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| The nation's sizable tin foil hat brigade is torturing meteorologists with whackadoodle conspiracy theories about hurricanes and government weather control. People will believe anything, huh? |
Social media has been rife with stories people make up out of thin air that the government, or meteorologist or somebody is creating huge hurricanes and steering them toward the United States for nefarious purposes.
Just in the past few months, it seems the madness got much worse.
Instead of blaming meteorologists for inaccurate forecasts, it's now apparently their fault if a bad storm hits, because somehow, through dark magic or something, these meteorologists are steering hurricanes toward United States coastlines,. Or they're at least covering up for the government.
The wackos think meteorologists are attacking us with bad weather, for gawd knows what reason. We've become a nation of idiots.
Even a sitting U.S. House member, Marjorie Taylor Greene has joined the chorus. though I have to admit she's never been much of a reliable source.
In any event, Greene, ever the scientist, posted the following gem on X:
"Yes they can control the weather, It's ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can't be done."
Apparently "they" - who ever "they" are - decided to unleash a flood of epic proportions on a section of the nation that is generally more likely to vote Republican than Democrat. Apparently evil forces somehow steered two dangerous hurricane over the Southeast to suppress the vote in red counties to boost Kamala Harris.
I wonder if the people supposedly steering hurricanes like this are the same people responsible for the Jewish Space Lasers?
The conspiracy theories would be hilarious, ore at least eye rolling if they weren't so dangerous.
"Katie Nickolaou a Michigan-based meteorologist, said she and her colleagues have borne the brunt of much of these conspiracies, having received messages claiming there are category 6 hurricanes (there aren't) and even that scientists should be killed and radar equipment be demolished.
'I've never seen a storm garner so much misinformation, and we have just been putting out fires of wrong information everywhere,' Nickolaou said.
'I have had a bunch of people saying I created and steered the hurricane, there are people assuming we control the weather. I have had to point out that a hurricane has the energy of 10,000 nuclear bombs and we can't hope to control that. But it's taken a turn to more violent rhetoric, especially with people saying those who created Milton should be killed."
Meteorologist Matthew Cappucci, quoted in Rolling Stone, said he noticed a huge change on social media over the past few months.
"Seemingly overnight, ideas that once would have been ridiculed as very fringe, outlandish viewpoints are suddenly becoming mainstream, and it's making my job more difficult," he said.
Alabama meteorologist James Spann, with nearly five decades of weather forecasting under his belt, said he's never seen anything like the current climate. Spann told Rolling Stone he's "inundated" with misinformation and threatening messages like "Stop lying about the government controlling the weather or else."
To be Captain Obvious here, both hurricanes Helene and Milton formed the way they did due to atmospheric and ocean water conditions favorable for such storm development.
Those favorable conditions were not created by humans, unless you quite fairly want to include the influence of human-caused climate change.
That human induced climate change contributed to the unusually hot water in the Gulf of Mexico, which in turn helped give the twin hurricanes a boost .
Steering winds in the upper atmosphere steered the hurricanes toward Florida. An unusual but NOT man-made weather pattern pulled Helene up into North Carolina. There was no secret cabal of meteorologists steering the storm. Mostly because humans don't have any ability to steer a hurricane. At all.
WHY THE CONSPIRACIES?
To go deeper into the rabbit hole, we should probably figure out what conspiracy theorists think is the reason meteorologists and the government are steering hurricanes.
The leading theory, as mentioned, seems to be forces aligned against Donald Trump are pushing the storms into areas more likely to vote for him rather than Democrat Kamala Harris.
It is true that Trump seems likely to do better at the ballot box in northwest Florida, and western North Carolina than Harris would.
But if I go along with their tin foil hat arguments just for fun, how would you explain why Hurricane Helene blasted through Atlanta, Georgia, a democratic stronghold?. Plus not everyone in Sarasota, Florida or Ashville, North Carolina favors Trump.
Probably most of the conspiracy theories are from people who've gone under the thrall of Trump and QAnon and other dicey sources of so-called information. These groups instill distrust in all institutions, including science, leading to the rampant conspiracy theories and threats.
Most of the people who originate and spread these kooky ideas probably don't actually believe them. But misinformation and conspiracies and threats have long been in the authoritarians' playbook. Distract a gullible population with nonsense so they can so their real dirty work.
It's really a divide and conquer strategy, as the Associated Press explains:
"...even when they fail to convince people, the conspiracy theories embraced by these groups contribute to mounting distrust of authorities and democratic institutions, causing people to reject reliable sources of information while encouraging division and suspicion."
Once they do that, the authoritarian types can step in and take power, and by the time we realize we're screwed, it's too late.
The purveyors of the conspiracy theories have already gained more strength in part because of the existence of AI, which can quickly and easily produce convincing content that looks "real" and convincing.
It doesn't help that players like Russia and China and Iran have bot farms that flood social media with conspiracies and lies that a malleable public that lacks critical thinking would readily absorb. Then you have people like Elon Musk, who doesn't seem to give a crap about the stuff that goes on his platform X, formerly Twitter, as long as it boosts his buddy Donald Trump.
Birds of a feather flock together, ya know.
So the meteorologist being tortured by conspiracy whack jobs is just a small part of the big, big problem.
For all of you who live in the real world and not the crazy town of the conspiracy nut jobs, one word of advice: Vote wisely this year.
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