4 November 2024

Recent Hurricanes and Geoengineering

Emmi Yonekura

The recent back-to-back hurricanes that made landfall in the United States—Hurricane Helene on September 26 and Hurricane Milton on October 9—have sparked conspiracy theories about the government creating these disasters through geoengineering.

While such theories are false, they have drawn attention to the risky idea of geoengineering, which typically refers to the large-scale, intentional manipulation of the earth's processes to modify weather.

While both hurricanes wrought enormous damage in North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, there is no evidence that points toward any government, or other entity, being involved in their creation.

The spread of misinformation about government involvement in disasters has become something of a trend lately. False allegations about its hurricane response efforts prompted the Federal Emergency Management Agency to create a Hurricane Rumor Response web page this month.

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