When Weather-Control Conspiracies Threaten Public Safety

Here’s the podcast post for my Sustain What episode looking at:

• The recent sabotage attack on a TV station’s weather radar in Oklahoma

• The spread of unfounded extreme-weather conspiracies by Republican lawmakers and attention-hijacking online figures

• How opacity around government and industry tests of weather modification methods has provided an enduring hook for conspiracy mongers to build on

  

  (Read James Rodger Fleming’s paper “The pathological history of weather and climate modification: Three cycles of promise and hype.”)

  

• The 60-year history of scientists jumping to geoengineering climate solutions facing greenhouse-gas heating

• The roles of different social media platforms in either fueling (Instagram) or fighting (TikTok) the flow of falsehoods

My guests were:

• James Rodger Fleming, the Charles A. Dana Professor of Science, Technology and Society, Emeritus, at Colby College, and author of Fixing the Sky - The Checkered History of Weather and Climate Control.

• Matt Cappucci, the fantastic young meteorologist and weather communicator from MyRadar and the Washington Post who is also the author of Looking Up - The True Adventures of a Storm-Chasing Weather Nerd

The introductory post has more background: