# Biosphere 2 **Biosphere 2** is a sealed, three-acre artificial ecological system built in the Arizona desert near Oracle, completed in 1991 to test whether humans could live in a closed, self-sustaining environment — explicitly including the study of climate-change effects. It is mainly relevant to this knowledge base as the unlikely launchpad of [[Steve Bannon]]'s public career. ## The Bannon takeover The project — funded by Texas oil heir [[Ed Bass]] and run by a countercultural collective often described as "theater geeks" — ran badly over budget and was widely seen as out of control. In **April 1994**, after a management dispute, Bass installed [[Steve Bannon]], then running a Beverly Hills investment-banking boutique, to take over Space Biospheres Ventures and cut costs. Bannon's tenure was combative — marked by a lawsuit from ousted original "Biospherians" and, in later testimony, crude insults toward a female crew member who had raised safety complaints. ## Why it's in the Octopus story In [[Dave Troy]]'s "[[The Big History Behind January 6th]]" Part 2, Biosphere 2 is Bannon's origin scene: a climate-science experiment, born of the counterculture, shut down by a Goldman Sachs banker hired by oil money. Troy reads it as a small, telling tableau — a man who would later wage culture war against climate policy and the "globalist" establishment first appearing as the cost-cutter sent to put "a pin in" a climate experiment. (The project itself continued; it is today operated as a research facility by the University of Arizona.) ## See also - [[Steve Bannon]] · [[Ed Bass]] · [[The Octopus]]