Marjorie Taylor Greene Is Going After ‘...

Home Consultant Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is the most recent lawmaker to seemingly go after the fictional risk of chemtrails. Over the weekend, Greene acknowledged she’s going to quickly introduce a federal invoice aimed toward banning substances from being injected into the environment.

Greene introduced the proposed invoice in an X put up published Saturday. The laws would reportedly bar chemical substances from being launched into the air for the “specific objective of altering climate, temperature, local weather, or daylight depth.” Whereas the invoice is seemingly a response to the fully not actual risks of chemtrails, it might goal precise, probably necessary applied sciences like cloud seeding and different types of geoengineering.

“We should finish the harmful and lethal apply of climate modification and geoengineering,” Greene mentioned in her X put up.

I’m introducing a invoice that prohibits the injection, launch, or dispersion of chemical substances or substances into the environment for the specific objective of altering climate, temperature, local weather, or daylight depth. Will probably be a felony offense.

I’ve been researching climate…

— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) July 5, 2025

For the conspiracy-minded, chemtrails are purportedly the streaky seen remnants of chemical substances being poured into the environment by high-flying planes. These chemical substances are claimed to be organic weapons developed by the army to sicken folks or the poisonous byproducts of nefarious scientific experiments, relying on which conspiracy nut you ask. Whereas climate modification is a standard theme of chemtrails, ideas like inhabitants management are additionally an everyday a part of the conspiracy.

Greene doesn’t explicitly point out chemtrails in her put up concerning the new laws. Nevertheless it’s modeled after an identical state invoice in Florida (SB-56) that Governor Ron DeSantis signed into legislation final month (the legislation bans the airborne launch of chemical substances supposed for geoengineering or climate modification, with a possible third-degree felony cost and fines as much as $100,000 for violators). That mentioned, proponents of the Florida legislation and related payments in different states have directly referenced chemtrails as a goal of their legislative efforts.

In actuality, what’s known as chemtrails are literally contrails: the product of condensation that occurs when jet gasoline exhaust (principally water vapor and small quantities of soot) mixes with chilly, humid air. The one actual distinction between contrails and naturally fashioned clouds is that the previous are sometimes constituted of water crystals, whereas contrails are constituted of ice crystals.

Whereas contrails are falsely labeled chemtrails, geoengineering applied sciences like cloud seeding are additionally widespread bogeymen for the conspiracy-minded. Opposite to what conspiracy theories falsely recommend, these deliberate, large-scale interventions in Earth’s local weather system purpose to mitigate the effects of global warming or to easily alter a region’s existing climate.

Cloud seeding is only one instance. This 80-year-old climate modification method adds particles—often silver iodide crystals—to clouds to set off rain or snow. As rising international temperatures enhance the frequency and severity of drought, this know-how has emerged as a possible strategy to replenish dried-up water sources. Whereas it’s nonetheless within the research-and-development stage, small-scale deployments have proven promise in western U.S. states like Utah, the place cloud seeding has managed to boost snowpack by 6% to 12% per yr. The apply has elevated streamflow by roughly 180,000 to 200,000 acre-feet in the course of the spring soften season, which is extra water than the state’s total Deer Creek reservoir can maintain.

Along with this, cloud seeding has different sensible makes use of. In Canada, it’s typically used to scale back hail harm. Some U.S. ski resorts, comparable to Vail, Breckenridge, Keystone, and Beaver Creek in Colorado, have used cloud seeding to reinforce their snow cowl.

The early successes of those packages have garnered consideration from U.S. scientists, however this isn’t the one atmospheric geoengineering know-how gaining curiosity. The Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), for instance, is researching stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) and marine cloud brightening (MCB). Each applied sciences purpose to decrease international temperatures by growing the quantity of daylight mirrored again into area. SAI includes dispersing microscopic, light-reflecting particles into the stratosphere, whereas MCB seeds low-level marine clouds with sea salt particles to extend their reflectivity. In contrast to cloud seeding, neither of those strategies has really been deployed at scale.

Nonetheless, burgeoning geoengineering analysis has some lawmakers spooked. A rising variety of states are contemplating payments to ban geoengineering altogether, citing considerations over unknown dangers to the setting and human well being. Whereas a few of these considerations are scientifically legit, others are largely primarily based in conspiracy theories. In 2025 alone, at the least 22 states have proposed payments that will ban photo voltaic geoengineering applied sciences, together with SAI and MCB, based on the group SRM360.

Greene has lengthy dabbled in conspiracies, having beforehand endorsed QAnon-fueled theories doubting the 2018 Parkland college taking pictures and the 9/11 assaults (quickly after first taking workplace in 2021, Greene denounced her previous QAnon help). So it’s not all too shocking that she’s now moved onto climate modification. In October 2024, former President Joe Biden personally rebuked Greene after she implied the federal authorities created the hurricanes that had not too long ago hit Florida on the time.

It’s unknown whether or not Greene could have sufficient help from her fellow congressmen to advance the proposed laws. However she’s hardly the one GOP or Trump official to have jumped aboard the chemtrails practice these days.

Along with the newly enshrined Florida legislation, payments concentrating on geoengineering have been introduced or passed in at the least a dozen different states these days, together with Louisiana, Tennessee, and Pennsylvania. And in April, throughout a city corridor interview hosted by Dr. Phil (full title Phil McGraw), Well being and Human Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reiterated his earlier promise to cease chemtrails at any value.

Chemtrails aren’t actual, however these types of legal guidelines superior by the conspiracy wing of the GOP might actually trigger loads of precise harm to the event of analysis and improvements that would assist us handle local weather change—and even to easily add some snow to ski hills.