There are people around the world who think that someone is controlling the weather!
Unfortunately, these are not just ‘cranks’ confined to the extreme edges of social media, but include some high-profile people too, such as US Republican Senator, Majorie Taylor-Green.
The Senator has built a reputation for claiming headlines, often on controversial themes and this time, she has doubled down on claims based on a weather modification conspiracy theory, despite experts rubbishing ‘hurricane control’.
Last week on X (formerly Twitter) she wrote: “Yes, they can control the weather. It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.”
It’s pretty obvious that there is an election going on in the US at the moment but, regardless of that, I’d like to ask her why ‘they’ (whoever she thinks ‘they’ are), are also targeting Morocco as no one there is able to vote in the US on November 5th?
All those still trying to debunk the facts need to look at the extremes happening in front of us all
Russell Jones Content and communication manager
Rain in the desert
Last month, southeast Morocco saw more than a year’s worth of rain fall in just two days, leading to the first floods in the Sahara Desert for more than half a century and filling up a lake that has been dry for decades.
Two days of rainfall in September exceeded yearly averages in several areas of south-east Morocco and caused a deluge, officials of the country’s meteorology agency said in early October.
In Tagounite, a village about 450km (280 miles) south of the capital, Rabat, more than 3.9 inches (100mm) was recorded in a 24-hour period. Satellite imagery from Nasa showed Lake Iriqui, a lake bed between Zagora and Tata that had been dry for 50 years, being filled up.
Hurricane Kirk
Whilst the news has been full of the devastation caused by Hurricanes Helene and Milton in US states including Florida, there’s been severe weather more closer to home as well, with Hurricane Kirk causing real problems across Europe.
Winds exceeded more than 120 mph and prompted Spanish weather experts to issue severe weather warnings across Spain, predicting gloomy grey skies, sharp temperature drops and fierce storms.
France saw similar effects from the Hurricane with the town of Longjumeau outside of Paris remained partially flooded days after the remnants of the Hurricane lashed the country.
In Germany, Bloomberg reported that the price of electricity produced by wind generation dropped as generation ramped up on the remains of the Hurricane, downgraded to a highly disruptive storm.
And even here in Britian the effects are still being felt with an Arctic blast predicted to bring snow to the hills of Northern Scotland and freezing temperatures by the weekend.
Are you part of the 70%?
A recent study from Norway predicts that extreme weather will affect 70% of all humans over the next 20 Years.
Physicist Bjørn Samset from the Center for International Climate Research (CICERO) in Norway is quoted as saying: "In the best case, we calculate that rapid changes will affect 1.5 billion people."
And this is a lower estimate that will be reached only if we dramatically reducing greenhouse gas emissions, highlighting why everyone’s efforts are so important.
At the same time data from Copernicus (Europe's climate service) shows the Northern Hemisphere just had its hottest summer on record, with the previous record being just last year. The Southern Hemisphere has also been experiencing a record-breaking warm winter too.
Not all doom and gloom
I’ve been fortunate to hear Lord Deben speak three times this year and the former Chair of the Climate Change Committee is pretty brutal in how certain the climate crisis is, so to all those still trying to debunk the facts right in front of their noses, I’d urge them to look around them and see the extremes that are happening in front of us all.
But Lord Deben wasn’t all doom and gloom, as there are things that can be done to mitigate the worst of climate change and even reverse some of it … but we all have to act fast.
And that is where the vested interests of the powerful need to be questioned. I was horrified to read ‘green energy magnate’ Dale Vince warning against the mass use of heat pumps this weekend.
The article quoted Vince as repeating many of the myths about heat pumps that are simply not true, and there are also now high temperature heat pumps that allow homeowners to keep their existing pipes and radiators, significantly reducing the cost.
He claimed that by criticising heat pumps that he was speaking in the “national interest”. Vince of course proposes an alternative – green gas, or biomethane, made from organic material, which his company Ecotricity develops – Something that is competing with heat pumps as an alternative to the existing ways of heating homes.
However, others claim that the amount of land we would need to devote to the production of enough green gas would be unrealistic and could lead to food insecurity and damage biodiversity.
So, in addition to playing your own part, one of the most important things we can all do right now is counter the disinformation and sometimes downright lies that come from the mouths and keyboards of the climate crisis deniers.
We only have one planet and we need to stop people debunking the clear evidence that we are ruining it.
Russell Jones is content and communications manager
