The DOGE Subcommittee Hearing on Weather Modification Was a Nest of Conspiracy Theorizing

The House Oversight Committee hearing titled “Playing God with the Weather—a Disastrous Forecast,” convened by Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, centered on conspiracy theories about government control of the weather. Greene framed the debate as a conflict between divine authority over Earth and human attempts to manipulate weather, questioning scientific claims about climate change. The hearing highlighted how longstanding conspiracy theories, such as “chemtrails” (misconceptions about contrails from jets) and fears of weather modification, have gained renewed traction amid a cultural environment saturated with misinformation. Greene has a history of promoting such theories, including baseless claims linking California wildfires to space lasers controlled by a Jewish family and alleging that Texas floods were man-made. The hearing also touched on legitimate weather modification techniques like cloud seeding, which involves introducing substances like silver iodide into clouds to induce rain and is practiced in several states under regulation. Another discussed topic was solar radiation modification (solar geoengineering), a theoretical approach to combat global warming by