The Origins of Climatological Warfare

What are the origins of climatological warfare? And this portion of our discussion serves as a recapitulation of the history of climatological warfare, because when looking at the history of climatological warfare, we need to look at the history of climate or geo-engineering. Geoengineering is the large-scale manipulation of a specific process central to controlling Earth’s climate for the purpose of obtaining a specific end. It includes techniques to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and technologies to rapidly cool the Earth by reflecting solar energy back to space.
How it began, is that in 1932, the Soviet Union established the Institute of Rainmaking in Leningrad, setting the stage for decades of experimentation with cloud seeding as a means of altering the weather. The United States followed suit in 1946, when researchers at the General Electric Research Laboratory in Schenectady, New York, discovered that dry ice stimulates ice-crystal formation. In the Cold War’s early years, both superpowers carried out hundreds of experiments using solid carbon dioxide, silver iodide, and other particulate matter to trigger precipitation. And the success of these experiments is greatly exaggerated.
Furthermore, in 1945, a gathering of scientists at Princeton University in New Jersey agreed that manipulating climate was possible. Their motivation was a desire to control the weather as a means of decreasing crop production, particularly in the Soviet Union. This was seen as a way of dealing with the perceived military threat posed by the Soviet Union to the United States. Indeed, during the Cold War (1945–1991) that took place between the two nations, the United States conducted research on what was called climatological warfare. This research was actually tested in the field, when cloud seeding was tried unsuccessfully in the early 1970s during the Vietnam war (1954–1975) to bog down Vietcong troop movements.
More specifically, the U.S. Air Force flies more than 2,600 cloud-seeding sorties over North and South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia as part of a covert effort to extend the monsoon season and inhibit North Vietnamese troop movements. Dubbed Operation Popeye, the program is the first known instance of hostile weather manipulation in military history. When columnist Jack Anderson reveals its existence in the Washington Post in 1971, the public is outraged. The subsequent scandal soon became known as the “Watergate of weather warfare.”
Then, in 1974 Soviet climatologist Mikhail Budyko floated the idea of reversing global warming by burning sulphur in the stratosphere, thereby creating a reflective haze he describes as “much like that which arises from volcanic eruptions.” Solar radiation management — or attempts to reduce the amount of sunlight that reaches the Earth’s surface — goes on to become one of two major branches of geoengineering (the other being carbon dioxide removal). In subsequent years, scientists propose everything from injecting particles into the stratosphere to lobbying great mirrors into space to reflect the sun’s rays. In December 1976, following the act by the United States’ cloud-seeding activities in Vietnam, the UN General Assembly approved the Environmental Modification Convention, which banned weather warfare and other hostile uses of climate manipulation “having widespread, long-lasting or severe effects.” The treaty went into effect a little less than two years later and was eventually ratified by 76 countries. In any case, this does let us know that climate engineering was originally intended as a climatological weapon.
As geoengineering proposals were first developed, they relied on technologies developed during World War II, such proposals were designed to alter weather systems in order to obtain more favourable climate conditions on a regional scale. One of the earliest techniques is cloud seeding, a weather-modification process that attempts to bring rain to parched farmland by dispersing particles of silver iodide or solid carbon dioxide into rain-bearing clouds. Cloud seeding has also been used in attempts to weaken tropical storms. By the 21st century, however, cloud seeding as a true form of geoengineering, as well as weather modification in general, had become a matter of debate, since the scale upon which cloud seeding operates is small (and not at the planetary scale) and that it does not seek to reverse the effects of human-driven climate change. In addition, the US military suggested that nuclear weapons might be used as tools to alter regional climates and make certain areas of the world more favourable for human habitation. This proposal, however, was not tested.
THE COVERED-UP OPERATIONS OF CLIMATOLOGICAL WARFARE
In light of our focus on climatological warfare, this then brings us to the second question on what are the specific operations in history revealing engagements in climatological warfare? We addressed how in 1932, the Soviet Union established the Institute of Rainmaking in Leningrad, setting the stage for decades of experimentation with cloud seeding as a means of altering the weather. Then the United States followed suit in 1946, when researchers at the General Electric Research Laboratory in Schenectady, New York, discovered that dry ice stimulates ice-crystal formation. In the Cold War’s early years, both superpowers carried out hundreds of experiments using solid carbon dioxide, silver iodide, and other particulate matter to trigger precipitation, with the United States further conducting research on what was called “climatological warfare”.
We also saw this intensifying from the 1950s with what was dubbed “Operation Popeye” during the Vietnam War. During this period climatological warfare was actually tested in the field, during the Vietnam war (1954–1975) to bog down Vietcong troop movements. More specifically, the US Air Force flew more than 2,600 cloud-seeding sorties over North and South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia as part of a covert effort to extend the monsoon season and inhibit North Vietnamese troop movements. And history shows they accomplished the intended goals. You’d recall this from the testimony of one of the meteorologists and pilots who flew the cloud seeding place, a Mr Ben Livingston.
But, when we look at the history of cloud seeding in particular, it actually goes much further back and is, frankly, quite strange! More specifically, in the midst of California’s historic drought, the San Diego Library opened an exhibit that reminds us of the measures communities used to take to get the rain they needed. In late 1915, San Diego hired what was called a “moisture accelerator” named Charles Hatfield during a drought. He was said to have delivered on his promise to deliver enough rain to fill the empty reservoirs, but there was too much rain, causing a deadly flood! During a drought in California, Hatfield was hired by the San Diego city council with a four-to-one vote and promised $10,000 in a handshake deal if he could make it rain. Although Hatfield was considered a rainmaker, his original profession was a sewing machine salesman. In any case, he convinced people he had the methods of creating rain from a chemical cocktail that he formulated.
To inject his rainmaking concoction into clouds overhead, Charles Hatfield built a 20-foot tower in the area and burned the chemical mixture from the top of the structure. Witnesses claimed he shot the chemicals into the air like bombs, spurting fumes and smoke to ascend into the sky and convince the cumulus clouds to send down rain. Then, on January 1, 1916, the rain started in San Diego and it didn’t stop for the entire month, resulting in 30 inches of rain. The floods destroyed the dam, washed out roads, lifted railroad tracks, caused property damage across the region and killed an estimated 14 to 50 citizens. Well, Hatfield never got his money. The city council claimed the floods were an act of God, not an act of Hatfield. But, how Hatfield got the contract that did not pay him, is that he had actually gotten previous work in the US, where his services were paid for.
But then following the Charles Hatfield years, the WWII and Cold War operations in formalising climatological warfare, and even the Vietnam War, climate engineering and cloud seeding were recognised as a global threat. And in December 1976, following the act by the United States’ cloud-seeding activities in Vietnam, the UN General Assembly approved the Environmental Modification Convention, which banned weather warfare and other hostile uses of climate manipulation “having widespread, long-lasting or severe effects.” The treaty went into effect a little less than two years later and was eventually ratified by 76 countries.
However, this period did not see an end to climate engineering efforts; only more hidden uses of this weapon. And so, while “Operation Popeye” in Vietnam was widely known, other operations are still being covered up and denied. For instance, Lowell Ponte, former researcher for International Research and Technology Corporation, a Pentagon “think tank,” says the CIA and Pentagon ordered seeding off the shores of Cuba, to “milk” rain clouds, at a time when Castro’s fortunes seemingly depended on a successful harvest of sugar cane.
As expected, the CIA has categorically denied that it practised cloud seeding anywhere except in Vietnam during that time period. Ponte says the Cuban experiment was part of “Project Nile Blue,” carried on officially starting in 1970 by the Pentagon’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (also known as ARPA). Ponte adds that “Nile Blue” was really aimed at “destabilising” weather in the Soviet Union, China, and Cuba, to ruin harvests and create political unrest. And so, with what we know about the rationale behind the use of cloud seeding, it appears very likely that the CIA used cloud seeding in Cuba.
AND there was also “Project Cirrus”. For some context, two days after clipping Cuba and Florida, a hurricane was drifting out into the Atlantic. All predictions had it remaining at sea without further landfall, making it the perfect test subject for the newly minted Project Cirrus, a U.S. government- backed project bent on discovering a way to disable deadly hurricanes. The researchers planned to seed the hurricane’s clouds with dry ice, hoping that the ice would interact with the clouds and disrupt the cyclone’s internal structure, thus weakening it. So on Oct. 13, 1947, a plane flew over the storm and dumped 80 kilograms of dry ice into the storm’s swirling clouds.
What happened next was a worst case scenario: Instead of dissipating, the storm furiously swung nearly 130 degrees to the west and smashed into Georgia, where it caused $2 million worth of damage. Threats of lawsuits soon followed, with Georgia residents blaming the government for the devastation. Project Cirrus was then allegedly shut down.
In addition, the general claim from the mainstream media is that studies show that there are no environmental impacts from the use of silver iodide. Well, it turns out this is not true because previous studies actually never looked at the long term impact of ACCUMULATED silver iodide – the key word being accumulative (since cloud seeding is not a once off endeavour).+
More specifically, silver iodide is one of the most common nucleating materials used in cloud seeding. Previous cloud seeding studies have concluded that AgI is not practically bioavailable in the environment but instead remains in soils and sediments such that the free Ag amounts are likely too low to induce a toxicological effect. However, none of these studies has considered the continued use of this practice on the same geographical areas and thus the potential cumulative effect of environmental AgI. In fact, there are studies that show that AgI from cloud seeding may affect the animal or plant life living in both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems if cloud seeding is repeatedly applied in a specific area and large amounts of seeding materials accumulate in the environment.
The other claim from the mainstream media is that there are certain checks and balances in place in the cloud seeding industry, such that if there are high intensity storms, they will not cloud seed. Empirical evidence of large floods in California, and Dubai, and possibly even the horrific occurrence from Hurricane Helene prove otherwise. In fact, despite the floods in Dubai in April, not only did the cloud seeding programme there begin in the 1990s, but it is often claimed that the scientists working on the project use weather radars to continuously monitor the atmosphere of the country; meanwhile, the floods in April in Dubai weren’t even the first. So, either one of two things are correct, if not both: (1) There are no widely applied checks and balances in the cloud seeding industry, and (2) cloud seeding was and still is being used as a destructive weapon.
CLIMATOLOGICAL WARFARE REBRANDED AS A CLIMATE CHANGE PANACEA
But, this brings us to the final question regarding what does the status quo reveal about climatological warfare as a panacea for climate change? And in essence, let’s not take for granted that cloud seeding in part gained in rebrand as a result of the climate change hoax. Of course, you would have noted a number of discussions here on LN24 International refuting this hoax, capitalising on the teachings of the president of Loveworld Incorporated, the highly esteemed Rev. Dr. Chris Oyakhilome DSc. DSc. DD., who revealed, not only that climate change is a hoax, but that it was conveniently being pushed as popular subject matter more after 2020, in effort to promote it as another conduit for justifying infringements and violations of human rights, and even ushering in climate lockdowns and smart cities – based on the idea that it is better for the environment if humans stay perpetual indoors and make very limited movements and travels. In fact, Remember when CNN Technical Director Charlie Chester, in a secret Project Veritas recording from April 2021, divulged that as soon as the public are no longer scared of “Covid”, “climate change” will take centre stage as the new imaginary boogeyman to terrify everyone into submission with?
Furthermore, there is ample proof of the fact that the use of climatological warfare is intended as a harm, even when it is presented as a solution. The United Arab Emirates, for example, is one of the first countries in the Persian Gulf region to use cloud seeding technology. UAE scientists use cloud seeding technology to supplement the country’s water insecurity, which stems from the extremely hot climate; and the cloud-seeding program was initiated in the late 1990s. However, the floods in Dubai in April this year, were on the most significant warnings of cloud seeding – despite the fact that people tried to dismiss the use of cloud seeding in Dubai as a conspiracy theory.
Weather modification and climatological warfare are not separate pursuits: they stem from an idea to weaponise the weather for destructive purposes in a time of war, and continue to fulfil that purpose even when governments or private corporations employ the same means in the guise of fighting climate change. We thus have a categorical imperative to push against this diabolical agenda.
Written by Lindokuhle Mabaso