Topline
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., fueled an ongoing conspiracy among the far-right—that the government is behind some of the worst natural disasters—when she said she would introduce legislation to prevent government “weather modification and geoengineering” in the wake of the deadly Texas floods.
A view of a damaged building and fallen trees at Camp Mystic in Hunt, Texas, on July 7, 2025, … More
Key Facts
Greene wrote in a Saturday post on X.she would introduce legislation that bans the release of anything into “the atmosphere for the express purpose of altering weather, temperature, climate, or sunlight intensity,” saying, “no person, company, entity, or government should ever be allowed to modify our weather by any means possible!!”
Greene did not reference the deadly Texas floods dominating the news that day, but said she has been “working with the legislative counsel for months writing this bill” to make “the dangerous and deadly practice of weather modification and geoengineering” a “felony offense.”
The Georgia congresswoman said the bill would be similar to Florida’s new law that makes cloud seeding and other weather modification activities illegal.
Greene has a history of stoking conspiracies that a government “deep state” creates catastrophic weather events, including suggesting hurricanes have been engineered to hit Republican areas harder than those with more Democrats and speculating that lasers spark wildfires.
The conspiracy that weather is manipulated by forces other than nature has been repeatedly debunked amid an increase in dangerous weather caused by climate change: “NOAA does not fund or participate in cloud seeding or other weather modification projects,” the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration writes on its website.
Chief Critics
Meteorologist Matthew Cappucci blasted Greene in a series of posts on X, explaining that the practice of cloud seeding—or injecting particles in the air to encourage rain or snow—is only possible on a small scale, and can’t cause the kind of devastation seen in Texas over the weekend. “Cloud seeing is for a tiny cloud—not a 4,000,000,000,000 gallon flood,” he wrote on X. Cappucci, who has spoken out to debunk the weather modification theories in the past, added that “it’s not a political statement for me as a Harvard-degreed atmospheric scientist to say that elected representative Marjorie Taylor Green[e] doesn’t know what the hell she’s talking about.” Cloud seeding is typically done by private companies to generate snow in mountain basins in winter and rain in reservoirs during the summer and has been “used for decades,” according to NOAA.
Greene Has Promoted Weather Conspiracies—with Qanon Roots— Before
Greene has suggested previously that catastrophic weather events are tied to intentional weather modification. In the wake of Hurricane Helene in October, she tweeted “yes they can control the weather . . . it’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done,” without specifying who “they” is. In an earlier post, she suggested Democrats were to blame by posting a map of hurricane damage across the southeastern U.S. she said proved that Republican areas were hit harder than those with more Democrats. Weather-manipulation theories proliferated by some right-wing figures date back at least to Hurricane Ida in 2021, when QAnon conspiracy theorists pushed the idea that it was somehow geoengineered for political purposes.
Greene Also Promoted Dew Theory—and Jewish Space Lasers—causing Fires
In a since-deleted 2018 Facebook post, Greene questioned whether “lasers or blue beams of light” funded by the Rothschild Jewish banking family caused the Butte County, California, Camp Fire in 2018 that killed 85 people—Greene was widely ridiculed for spreading the unfounded suggestion, which became known as the “Jewish space lasers” conspiracy. The conspiracy that “directed energy weapons” are the cause of wildfires also surfaced on social media during the deadly Los Angeles wildfires earlier this year, during the Maui and Canadian fires in 2023 and the Texas Smokehouse Creek Wildfire in 2024, CBS notes.
Has The U.s. Ever Used Cloud Seeding To Modify The Weather?
Yes. According to NOAA, “between 1962 and 1982, NOAA provided support for research into whether hurricane intensity could be modified, known as Project STORMFURY,” but it was unsuccessful, and “STORMFURY was discontinued.” NOAA notes that cloud deeding does occur —”typically by private companies in western mountain basins in winter in order to help generate snow in specific locations, or in the desert southwest to replenish water reservoirs in summer,” and has happened for decades.
Key Background
At least 82 people, including 28 children and 27 campers and counselors from Camp Mystic summer camp on the banks of the Guadalupe River, were killed in the central Texas flash floods that began Friday, while 10 campers remain unaccounted for. The death toll is expected to rise as search and rescue efforts continue. A flash flooding threat remains in effect through Monday, with the possibility of additional heavy downpour.
Further Reading
Texas Flood Live Updates: More Flooding Forecast Today As Death Roll Rises To 82 (Forbes)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2025/07/07/marjorie-taylor-greene-fuels-government-weather-conspiracy-after-deadly-texas-flood/
