Advances in technology have developed at a rapid rate over the last few years but not so much that it gives humans the ability to control the weather, according to Wyoming meteorologist Don Day.
U.S. House Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Georgia, however, seemed to suggest she believes the U.S. government has that capacity.
In a social media post shared with her 1.2 million X followers, Greene wrote: “Yes they can control the weather. It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.”
She appeared to double down on that with a follow up post on Saturday, sharing a clip from a 2013 CBS News broadcast about experimental efforts to induce rain and lightning using lasers.
But meteorologist Don Day said he’s “extremely skeptical” about Greene’s claim and said many people don’t understand how much energy it takes to control the weather.
“It kind of feels like weather and the climate becomes a political punching bag for people on both sides of the aisle,” he said. “Near an election season it’s not helpful.”
Always A Grain Of Truth …
Day said humans are long way from being able to create the sheer energy and scale needed to instantaneously spawn a hurricane or tornado, let alone much milder weather events in a short period of time.
“There’s extremely scant evidence humans can generate enough inertia to affect the weather,” he said.
But there is laboratory research and projects underway throughout the world studying what impacts humans can purposely make on the weather, even if it’s on a very small scale.
Another well-known practice is cloud seeding, which has shown to have a small impact on creating rain and snow in very isolated situations when cloud cover already exists.
“It’s like squeezing juice from a turnip,” Day said.
Political Football
Greene has a history of distrust toward the federal government and other groups, once raising the idea that space lasers could have been partly responsible for wildfire outbreaks.
Former President Donald Trump took a different angle, accusing President Joe Biden’s administration of denying assistance to states affected by the hurricane because it has blown its Federal Emergency Management Agency budget supporting migrants.
The head of FEMA denied and condemned Greene and Trump’s comments in a statement on Sunday.
“It’s frankly ridiculous, and just plain false. This kind of rhetoric is not helpful to people,” said Deanne Criswell, who leads FEMA. “It’s really a shame that we’re putting politics ahead of helping people, and that’s what we’re here to do.”
Day said he often gets people on both sides of the aisle reaching out to him to try and push him to push a political narrative within his weather reports.
For all requests from the right he gets from people like Greene, Day said he gets just as many on the left pushing him to blame every extreme weather event on climate change.
“I just really like to focus on meteorology, and it can be a challenge when you start making leaps into these realms,” he said. “It’s a no-win.”
Leo Wolfson can be reached at leo@cowboystatedaily.com.
