The Nutty GOP and Weather-Weapon Laws

In April, Tennessee Republicans passed a state law to ban chemtrails, the mythical substance long touted by conspiracy theorists as chemicals released into the atmosphere to either control the weather or exert mind control over the population.  More recently, Florida state Sen. Ileana Garcia recently introduced similar legislation that would ban “weather modification activities” in the airspace over that state.  What the heck is going on?

Since the 1990s, conservative cranks have concocted conspiracies that the condensation trails left by airplanes are actually chemical sprays used for nefarious purposes. The scientific explanation is that water vapor near the exhaust of jet planes condenses and freezes, creating a temporary cloud.  Bottom line: the notion that there are weapons now existing to change the weather and mold minds is the stuff of scientific fiction.

But particularly when the right has been out of power, these conspiracies tend to take hold as an explanation both for why Republicans may have lost public support (due to "mind control") or just as a way to accuse Democrats of the dastardliest actions possible.  In October, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene accused an abstract “they” of using a weather manipulation device when hurricanes hit the southern U.S.  “Yes they can control the weather. It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done,” she wrote.  President Joe Biden called Greene out in remarks from the White House, stating, “It’s beyond ridiculous. It’s so stupid. It’s got to stop.”

Weather-weapon conspiracies tend to disappear when Republicans are in the White House, and conservatives never question why figures like Trump or former President George W. Bush have never used these amazing powers against their political enemies or the country’s global adversaries.  But in 2013, conspiracy theorist and Greene ally Alex Jones insisted that then-President Barack Obama had deployed a weather weapon when a tornado hit Oklahoma.  On his radio show, Jones argued that the government “can create and steer groups of tornadoes.”  Of course, it cannot-- but it is a convenient way to make figures like Obama and Biden appear to be sinister. After all, controlling the weather is the kind of evil that comic book supervillains do, not presidents.

Conservatism is oriented around spreading distrust of government and scientific reality. Making up falsehoods about mind/weather control dust being seeded in clouds or sprayed on the public via planes fits right in with their paranoid style.   But these anti-chemtrails bills and laws aren’t just harmless exercises. They stymie the development of real technologies with far more modest goals, like increasing rainfall. The people who get hurt? Regular people like farmers who need help maintaining their fields and increasing crop production—and they’re being hurt by increasing temperatures from climate change.