Some people just want to believe what they want to believe. That 100% applies to folks who buy into weather conspiracy theories.
That was this Reddit community's takeaway for a well-meaning user who said "it's exhausting" to combat all the misinformation out there after a devastating hurricane season.
The Redditor began by asking the r/meteorology subreddit if there was "a thread about combating the weather manipulation conspiracy theories." They followed up by noting that those theories "ballooned in popularity" after Hurricanes Helene and Milton. They asked the community, "How do you explain them pointing to patents about the government trying to control hurricanes?" They added they'd "love a thread tackling each talking point."
Their observation about the explosion of weather conspiracy theories was certainly on point. Buzzy theories around cloud seeding grossly overstated and exaggerated the weather manipulation our governments are capable of, as doctoral candidate Roshan Salgado D'Arcy explained in a video for The Cool Down.
Another offshoot conspiracy theory is tied to the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. As FactCheck.org notes, the research done there "has nothing to do with weather modification and could not alter hurricanes."
The key danger of these theories is in tying boogiemen such as nefarious governments to extreme weather versus the true origins of the latter. Natural weather phenomena are made more severe by the warming of the planet. Humans play a huge role in this through our reliance on dirty energy, which produces pollution via planet-heating gases including methane.
Unfortunately, as the Reddit community pointed out, you could put together all the experts' videos, articles, and explainers debunking these conspiracy theories, and you might still find an unwilling audience. It doesn't help that politicians aren't above buying into the theories, either.
"I think the best you could do is to mathematically explain just how much energy it requires to produce a cloud and hope they realize it's not conceivable for any machine or device to do that," one commenter suggested.
Others were skeptical that doing so would have any effect.
🗣️ Do you think misinformation is a major problem in America today?
🔘 Definitely 💯
🔘 Only for some people 😒
🔘 Only with certain issues 🤔
🔘 Not really 🙅
🗳️ Click your choice to see results and speak your mind
"Stop giving them the attention they crave," one Redditor implored. "A mountain of facts isn't gonna overwhelm their desire to annoy you."
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