Rep. Majority Taylor Greene (R-GA) announced a bill to criminalize weather warfare—a decades-old unregulated technology with prescient implications.
“Weather modification could become…capable of altering the balance of power more than nuclear arms,” wrote RAND Corporation’s strategist Herman Khan in 1961.
Six decades later, the federal government regulates the amount of water used by dishwashers, but not a technology more powerful than nuclear arms? Let’s dive in.
Previously labeled a “conspiracy theory” the very existence of weather modification technologies, known as geoengineering, were largely contested. That was until Bill Gates – after teaming up with Harvard University and the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) – launched SCoPEx and then proposed using geoengineering to “combat climate change.”
With climate change dominating the headlines, and the Biden administration on board, suddenly geoengineering was no longer a conspiracy theory. Instead, it became an urgently needed solution to “combat the climate crisis.”
But here’s the kicker: what if the solution to the climate crisis was responsible for manipulating more than just the weather?
According to David Bookbinder, former lead counsel for the Sierra Club, geoengineering could result in catastrophic (un)natural disasters.
“I said, ‘Holy shit, it’s not the climate change.’ We know what that is. We know how it’s proceeding,” Bookbinder said. “It’s going to be the solutions that people start offering up.”
One such solution is offered by the unregulated startup Make Sunsets, which is now under investigation by the Trump administration for “polluting the air.”
Bookbinder, who filed a petition for rule change on behalf of a coalition of scientists, asked the Biden administration to regulate geoengineering. The Biden administration ignored the petition, focusing on land acquisitions and “climate justice” instead.
Under the guise of “climate resilience,” the Biden administration unleashed a torrent of taxpayer cash to buy up flood-prone lands.
The FEMA Hazard Mitigation Grant Program has snapped up over 55,000 properties since 1993. But, flush with $50 billion in new funding from the Inflation Reduction Act, FEMA’s predictive modeling tool – the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool (CEJST) – created new floodplain zones and funded a fresh wave of acquisitions allocated through the flood mitigation fund.
Strategic buyout programs, like ReBuild NC, turned flooded homes into “open space,” while land use restrictions prohibited residential redevelopment after Hurricane Helene—leaving many in tents.
The Department of the Interior’s expanded trust land purchases would have gobbled up another 500,000 acres by mid-2025, had the Big Beautiful Bill not passed.
While Project Cirrus kicked off weather modification in 1947, states like Utah are now dumping $12 million into cloud seeding projects, as the federal government conducts its own programs, to make it rain.
But, if government-funded weather modification can make it rain, why couldn’t corporations make it flood for the purpose of land consolidation, i.e. disaster capitalism—especially with so many new federal programs to work with?
As newly zoned floodplain maps devalue private land, or make insurance unattainable, rural Americans are hit hardest, often forcing sales to feds or corporate cronies for pennies on the dollar. Once made public, lands held in trust are prioritized for energy leases, open space or conservation as opposed to food production, grazing, or housing.
With firms like Blackstone upping their portfolios to 12% flood-zone real estate in 2024, or Amazon’s 15 floodplain sites already in play for solar farms, it’s anyone’s guess if the closely guarded private risk models of corporate firms are predictive or the result of planned geoengineering campaigns.
However, when geoengineering functions as a completely legal and unregulated form of insider trading, it’s easy to see why calls for reform are echoing across the political divide.
Now, with the Big Beautiful Bill pulling funding from Biden’s climate policies, the Marjorie Taylor – Greene New Deal – could make geoengineering a criminal offense and threaten this Atmospheric gravy train.
“No person, company, or government should ever be allowed to modify our weather!” Greene blasted on X.
While the future of Greene’s bill is unknown, you can have a direct impact by supporting rural communities through these difficult times. Buying locally and directly from your nearest farmer and rancher is a critical move towards securing food and land production into the future.
0 Comments