Why Bill Gates is trending amid Texas floods. ‘Cloud seeding', ‘weather modification' claims surface
Kandiss Taylor, who is running for Georgia's House seat, suggested that the Texas floods are a result of cloud seeding. She tweeted: 'Fake weather. Fake hurricanes. Fake flooding. Fake. Fake. Fake.' However, her post did not mention Bill Gates.
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Posts on X, such as @TimRyanDOPEMAN's, falsely claimed Gates is behind the Texas floods, stating, 'Of course, the Texas floods were from cloud seeding and weather modification… m****s like Bill Gates think they know what the hell they're doing.'
However, there is no evidence to back these claims. Elon Musk-led xAi's bot, Grok, fact-checked these tweets.
"The text in the image promotes a baseless conspiracy theory: no evidence shows weather is "weaponized" or that Bill Gates is blocking the sun to cause events like Texas floods. Gates funds geoengineering research, but claims of malice are unfounded," it noted.
Bill Gates has, however, funded several geoengineering projects since 2006. In 2010, he invested $300,000 in Silver Lining, a San Francisco group developing machines to spray seawater into clouds to reflect sunlight. Since 2006, the Microsoft founder has backed Harvard's Solar Geoengineering Research Program, including the SCoPEx project to test calcium carbonate aerosol spraying, though a 2021 test in Sweden was canceled due to protests.
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Cloud seeding and weather modification claims
What Is Cloud Seeding?
Cloud seeding is a weather modification technique that disperses substances like silver iodide into clouds to enhance precipitation (rain or snow) by encouraging water droplet formation. In Texas, it has been used since the 1940s to combat drought, covering 31 million acres in regions like the Panhandle and South Texas.
Texas' cloud seeding programs
The Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation (TDLR) oversees cloud seeding operations from April to September, using aircraft to target convective clouds, funded by local water districts. The Texas Weather Modification Association confirms its use for rain enhancement, not flood causation.
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