Original article (in Montenegrin) was published on 08/10/2024; Author: Marko Vukajlović
Hurricane Helene, which struck the southeastern United States, claimed the lives of over 220 people (archived here). The material damage is immense, and there is fear that the death toll could rise. Classified as a Category 4 storm, Helene stands as the deadliest hurricane to hit the U.S. mainland since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Given the catastrophic aftermath of Helena, it is no wonder that conspiracy theories have surfaced, with some claiming that human intervention was responsible for the hurricane. According to the Hop portal (archived here):
The government used cloud seeding to create Hurricane Helene.
In reality, human activity did influence Hurricane Helena, but it was not through cloud seeding but rather through climate change. NBC reports (archived here):
“Two rapid-attribution studies released Tuesday found that human-caused global warming made Hurricane Helene stronger and wetter, elements that contributed to the storm’s destructive power.
A report from ClimaMeter, a consortium that analyzes extreme weather events, found that Helene’s rainfall totals and winds were strengthened by human-driven climate change, with the rainfall up to 20% heavier and winds up to 7% stronger.
The consortium noted that elevated temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico — something climate scientists have been warning about for years — likely contributed to Helene’s power.”
A second report from the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in California further noted that climate change was responsible for approximately 50 percent more rainfall over Georgia and two Carolinas than initially anticipated.
As the U.S. presidential election approaches, additional theories have surfaced regarding the reasons behind Helene’s devastation in the Southeast. One of the world’s most well-known conspiracy theorists, Alex Jones, claimed (archived: here) that the government directed the hurricane toward North Carolina to force evacuations and begin lithium mining operations.
Right-wing Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene, notorious for promoting conspiracy theories, said (archived: here) that “they” can control the weather, dismissing the idea that it is not true. It remains unclear who “they” refers to, but the implication is that the Democratic government is involved.
To compound the challenges facing Americans, the hurricane season is not over. Florida residents are being asked (archived: here) to prepare for evacuation as Hurricane Milton approaches. Having strengthened after moving off Mexico’s coast, Milton was upgraded from a tropical storm to a hurricane, with winds reaching up to 155 kilometers per hour. Thus, like Helene, Milton is not the result of cloud seeding but rather another weather event, likely influenced by climate change.
Cloud seeding, while a real phenomenon, is not the cause of these hurricanes. As explained in a previous analysis, cloud seeding is a weather modification technique that increases the potential for rain or snow in clouds by introducing tiny ice nuclei into subfreezing clouds.
The controversial post is rated as a “conspiracy theory.”
The “Conspiracy theory” rating is given to a media report that provides an untrue or unverifiable description of a phenomenon, event, or person, presenting them as part or the result of a hidden agenda (“conspiracy”). Such content typically presents a series of claims as facts between which causal relationships are established without offering any credible evidence.
