At a hearing titled “Playing God with the Weather — a Disastrous Forecast,” Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency Chairwoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) addressed Congress about the federal government’s history and current involvement in weather modification and geoengineering. Greene raised concerns about transparency and oversight of taxpayer-funded activities related to climate control technology.
In her opening statement, Greene cited several historical examples of U.S. government experiments with weather modification. She referenced a 1947 military attempt, alongside General Electric, to intercept a hurricane near Jacksonville, Florida. She also mentioned an incident from the 1950s and 1960s when the U.S. Army sprayed chemicals over St. Louis, Missouri—an act which residents now claim has led to cancer cases. Other programs included Project Stormfury, where clouds were seeded with silver iodide in efforts to weaken hurricanes during the 1960s and 1970s, as well as Operation Popeye, which aimed to create monsoons during the Vietnam War.
Greene argued that while these incidents were significant, any large-scale effort to commercialize geoengineering for combating global warming would be much larger in scope and cost. She warned that such projects could result in “hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars” being directed toward research universities and scientists advocating for urgent action on global warming.
She also pointed out that private companies are already involved in this area: “Venture capitalists are already trying to get rich backing companies like Make Sunsets, which inject aerosols into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight back into space.”
Addressing broader concerns about scientific policy-making, Greene said: “One thing we learned from Covid is that it’s a mistake to allow the professional scientific community alone to determine federal science policy. The same professional scientific community that closed ranks around the need to close schools and businesses due to Covid is of a single mind when it comes to global warming.”
She continued: “They are convinced that global warming is such an immediate risk to mankind that it justifies the catastrophic risk of blocking out the sun. ‘It’s for the greater good’ they say.”
Greene concluded by emphasizing Congressional responsibility: “I don’t think it’s the job of the federal government to help these people play God with the weather. In fact, I think it’s the job of Congress to protect our people and make sure that weather and climate control experiments and activities do not create adverse unintended consequences for the rest of us.“
James Comer is currently serving in Congress representing Kentucky’s 1st district after replacing Ed Whitfield in 2016 (https://comer.house.gov/about). He previously served in Kentucky’s House of Representatives from 2001 until 2012 (https://ballotpedia.org/James_Comer). Comer was born in Carthage, Tennessee in 1972 and lives in Tompkinsville; he graduated from Western Kentucky University with a Bachelor of Science degree.
