to produce rain.

The film begins its focus on this particular practice with the largely forgotten story of Charles Hatfield, who was hired by San Diego County in 1915 to end a four year drought. Within a month of Hatfield burning proprietary chemicals that he claimed would attract moisture, it had rained 35 inches, with 14 deaths tied to the inundation. Hatfield quickly left town and was never paid; the county decided the rain was an act of God, not Hatfield’s doing. He ended up spending the rest of his life selling sewing machines. Oddly, the film says, to this day the reservoir where Hatfield conducted his “work” still experiences rains during what should be the dry season.

A sense of mystery continues to pervade the different methods of weather modification. Not only is the practice completely baffling — the film shows farmers igniting what looks like a small gas flame that in turn burns purported cloud seeding agents — but the results are unpredictable at best. The film depicts several die-hard proponents of cloud seeding caught in a catch-22, where they are perceived as charlatans by almost everyone in the realm of science, but can’t seem to get the government funding to conduct research that could show that seeding works.

In a further ironic twist, scientists seeking funding for geoengineering research are being forced to lobby with the cloud seeders. These two disparate groups of people — one hailing from the farm belt and the other from universities and research institutions — both want the same bill passed to establish a national weather modification policy and extend funding for experiments. But the United States has so far been reluctant to test international laws governing weather modification, which were enacted shortly after it was revealed in 1971 that the U.S. military attempted cloud seeding to extend the monsoon season in Vietnam to flood the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

Owning the Weather wrestles with this sketchy past, as well as the legitimate potential that exists with geoengineering — a concept with far more science behind it than cloud seeding, but wrought with far worse possible consequences. Unlike the cloud seeders, geoengineers seem to be more aware of the drawbacks. Stanford University climate scientist and leading geoengineering proponent Ken Caldeira speaks with such self-doubt in the film that he might as well be Woody Allen in a lab coat.

Meanwhile, Bill McKibben, whom I desperately hoped would condemn the insanity of geoengineering schemes, exhibited a similarly wavering tone in the film, saying “one of the great sadnesses and proofs that we’ve let global warming get completely out of control is they don’t sound quite as crazy anymore.” Such cautious reasoning left me feeling far more mixed about the idea of planet hacking than I like to admit. But that’s the point. We simply don’t know enough yet to make any kind of sound decision, as our previous attempts to control the weather exhibit.

Although Owning the Weather can be too interview-heavy at times, with one talking head bouncing to the next, the film is at its best when it goes beyond the physical consequences of human-made weather and ponders how society and our own consciousness might change as well. The subtle irony beneath this question, however, is that mankind has already geoengineered the weather, thanks to 150 plus years of industrial pollution.

The purity of a wholly natural climate may be lost, but Mother Nature is still in full control — a fact those of us living in wealthy countries can’t seem to accept. We’re so used to controlling our home environment with the flick of the thermostat that controlling the weather seems entirely possible. And so it’s this sense of hubris that might be the scariest thing of all.

Watch It: Owning the Weather (4th Row Films) will be shown at the 92Y in Tribeca on Jan. 7. The film is also currently available via Amazon and cable video on demand. For more information, visit owningtheweather.com.

The Trailer: