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The Climate Change Thread

Kristi Noem set a requirement that any expenditure over 100K had to get her direct approval, which delayed the response to the Texas floods by 3 days. Critical time during which they were searching for survivors.

Let's talk about the $750 payments to people in South Carolina as immediate benefits following the disaster there. Biden was massively criticized for the $750 payments, as if that was all there was for victims, when it was an immediate payment, meant to help anyone and everyone affected. It was not the total extent of help, just an amount that anyone who could show that they were in the affected area could access so that they could pay for things like food and a hotel for their family.

Did the people in texas get an immediate $750 payment? Anything?

How long did it take the dog assassin to do anything at all? I mean besides buying her newest costume.

Stick to shooting puppies Kirstie Noem, because you suck at being secretary of homeland security.

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He seeded clouds over Texas. Then came the conspiracy theories.​

Cloud seeding couldn’t have caused the floods that killed more than 100 people, experts say. But rumormongers suggested a link to one company’s work.

Augustus Doricko knew when he founded a cloud-seeding start-up in 2023 that he’d have to contend with misunderstandings and conspiracy theories surrounding the technology. Still, he wasn’t quite prepared for the sheer volume of online fury he has faced in the wake of the catastrophic Texas floods that have killed more than 100 people, with almost twice that many missing.

“It has been nonstop pandemonium,” Doricko said in a phone interview Wednesday.

Doricko and his company, Rainmaker, have become a focal point of posts spiraling across social media that suggest the floods in Kerr County were a human-made disaster. An array of influencers, media personalities, elected officials and other prominent figures — including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) and former Trump adviser Michael Flynn — have publicly raised the possibility that cloud-seeding operations like Rainmaker’s might have caused or at least exacerbated the historic deluge.

That’s impossible, atmospheric scientists say. Cloud seeding, in which planes scatter dust particles through clouds to trigger rain and snow, remains a fledgling technology, the effects of which are too limited and localized to produce anything remotely like the 15 inches of rain that drowned swaths of South Central Texas over the Fourth of July weekend.

“The amount of energy involved in making storms like that is astronomical compared to anything you can do with cloud seeding,” said Bob Rauber, an emeritus professor in atmoshpheric science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who has studied the technology. “We’re talking about a very small increase on a natural process at best.”

That hasn’t stopped conspiracy theorists from latching onto cloud seeding as an incendiary explanation for natural disasters. The search for a scapegoat has turned a spotlight on a controversial technology that has drawn interest from drought-stricken Western states and dozens of countries trying to replenish reservoirs, despite limited evidence that it works and broader social and environmental concerns about altering the weather. And it underscores how conspiracy theories can flourish in the aftermath of natural disasters as people seek information — and the clout that can come from providing sensational answers.

This much is true: On the afternoon of July 2, a single-engine plane operated by the El Segundo, California-based start-up Rainmaker flew on a cloud-seeding job over Runge, Texas, more than 100 miles southeast of Kerr County. Over the course of about 20 minutes, it released about 70 grams of silver iodide into a pair of clouds; the mission was followed by a modest drizzle that dropped less than half a centimeter of rain over the parched farms below, Doricko said.

The run was part of a contract that Rainmaker had entered this spring with the South Texas Weather Modification Association, a nonprofit funded by local water management districts to refill reservoirs and boost rainfall over cropland.

Soon after, Doricko said, his company’s meteorologists saw a storm front approaching and called off their operations in the area. By the morning of July 4, the remnants of Tropical Storm Barry had dumped up to 15 inches of rain over parts of Kerr County.

But online sleuths steeped in conspiracy theories seized upon the coincidence.

On July 5, as the toll of dead and missing mounted, verified accounts on social media platform X demanded “accountability” as they circulated documents showing Rainmaker’s registration to perform weather modification projects in Texas.

I’d love to see the response,” Flynn responded in a post that was viewed 1 million times.
Greene, who drew widespread rebukes last year when she implied that Hurricane Helene may have been engineered, said Saturday on X that she was introducing a bill that would make attempts to alter the weather “a felony offense.” Her post drew 18 million views.
TikTok influencers posted clips from a recent interview on a podcast hosted by former Navy SEAL Shawn Ryan, with whom Doricko described his company’s work and discussed who would be held responsible if it went awry. Some videos juxtaposed Doricko’s words with footage of the devastation in Texas or spliced them with an ominous cinematic score.

Doricko felt an air of inevitability as his mentions in recent days piled up with questions, accusations and threats. “I always anticipated that a moment like this would happen,” he said in an interview. “Basically every time there’s been severe weather somewhere in the world, people have blamed weather modification.”
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A climate change denier posted this Rogan tweet, as a reply to me. I left a thank you, because, although the poster likely considered it a critique of my remarks regarding conspiracism, it’s actually a compliment to those of us not persuaded by conspiracism. I don’t follow or listen to Rogan at all, but have noticed he’s been more upset by some of Trump’s decisions lately.


View: https://x.com/MrEncouragement/status/1942912039166312618
 
Last edited:
Sardines said:
Kristi Noem set a requirement that any expenditure over 100K had to get her direct approval, which delayed the response to the Texas floods by 3 days. Critical time during which they were searching for survivors.

Let's talk about the $750 payments to people in South Carolina as immediate benefits following the disaster there. Biden was massively criticized for the $750 payments, as if that was all there was for victims, when it was an immediate payment, meant to help anyone and everyone affected. It was not the total extent of help, just an amount that anyone who could show that they were in the affected area could access so that they could pay for things like food and a hotel for their family.

Did the people in texas get an immediate $750 payment? Anything?

How long did it take the dog assassin to do anything at all? I mean besides buying her newest costume.

Stick to shooting puppies Kirstie Noem, because you suck at being secretary of homeland security.

59873136_0.jpg
Click to expand...
The Biden administration apparently provided funds for a warning system:

www.latintimes.com

Flooded Texas County Turned Down Funds for Warning System From Biden Admin in 2021: 'We Don't Want to Be Bought'

Kerr County officials rejected federal aid in 2021 that could have funded flood sirens, citing political objections.
www.latintimes.com www.latintimes.com

In 2021, the Biden administration awarded Kerr County $10.2 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds, which could have been used for flood prevention infrastructure. But commissioners, facing political pressure from conservative residents, opted not to pursue a warning system.

At an April 2022 meeting, one citizen called the White House a "criminal treasonous communist government," urging the county to reject the money altogether. Others echoed that sentiment, saying they didn't want the federal government's help.

"We don't want to be bought by the federal government, thank you very much," a resident said. "We'd like the federal government to stay out of Kerr County and their money."

While the county ultimately kept the funds, they allocated the majority, about $8 million, to sheriff's department upgrades and public employee stipends.

www.forbes.com

Here’s Why Texas Lacked A Flood Warning System When Everyone Knew It Needed

Politics played a pivotal role in Kerr County’s lack of a flood warning system—including local distrust of Biden-era handouts.
www.forbes.com www.forbes.com

As for FEMA….


As the Federal Emergency Management Agency responds to the deadly flooding in Texas, one key resource is missing: the FEMA leader.

David Richardson, the agency’s acting administrator, has not been to the site of one of the nation’s deadliest floods in the U.S. in the past 25 years, upending a long practice of FEMA leaders making themselves visible after major disasters.
 
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