Marjorie Taylor Greene DOGE Hearing: 'Playing God With The Weather'

Marjorie Taylor Greene DOGE Hearing: 'Playing God With The Weather'

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Elon Musk
Podcast. This is a show where we discuss
the critical crossroads, the Shape, SpaceX, Tesla X, The
Boring Company, and Neurolink. I'm your host, Will.
Walden. Thank you.
Humans have been trying to control the weather for

(00:23):
centuries. Native American tribes perform
ceremonial dances to summon rain.
During droughts. The Mayans sacrifice humans to
their rain God. Today, people are still trying
to control the weather, but somethings have changed.
Modern attempts at weather control don't appeal to
divinity. Instead, they use technology to

(00:44):
put chemicals in the sky. Cloud seeding, for instance,
uses silver or lead iodide to try to increase rainfall in a
specific location. What's also changed over time is
the scale of ambition. Today's advocates of
geoengineering don't just want to address droughts or improve
conditions for agriculture. They want to control the Earth's

(01:07):
climate to address the fake climate change hoax and head off
global warming. That, of course, requires
massive interventions. What methods do they use?
One is to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Yes, the same carbon dioxide that keeps plants alive and

(01:28):
prevents mass starvation. Another method they want to use
is to block the rays of the sun from hitting the earth.
You heard that right. Yes, the same sign that makes
all life possible on Earth. Some scientists think they can
predict and control the impact of geoengineering.

(01:50):
But even the best scientific models will never be able to
capture all of God's wonderful creation and nature's mysteries.
So we can predict the real impacts these global scale
interventions would have little better than the Native Americans
could know the impact of their rain dances.
And we are not talking about experiments that take place

(02:11):
within the four walls of a laboratory.
Our world is the laboratory, andwe happen to be the lab.
Rats blocking the sun would haveunknown consequences that no
scientific climate model could ever reliably predict.
This could include serious reductions in crop yields,

(02:32):
significant changes in plant andanimal life, disastrous ozone
depletion, not to mention the damage done to human health.
The reality is that the federal government has a long history of
experimenting with weather modification.
That includes a 1947 attempt by the military and General

(02:52):
Electric to intercept a hurricane off the coast of
Jacksonville, FL. It includes an event in the 50s
and 60s where the US Army admitted to spraying a
mysterious chemical fog over a neighborhood in St.
Louis, MO, which residents now claim it is giving them cancer.
It includes Project Storm Fury, a series of efforts in the 60s

(03:16):
and 70s to weaken hurricanes by seeding clouds with silver
iodide. And it includes Operation
Popeye, an effort to create monsoons to aid our military
efforts during the Vietnam War, literally weaponizing weather.
While these are different eventsscattered throughout history, a

(03:36):
serious campaign to commercialize geoengineering to
fight global warming would be a vastly larger enterprise and
profitable hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars could
disappear into the coffers of research universities and the
academic scientists who beat thedrum of global warming alarmism.

(03:57):
Venture capitalists are already trying to get rich backing
companies like Make Sunsets, which inject aerosols into the
atmosphere to reflect sunlight back into space.
It's worth asking, what if scientists could somehow manage
to create a temperature dial that could be rotated to

(04:18):
reliably set the global climate?Who would control the dial?
After all, people in different regions prefer different weather
conditions based on their local geography, economy and way of
life. The global climate impacts
everyone and doesn't respect state or national borders, so
would we need a world governmentto make choices on how to to

(04:40):
turn the climate dial? Where does it end?
Despite the profound questions around geoengineering, the
scientific community is pressingahead, and they are getting
financial support to do so from universities and left-leaning
philanthropist like Bill Gates, who has funded geoengineering
research. A June 2023 Biden White House

(05:02):
Science Office report on solar engineering notes academia,
philanthropy and the private sector have examined preliminary
applications of climate intervention techniques such as
stratospheric aerosol injection and marine cloud brightening,
which are techniques classified as solar radiation modification,

(05:23):
or SRM, intended to rapidly limit temperature increases.
One thing we learned from COVID is that it's a mistake to allow
the professional scientific community alone to determine
federal science policy. The same professional scientific
community that closed ranks around the need to close schools

(05:44):
and businesses due to COVID is of a single mind when it comes
to global warming. They are convinced that global
warming is such an immediate risk to mankind that it
justifies the catastrophic risk of blocking out the sun.
It's for the greater good, they say.
I don't think it's the job of the federal government to help

(06:05):
these people play God with the weather.
In fact, I think it's the job ofCongress to protect our people
and make sure that weather and climate control experiments and
activities do not create adverse, unintended consequences
for the rest of us. That's why I'm grateful for the
transparency the Trump administration is shedding on
this issue. Leading this effort is EPA

(06:27):
Administrator Lee Zeldin. I am now going to play a video
clip in which he recently addressed this issue personally
and directly. Americans have urgent and
important questions about geoengineering and contrails.
The American public deserves andexpects honesty and transparency

(06:50):
from their government when seeking answers.
But for years, people who ask questions in good faith were
dismissed, even vilified, by themedia and their own government.
That era is over. The Trump EPA is committed to
total transparency. As a result, I tasked my team at

(07:13):
EPA to compile a list of everything we know about
contrails in geoengineering for the purpose of releasing it to
you now, publicly. In other words, I want you to
know everything I know about these topics.
And without any exception, instead of simply dismissing

(07:36):
these questions and concerns as baseless conspiracies, we're
meeting them head on. We did the legwork, looked at
the science, consulted agency experts, and pulled in relevant
outside information to put theseonline resources together.
Everything we know about contrails to solar

(08:00):
geoengineering will be in there.That means that anyone who reads
through this information will know as much about these topics
as I do as EPA Administrator. To anyone who's ever looked up
to the streets in the sky and asked what the heck is going on,
we're seeing headlines about private actors and even

(08:20):
governments looking to blot out the sun in the name of stopping
global warming. We've endeavored to answer all
of your questions at the links on your screen.
In fact, EPA shares many of the same concerns when it comes to
potential threats to human health and the environment,

(08:41):
especially from solar geoengineering activities.
The enthusiasm for experiments that would pump pollutants into
the high atmosphere has set off alarm bells here at the Trump
EPA. Prior to now, EPA has never been
this proactive to raise awareness about concerns with

(09:02):
geoengineering and to stop this activity from being scaled up.
This is what it looks like when government actually listens to
the will of the people and doesn't try to squash it.
You can always trust this administration and this EPA to
take your concerns seriously. Answer your questions honestly

(09:25):
and carry out the will of voterswith integrity.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses, but first I yield
to Ranking Member Stansbury for her opening statement.
Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Well, Doge is back and there's
going to be a lot to unpack in this hearing.

(09:46):
But I think first and foremost, we want to acknowledge that the
purpose of this subcommittee andwhy it was created in the 1st
place by the majority was to root out waste, fraud and abuse.
That's literally the mandate forthe DOGE subcommittee.
And I want to emphasize that we remain focused on that mission.

(10:07):
In fact, we are working on a report on the waste, fraud and
abuse that we're currently seeing in this administration.
And I think it's important to also recognize that we are 14
days from a government shutdown.And so I'm troubled to see that
the subcommittee, which is designed to address government
spending, to streamline efficiency of government

(10:28):
programs, has strayed so far from its mission.
Especially is there such pressing matters facing our
country, including a government shutdown, The passage of the big
ugly bill, which not only drove the federal deficit by $4
trillion, but is kicking millions of Americans off their
healthcare and about to make their healthcare premiums go up.

(10:50):
Tariffs that are causing inflation to go up, and putting
small family businesses out of business and administration
that's flouting the rule of law every day.
And a total lack of transparencyin the Epstein case is the
administration has still refusedto comply with the subpoena that
this committee issued. So there's a lot of important

(11:12):
things that this committee couldtackle.
And I would think that a topic involving environmental science
would be more well suited to a committee that actually deals
with science or environmental issues.
But I am happy to talk about climate change and weather
modification. It's a topic that I've spent
many years in my career working on.
In fact, I worked more than 20 years as a water resources

(11:34):
manager working on drought and water planning issues in the
state of New Mexico. And I know how important
addressing drought and water issues is for our farmers and
ranchers out there and personally and professionally.
There's a lot to discuss with respect to weather modification,
and so we're going to talk aboutit.
Let's talk about it. Certainly there's a lot of DOGE

(11:56):
related topics we could talk about with respect to climate
change and weather programs, including the dismantling of
climate, natural resources and emergency response programs, the
firing of federal officials, dismantling of EPA, the illegal
freezing of federal funding, removal of the US from
international climate agreements, dismantling clean

(12:16):
energy programs, catastrophic response to natural disasters,
including what we saw in Texas. And all of these topics would be
ripe for an oversight hearing. So I hope that we can use this
hearing to discuss some of thoseissues.
But with respect specifically toweather modification, whether
it's cloud seeding or other technologies, I actually agree

(12:38):
with many of the assertions about the need for further
discussion for their science andpotentially further regulation
of these particular technologies.
But it's it's important that we distinguish between fact and
fiction, between clickbait and real solutions.
So let's talk about some facts. Weather modification and cloud

(12:59):
seeding, as was mentioned, it's a real thing.
It exists. It has been practice in varying
forms since the 1940s. Increasingly, folks are looking
at this as a opportunity to increase rain and precipitation.
But the science is still out on many of these technologies.
And we absolutely need to understand what are the
implications for air quality, for precipitation and the

(13:22):
implications also for water rights in the West, because this
could have far reaching implications.
But it's also important to understand that many of these
technologies are in the R&D phase.
They're in limited use in the number of states.
And it's not actually technologies that the federal
government even widely supports.This is largely in the private
sector. So in the world of science, it

(13:44):
is widely acknowledged that morescience is needed to understand
use, efficacy and impacts of these technologies.
So, so those are the facts. Those are the facts.
But it's hard to understand why we're discussing banning these
practices outright in this committee when the oversight
committee, in another subcommittee, literally as we're
sitting here right now, is having a hearing about

(14:07):
dismantling the Environmental Protection Agency and the actual
bill under discussion. And this committee is trying to
use the EPA to regulate these particular practices.
So the inconsistency governance is very confusing here.
But there's a more insidious issue here, which I think we've

(14:27):
already heard in some of the comments, which is the using of
the platform of Congress to proffer anti science theories to
platform climate denialism and to ultimately put our
communities at risk by continuing to without
disinformation. So I'm grateful that we're
joined today by Doctor McCracken, who has spent his

(14:49):
career very distinguishedly at the national labs, helping to
bring together scientists globally and across the United
States to understand climate change, its impacts, and to help
our communities really understand what is real here in
terms of the science. And we hope to dig in to
understand what we can do to help address drought, fire and

(15:11):
flooding and how it's impacted our communities.
So with that, I yield back and Ithink the gentlelady.
Without objection, Representative Sue Brahmanyam of
Virginia is waved on to the subcommittee for the purpose of
questioning the witnesses at today's subcommittee hearing.
I'm pleased to introduce our witnesses today.
Doctor Rodger Pilkey Junior is asenior fellow at the American

(15:35):
Enterprise Institute. He is an expert on science and
technology policy, the politicization of science and
energy, and climate. Mr. Christopher Marks is a
meteorologist and policy analystat the Committee for a
Constructive Tomorrow. He's an expert on climate and
weather. Doctor Michael McCracken is the

(15:57):
chief scientist for climate change programs at the Climate
Institute. Again, I want to thank all of
you for being here to testify today.
Pursue it to Committee Rule 9. G.
The witnesses will please stand and raise their right hand.
Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are about

(16:19):
to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth, so help you God? Let the record show that the
witnesses have answered in the affirmative.
Thank you and you may take a seat.
We appreciate you being here today and look forward to your
testimony. Let me remind the witnesses that
we have read your written statements and they will appear

(16:41):
in full in the hearing record. Please limit your oral
statements to 5 minutes. As a reminder, please press the
button on the microphone in front of you so that it is on
and the members can hear you. When you begin to speak, the
light in front of you will turn green after 4 minutes.

(17:01):
The light will turn yellow when the red light comes on.
Your 5 minutes have expired and we would ask that you please
wrap it up. I now recognize Doctor Pilkey
for his opening statement. Chairwoman Green, Ranking Member
Stansbury, thank you for the opportunity to testify today.
For the past 30 years, I've studied the connections of

(17:22):
atmospheric science research anddecision making, first as a
scientist at the National Centerfor Atmospheric Research, then
as a professor at the Universityof Colorado, and most recently
as a Senior Fellow with the American Enterprise Institute.
My written testimony discusses policy issues associated with
weather modification and geoengineering.
My prepared March begin with three recommendations, followed
by 10 take home points, which those are discussed in depth in

(17:43):
my written testimony. So first, recommendation
Congress should enact legislation to improve oversight
of weather modification activities, including first,
requesting an assessment from the National Academy of Sciences
that precisely quantifies what is known and unknown about the
effectiveness of weather modification projects to date
and clarifying the prospects, forever being able to achieve

(18:04):
certainty in quantifying that effectiveness.
And 2nd, improving the required reporting and communicating of
weather modification activities under the 1972 law that defines
weather modification in the United States.
Second recommendation, Congress should standardize U.S.
Federal law governing weather weather modification, ensuring
that all states are governed by identical legislative authority.

(18:27):
3rd recommendation, the United States should lead diplomatic
talks on an international solar engineering non use agreement
with the ultimate goal of reaching broad agreement on a
collective ban on outdoor experiments involving solar unit
engineering and sufficient institutionalized capability to
monitor the atmosphere to ensurecompliance with the ban.

(18:49):
My 10 take home points 1st Weather modification and
geoengineering have various definitions in science and
policy Precision is necessary for effective discussion #2
Under the 1972 U.S. law, a quoteweather modification activity is
defined as quote any activity performed with the intention of
producing artificial changes in the competition, behavior or

(19:12):
dynamics of the atmosphere. End Quote.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change, geoengineering refers to quote a broad set of
methods and technologies that aim to deliberately alter the
climate system in order to alleviate the impacts of climate
change. Thus, most forms of
geoengineering fall under the definition of weather

(19:32):
modification activity. Arguably, the direct air capture
of carbon dioxide would not fallunder this definition, but other
simple technologies may be Painting roofs to change albedos
to cool cities or aforestation could fall under this definition
#4 Weather modification activities have been widely
implemented in the United Statesand around the world for 70

(19:52):
years. Many decades ago, weather
modification was called weather control.
Nobody calls it weather control anymore because scientists
understand that controlling the weather is simply not possible
#5 despite the long track recordof experience with operational
weather modification activities,the effectiveness of weather
modifying activities for actually modifying the weather

(20:13):
is unknown. A hypothesis worth exploring
systematically would be whether the precise quantification of
the outcomes associated with weather modification is even
possible given the scientific record.
There is no record of geoengineering being implemented
anywhere in the world. Some proposed projects, such as
in Washington state and in Sweden, have been halted prior

(20:34):
to implementation #7 due to the uncertain effects of weather
modification and the fact that geoengineering has not occurred.
There is no basis for occasionalassertions that governments or
others are actually altering theweather #8 Supporters of
geoengineering deployment experiments involve an
interesting coalition of interest.

(20:54):
It involves those who think we are in a climate emergency and
have to act, those who believe we're not in a climate emergency
but geoengineering would be better than emissions
reductions, and finally, those who support who are in or are
involved in geoengineering research #9 the US Congress has
options for improving research, understanding and oversight of

(21:15):
weather modifying activities. My written testimony summarizes
many of these, drawing upon the excellent work of the Government
Accountability Office and Congressional Research Service,
2 crown jewels in this institution #10 Finally, my
written testimony goes into detail explaining my decision to
join more than 500 other scientists and academics from
around the world to call for a Solar Engineering Non use

(21:38):
agreement. I'll just briefly state first,
the understandings are not sufficiently developed to know
what the outcomes would be and unintended consequences are
almost certain to happen. Second, our 70 year history with
wetter weather modification should give us some humility in
thinking that we can understand what the consequences might be.
We've been trying to modify the weather for 70 years and we

(21:59):
don't know if we're modifying the weather.
And finally, we have one earth and experimenting on it carries
considerable risks. I have likened geoengineering to
risky gain of function research on viruses with uncertain
benefits and catastrophic risks.I look forward to your questions
and our discussions. Thank you.
Thank you. I now recognize Mr. Martz for
his opening statement. I'd like to thank the

(22:22):
Chairwoman, Ranking Member, and subcommittee for this hearing on
weather modification in geoengineering and for giving me
the opportunity to provide my perspective as a meteorologist
on this highly contentious issue.
My meteorologist and policy analyst for the Committee for
Constructive Tomorrow and I graduated from Millersville
University of Pennsylvania with my Bachelor Science degree in
May. My testimony table focus

(22:42):
primarily on two things and that's distinguishing airplane
condensation trails from weathermodification in geoengineering,
which are three separate things,as well as why geoengineering,
particularly solar radiation modification.
The solar geoengineering should be prohibited given the
uncertainties about climate change itself as well as the
uncertainties that geoengineering could have on
both the environment and life onearth.

(23:03):
Now in social media circles, people will often confuse
weather modification with geoengineering.
And to further complicate matters, you will see videos and
pictures of these ominous looking line shaped clouds that
are bashed across the sky. And a lot of people claim that
these are evidence that the government is manipulating the
weather, especially in the largescale.
And they can do things such as steer hurricanes or generate

(23:24):
hurricanes, which was a popular narrative after Hurricane
Helene's remnants ravaged eastern Tennessee, northeast
Georgia and the Carolina backed country last fall.
And more recently people have claimed that clouds had caused
the Texas floods this summer which killed I think over 100
people. Unfortunately now contrails are
aligned shaped ice coastal clouds that form an altitude
about 20,000 feet behind the aircraft.

(23:44):
The exhaust from aircraft is primarily composed of invisible
water vapor, CO2 and tiny particulates such as soot, which
act as cloud condensation nuclei, which make it easier for
water vapor in the air to condense onto those surfaces and
form droplets which then freeze and form these seriform clouds
that are artificial type cirrus clouds that resemble the feather
like clouds you see in the sky ahead of a warm front.

(24:07):
Now although contrails are definitely more common today
than they were 30 years ago, that's largely because there's
increased air traffic and there's no compelling evidence
that contrails are being deliberately created to alter
weather patterns or block out the sun's energy, especially
since contrails actually have a net warming effect on the
planet. Now in my written testimony, I
attached a photograph of contrails over London in
September 1940. Now weather modification On the

(24:28):
contrary, is a completely different issue and it is very
real. Although the its effects are
uncertain, it is the deliberate attempts to alter local weather
patterns. The most common example of this
is cloud sitting and there's twodifferent methods of cloud
sitting. One is injecting clouds,
especially mixed phase convective clouds in the
summertime with these agents, these hyproscopic water
attracting particles like salt to increase rainfall.

(24:50):
The other option is in the winter time, especially in the
Intermountain W, which has facedwater storage problems for the
last 25 years due to drought andalso increased water demand from
a growing population. They inject winter time clouds
with dry ice and silver iodide to increase snowpack.
Now, the federal government has been involved in cloud seeding
since the 1940s. Examples of this include, as
previously mentioned, Project Cirrus, Operation Popeye, and

(25:12):
Project Storm Fury, but the results of these in the long
term have been inconclusive. Cloud seeding may affect
rainfall locally from a cloud byup to 15%, but it's largely
ineffective. Large scales 9 states actively
facilitate cloud seeding programs, but they have strict
regulations about when and wherethey can be implemented even and
and. There are two states however
that have bandit which is Florida and Tennessee.

(25:33):
Now Geo engineering isn't a different issue from that.
It's a proposed attempt to counter match global warming by
either removing CO2 from the atmosphere or alternate amount
of sunlight that reaches the Earth's surface, the latter of
which is a very controversial topic.
The stratospheric aerosol injection is the most widely
researched SRM method and it involves the addition of sulfur
dioxide mainly into the stratosphere and that chemical

(25:54):
SO2 then reacts and becomes highly reflective sulfate
aerosols which block out solar radiation.
And this will be very similar tothe cooling effects induced by
major volcanic eruptions. The IPCC says that with high
agreement that it could limit global warming to below 1.5°C
above pre industrial levels. Now in regard to whether cloud
sitting should be banned, I'm ofthe view that we should minimize

(26:16):
your interference with nature. I appreciate how cloud sitting
has advanced our understanding of cloud physics as a
meteorologist and I, but trying to manipulate the weather even
on a localized scale can have unintended consequences
downstream. As far as the weather is
concerned, the effects are uncertain, but there are some
concerns with how it affects water tables in our soils.

(26:37):
Because long term injection of silver iodide of the atmosphere
can precipitate down into our soil and water tables and the
long term effects of that on marine life and aquatic life and
terrestrial plant life and animals has not been studied
definitively in the long term. Now as far as the geoengineering
goes, using the planet as a testmonkey for emerging technologies
poses all sorts of risks. Among these that have been

(26:59):
highlighted by the EPA are stratospheric ozone depletion,
acid rain and reduced crop yields.
There's also the question of which such whether such large
scale climate intervention is even necessary given the
uncertainties regarding climate change.
While the planet has gotten warmer over the last 100 years,
there is uncertainty as to exactly how much influence
humans have exerted on it. And it's uncertainty arises from
the fact that models climate models produce too much warming

(27:21):
with known in physics, which is why modelers have to
artificially calibrate their models to the instrumental
temperature record. There's uncertainty in the
magnitude of the natural energy flows as measured by satellites,
which is 6 times larger than theestimated energy imbalance
caused by CO2. Which means that Mormon could be
mostly natural and we just don'tknow, or it could be mostly
anthropogenic. And finally, there is no
fingerprint of anthropogenic or man made global warming that

(27:43):
distinguishes it from natural variability.
These uncertainties need to be resolved in the peer reviewed
literature before world governments tried to much less
consider intentionally. I'll turn the radiation balance
with novel technologies that have not been tested.
Thank you. This concludes my testimony.
Thank you, Mr. Marks. I now recognize Miss Doctor
McCracken for his opening statements.

(28:04):
Thank. You, Madam Chair Green, Rankin,
Mary. Doctor McCracken, you need to
turn your mic off. Doctor, Doctor McCracken, can
you turn on your microphone, please?
I'm sorry. That's OK.
Thank you. So thank you very much for
inviting me here today. After earning my PhD, most of my

(28:28):
career was spent at the LawrenceLivermore National Lab, mostly
using computer models to analyzehow natural and human induced
factors might affect the climateand what the risk might be of
that. My last nine years with
Livermore were on assignment as a senior climate change
Scientist with the Interagency office of the US Global Change

(28:49):
Program here in Washington, including four years heading the
Coordination office for preparing the first national
assessment of the impacts of climate change, but also climate
variability, which was an assessment called for in the
Global Change Research Act of 1990.
Since retiring, I've served on anumber of positions on a pro

(29:09):
bono with the Climate Institute President, International
Association of Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences, and as a
participant in various other national and international
activities. I'm currently on the steering
circle of the Healthy Planet Action Coalition, which is a
group that favors consideration of climate intervention or

(29:30):
geoengineering, and on two groups that are seeking actually
to address the issue to make energy more affordable.
I want to say I'm not a paid employee or consultant of any
organization. I'm here speaking as a
scientist, and the views are my own.
A primary lesson from the research career and from the

(29:50):
scientific community is that climate change has changed in
the past. Climate has changed in the past,
and so it can be expected to be changeable in the future.
And what scientific research hasshown quite clearly is that
these changes are not random. It isn't not just climate doing
something randomly. There are causes in the past

(30:12):
that has been things like volcanic eruptions or changes in
the Earth's orbit around the sun, changes in atmospheric
composition, changes in land cover, and research is really
interest indicating now the global warming over the last two
centuries is primarily being duenot to natural factors but to
human cost influences. Let me say briefly with respect

(30:37):
to the subcommittee's interest in weather modification.
Research has made clear that changing a major specific event,
a hurricane or a drenching rain or or a drought, is just beyond
human capabilities. That's not what's happening.
Nature has so much energy involved.
That's not going to happen. As my fellow panelists have

(31:01):
said, there's not really scientifically convincing
evidence that it works, but there's not scientifically
convincing evidence that it doesn't work.
And so it can perhaps increase rainfall and some very dry
places. And this is because it's so
uncertain. That's exactly why there's so

(31:21):
little weather modification actually going on.
It's just not clear. It's a worthwhile investment and
it certainly cannot cause massive floods or or hurricanes.
With respect to the subcommittee's interest in
theoretical geoengineering, the notion is to explore if there
are viable approaches to offsetting the increasing

(31:42):
incidence of extreme weather andother impacts that are happening
from climate change. My views sort of come from the
broad scientific community and on this this issue, I disagree
with these others panelists thatthinking that research on

(32:02):
climate and intervention is, is something that needs to be done.
The approaches that are used in doing it are all based on what's
happened naturally. So volcanic eruptions put sulfur
dioxide in the atmosphere. It turns to sulfate.
It reflects maybe 1% of solar radiation.
It's not like it blanks out the sun in any sense.

(32:26):
And and that can sort of exert acooling influence.
We had that after Mount Pinatubo, climate went down and
the aerosol sort of got mixed and naturally removed the
stratosphere and that climate sort of recovered and kept going
up. So are there approaches that we
can use that based on nature that we can optimize maybe
putting in a little bit on a on a constant basis and see what

(32:51):
happens, Try and try and learn about that.
So nature has really done the experiments on this, on whether
these approaches will work. That's not something that
science really has to go back and do.
So we have to do a see if the tailoring in the optimizing and
how that will work, will it be beneficial or not.
So there are a host of questionsfor research to consider.

(33:13):
What's happening due to global warming is quite exceptional,
particularly not just the temperature, but the dew point
is going up and so places in lowlatitudes are having just almost
intolerable situations and don'thave the air conditioned space
that we have to go into. There's increased and

(33:33):
accelerated melting and loss of mass from Greenland and the
Antarctic ice sheets. 20,000 years ago sea level was 400 feet
lower than that and then on overthe next 12,000 years, 2/3 of
the ice on land melted and it came up.
So there's about another 200 feet of sea level equivalent in

(33:55):
the Greenland and then Antarcticice sheets, and we really don't
want to start those to get melty.
Doctor McCracken, we've I'm sorry, yes, if you could just
finish, please. Thank you.
OK. Well thank you.
I just said finally if I could, that there's no Geo engineering
of any type going on at the global scale.
There are a few localized efforts like to save the the

(34:17):
coral, to preserve the coral. Great Barrier Reef computer
simulation sort of indicate that.
Doctor McCracken, your time's expired.
Yes, thank you. I now recognize myself for 5
minutes of questioning. For years, anybody who
questioned whether modification was labeled crazy or a

(34:37):
conspiracy theorist. Now we've learned that they've
been doing it for decades. And not only is it a
multibillion dollar industry, the government has invested a
lot of Americans hard earned taxdollars into it.
They've been forced to spin it and apparently it is now the
only way we are going to save humanity.
However, let's look at the risk.According to GAO, injecting a

(34:59):
cloud with silver iodide increases precipitation anywhere
from zero to 20%. It could be even more, but the
truth is that we really don't know for certain.
The questions that are asked is can you control the exact amount
of precipitation that a cloud will produce if it is injected
with silver iodide or another cloud seeding agent?

(35:21):
Can you control where the precipitation is going to land
with 100% certainty? Can you say that it will not
'cause or enhance flooding with 100% certainty?
Is there any way to measure withabsolute certainty the
effectiveness of seeding a cloud?
Do we know with 100% certainty how much rain a cloud would have

(35:43):
produced if it had not been seeded?
And lastly, did the American people ever get to have a say in
any of this? The truth is that there's
absolutely no way to measure theeffectiveness of cloud seeding.
But something else that needs tobe known as the American people
deserve to know that there is very little rules and
regulations over this. These companies that perform

(36:06):
cloud seeding and other types ofgeoengineering projects have to
fill out forms from NOAA and they have to list what agents
they're using. And there is a category that
simply says other, and they don't have to even fill out what
other means. And I think that's extremely
concerning, but I'd like to talka little bit more about solar

(36:26):
geoengineering. It's completely different, more
consequential approach to human manipulation of the the planet's
climate. One geoengineering company
called Make Sunsets injects aerosol into the atmosphere to
reflect sunlight back into space.
I want to, I want to show you their frequently asked questions

(36:47):
page on their website. Mr. Mr. Pilkey.
It says here they says, what areyou doing?
It says we're using balloons to launch reflective clouds into
the stratosphere. And then it says, why?
It says unless we reflect sunlight, 10s of millions of
people will die and 20% of species may go extinct.

(37:08):
We're using the most effective way to reflect sunlight that we
found and can afford to deploy. Mr. Pilkey, is it true that 10s
of millions of people will die if if they don't do this?
There's nothing you can find in the IPCC or other scientific
literature to suggest that's a consequence.
Sometimes those stark claims aremade to try to scare people into

(37:30):
other forms of action on climatechange.
So if you don't change energy policy, we're going to mess up
the stratosphere. And that's how I interpret.
That sounds like a a major threat to to make for their
company to make money. They said, how long do you make
sunsets? Clouds stay in the sky.
Depending on the altitude and latitude at which we will
release them, anywhere between six months and three years.

(37:55):
They also say, is it legal? They say yes, it falls under the
Weather Modification Act. Then they have a question here,
Mr. Marks, I would like you to stop doing this.
And they say, and we would levelfuture with breathable air and
no wet bulb events for generations to come.
Convince us there's a more feasible way to buy us time to
get there and we'll stop. We'll happily debate anyone on

(38:18):
this, Mr. Martz. They don't think that the rest
of us have a say in this. What do you, how do you think?
What do you think about that? Well, I think that the climate,
the air is not going to be breathable, is just patently
ridiculous. Carbon dioxide, although it is a
greenhouse gas. And yes, I do agree that some of
the warming at least that we've seen in the last 100 years is

(38:38):
probably due to CO2 emissions. There's no indication that the
air is going to become unbreathable.
It makes up 0.04% by dry air volume of Earth's atmosphere.
And some submariners in the Navyare subject to the
concentrations exceeding 5000 parts per million and are just
and are just fine. Well, let me, let me ask another

(38:58):
question, Mr. Marks. You know, it's, it's sulfur,
right, that is put into the air.Is there health consequences for
people, especially like after volcanic eruptions?
Is there health consequences to to that type of injection into
the atmosphere? Well, sulfur dioxide, if it's
injected into the stratosphere, obviously it blocks out solar

(39:20):
radiation. And so that would potentially
could, that could, if it's implemented on a large enough
scale over a long period of time, it could reduce crop yield
because obviously plants need sunlight to grow.
They need water and CO2, just basic photosynthesis.
And there's also concerns that if it gets into the troposphere,
it could create acid rain, and that is called acid deposition

(39:41):
into the soil. And that makes it hard for
plants to always say they grow, and that harms plant animal life
as well. Obviously, Mr. Martz, I'm out of
time. Thank you very much.
I now recognize Miss Stansbury for 5 minutes.
Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Well, I do believe we've
actually discovered the purpose of the EPA, literally This is

(40:02):
why the EPA exists, is to regulate, study and understand
how modifications to the environment impact human health
and the environment. And in fact, that is the primary
purpose of the Science Advisory Committee for the EPA.
You do a regulatory process, youlook at the science, you
determine whether or not it's good for the environment and for

(40:24):
human health, and then. If it's not, then you come up
with science based solutions to regulate it.
That's literally why the EPA exists.
So I'm, I'm excited we've, we'vediscovered why the EPA exists
today in this committee hearing.But arguably the largest
geoengineering experiment in human history is climate change.
And Doctor McCracken, I am really grateful that you're here

(40:47):
to help us cut through the noiseon all of this.
You've had a distinguished career at our premier national
labs and you've also been intimately involved in helping
to bring together consensus around climate change, including
to understand both the global implications and carbon
emissions and also what that looks like in terms of
downscaling for specific places.And so I just want to, I had to

(41:11):
print this is a well known graphfor anybody who has studied and
understands climate change. But but the science, the science
is very, very, very, very clear.Since the beginning of the
industrial revolution, you can see here that carbon emissions
have gone up steadily and globaltemperatures have also gone up.

(41:33):
And the chemistry and the physics of that is that it
creates energy in the atmospherethat affects the entire global
distribution of weather events. So, you know, there's a lot of
misinformation that gets put outthere for folks that don't
really understand the science ofclimate change.
And it's it's representation at the local scale is very
different in different places and it's always changing.

(41:54):
So, Doctor McCracken, I hope that you can help us understand
a little bit more. I mean, at the most basic level,
we have the opportunity to educate the public here in this
committee today. What is the global scientific
consensus about how we address this?
Well, the, so we have good indications that what's

(42:17):
happening with the CEO carbon dioxide is it's coming from
human activities, primarily fromfossil fuels, some from
deforestation. And we know also from history
and physics and and a number of other ways that that's going to
lead to trapping of heat and making things warmer.
If you want to stop getting warmer, and we've been going up

(42:38):
significantly at a very rapid pace compared to geological
times, you basically have to stop and phase out CO2
emissions. Exactly.
And you know, I want to just correct something that was
discussed earlier, which is thatthe the idea was put forward
that somehow we want to eliminate carbon dioxide on

(42:59):
planet Earth. That's not, let's just be honest
and clear about this. That is not possible by the laws
of physics. OK, so let let's just say that.
But really what we're talking about is reducing the amount of
atmospheric carbon that is in the atmosphere so that we get
back to something more approximating pre industrial

(43:21):
revolution activities because itis driving the capture of heat
on planet Earth and heat createsenergy.
That's just anyone who's taken physics or chemistry.
That's that's what climate change is.
It's increasing energy on planetEarth and that causes more
extreme flooding, more extreme storms, that causes drought in
some places. It changes the whole

(43:43):
distribution of how the planets energy functions.
And that is really what climate change is.
So in terms of reducing our carbon footprint, you know,
we're headed in the coming months into the latest
incarnation of the Council of Parties, a COP, to prepare for
international climate negotiations.

(44:04):
The president has removed us from climate commitments, and
the GOP has just taken away manyof the tools we have to reduce
carbon emissions through the bigugly bill.
Tell us what the consensus is inthe scientific community about
addressing carbon pollution in the United States.
What do we need to be doing herein the United States?

(44:25):
Well, we we've started by tryingto use efficiency, We've started
by trying to change our energy system.
The key thing about our energy in the US is most of the
renewable energy, solar and windis out West and, and in the
Midwest and a lot of the demand is in the East Coast.
And just as it which is unfortunate.

(44:47):
So what you do with natural gas when you have a different place
where the source is and where the where it's needed is, you
create pipelines. We need to do the equivalent of
a pipeline for electricity across the US.
It would be very beneficial to the country to do that and what
is necessary to at the cheapest energy for the future.

(45:08):
Thank you. The gentlelady's time has
expired. I now recognize Mr. Cloud from
Texas for 5 minutes of questioning.
Thank you. Thank you all for being here.
I think most people, you know, back home tuning into this would
first of all be shocked to find out that maybe some of the
suspicions like weather modification is one of those
things it's like not really beentalked about and people like, is

(45:29):
it happening? Is it not?
I don't know. I see things online and they
come to find out like, OK, this has really been happening for
decades. This is not conspiracy theory.
This is like fact. There's businesses involved in
doing this. And, and that brings up all
these questions about how is this happening?
How was that permitted? Is any business just able to go

(45:50):
out and hey, I want to modify the weather in my area because I
want rain. Well, what about these people
who don't want rain and where those lines and how does that
work? And and then there comes the
liability side of this. You know, recently I'm from
Texas. And so, you know, I was, I was
there at Kerrville when the tragedy happened and everybody's
concerned some cloud seeding happened a couple days.

(46:12):
Prior and I'm not a meteorologist, you are and Mr.
Martz and and I guess there's anunderstanding that that was.
Too far away I guess, but it does bring up the question about
liability and what if it was with the business be liable then
or not and all these questions. I was wondering, Mr. Pelkey, if
you want to, if you could touch on kind of those thoughts and
what the current framework is and and.

(46:34):
Just kind of. Give us a one-on-one for the
citizenry. In a sense, yeah.
Let me say, I mean, I've been aware of weather modification
all my life. My dad was meteorologist.
Yeah, but you're involved in this, right.
And so when I was preparing for this hearing, I looked at the
NOAA database and I was, you know, shocked to find there was
more than 1100 reports in that database or covering the last 10

(46:56):
years or so. So weather modification is
ongoing and the reporting is, isnot particularly good.
Assessing the effectiveness is not good.
And that leads people to ask questions.
So if we go back to projects, Sears back in 1947, I think it
was Hurricane King, it started dissipating and then it took a
left turn and then struck the US.

(47:16):
It's it's a natural question when someone intervenes in a
system to say, did your intervention 'cause this bad
thing to happen? This is why I've recommended
having a very public, a very authoritative study.
We can't have Republican scienceand Democrat science.
We have to have science that's trusted by everyone to assess
what weather modification has been done, what have been the

(47:39):
effects. If we don't know what the
effects are, what research can we do to know those effects?
And if we can't know the effects, maybe that would
structure how we think about going forward with that
technology. Mr. Marks, do you want to speak
to that? Yeah, I largely agree with that.
I was actually going to bring upProject Cirrus, which obviously
was a concern. There's also the concern, you

(48:02):
know, in the case of like geoengineering, I know it kind
of going off topic from weather modification, but it's a similar
kind of issue here. If you were to, and if it were
to be, if they were to implementthis and it were to be
successful, it were to 'cause you know, a few tenths up to a
maybe a degree Celsius of globalcooling, you know, over the
course of three to five years. And of course, you'd have to
continue to do that over severalyears because the aerosols mix

(48:24):
out. But there's also the concern
that say, say we did this, you know, and the instantaneous
cooling occurred and there was a, you know, a really cold
winter, you know, that that sent, you know, temperatures
plunging below 0 down into Louisiana.
We saw this actually this past this past winter with the Gulf
Coast winter storm and the Arctic outbreak.
Say something like that happened.

(48:45):
Well, people will then probably,you know, blame that on the
geoengineering. In fact, we know kind of through
what natural variability, you know, obviously the effects of
this with volcanic eruptions. I'm in 18618 fifteen rather
Mount Tambor erupted and caused the year without a summer in
1816 when there were two feet. There was 2 feet of snow in
Vermont in June and during that same period there were frost in

(49:09):
Georgia. The Congress that the
chairwoman's district. So there's definitely concerns
about that. And there's, there would be, you
know, lawsuits filed after project series.
There were lawsuits filed and obviously the results were
eventually inconclusive. And the, the US Weather Bureau
put together a team of scientists that showed that the
Hurricanes can make those kinds of turns all on their own.

(49:30):
And that kind of let the that, that allow the lawsuits to kind
of subside. But there are definitely real
concerns about that happening inthe future.
You know what I mean? Again, we just saw this with the
Texas floods with I think it wasRainmaker Corporation if I'm
correct. Obviously they when they seated
that was day of the days before and it was I think 150 miles
southeast of Houston. So it had no effect.
But the people still ask the questions, and it also raises

(49:50):
the concern of lawsuits being brought against these companies.
Well, and then I had a question and Doctor McCracken, you talked
about this too. You said there's no scientific
evidence that it works through that.
It doesn't. You mentioned that to Mr.
Pelkey. You know, we've had people not,
not on our subcommittee that I'maware of it, on our general
oversight committee, say, you know, the year's going to end.
I think the countdown's down to six years now, you know, and,

(50:13):
and there's this hysteria built around what we can and cannot do
yet. There's no data for it.
And I had to say, like our economy, we've spent trillions
of dollars on this and like, arewe actually moving that date out
or, you know, I mean, what's, what's the question on that
anyway? I.
Thank you. I now recognize Miss Norton from

(50:34):
the District of Columbia. Thank you, Madam Chair.
The non partisan civil service is essential to our democracy.
The Trump administration's gutting of the federal workforce
is cruel, irresponsible and dangerous.

(50:58):
Federal workers keep the federalgovernment running.
They do essential work every daythat keeps Americans safe.
Nonpartisan civil servants at the Federal Emergency Management
Agency provide aid after storms,hurricanes, floods, tornadoes

(51:20):
and wildflowers. The agency's employees have
warned Congress that the federalgovernment is not ready to
respond to hurricane season. More than 180 agency employees
sent a letter on August 25th warning that the cuts to the

(51:44):
agency have hurt its ability to respond to emergencies.
Instead of taking preparedness seriously, the Trump
administration retaliated against the employees and put
the public signers on leave. Doctor McCracken, what are the

(52:10):
most important things? We should be.
Doing to ensure federal agenciesare prepared to respond to
climate change, Eliminating extreme weather.
Well, the the research they havebeen providing is, is

(52:31):
information on what impacts willoccur in particular places.
So we talked about global climate change and people think
about the science from the global scale, but impacts and
what happens to people really depends on where you are.
And so when we had the first National Climate Assessment, we
did 20 regional workshops askingabout what was happening in each

(52:55):
region, what were their concerns.
And it was fascinating that water resources was common among
all of those kinds of kinds of areas and, and everything, but
in a very different way. I mean, you wouldn't think water
would be a problem in Alaska. You might expect it to be a
problem in the Rio Grande Valley.
But it was a problem everywhere with different kinds of changes.

(53:18):
And what we we really wanted to do was try and provide each
region access to the informationso it could keep its economy
strong, so it could keep doing things that make a difference.
I mean, in in Washington, one ofthe very interesting things that
has been done, it's known as oneof the cities with the most
trees. That's sort of a weather

(53:38):
modification effort to provide shade and to provide moisture
evaporation. One of the first weather
modification assessments done inthe US was done by Thomas
Jefferson. He basically noticed that
clearing the coastal plain in the Atlantic of a forest to have
farms affected the sea breeze. And so there are effects going

(54:02):
on. You want to think about what's
going on in your region. You need to have information
that's specific to your region and that's a translation issue
of getting from the global models down to what's happening
locally. What it what is the statistics
of the weather that is going to change?
Warmer nights, hotter days, morefrequent hot days, higher,

(54:23):
higher dew points, those are thekinds of things that that people
really need to know about to help build their resilience and
protect themselves. Doctor McCracken, why is it so
important that scientists followthe data and not presuppose

(54:44):
their conclusions? Well, it's very So what we try
and do is scientists is reconcile multiple things.
One is the data that comes in and the observations.
Another is our theoretical understanding of how physics
works, about cold air being denser than warm air and how

(55:05):
things move. Another is looking back over the
history of the Earth to try and understand and figure out why
those changes were occurring that are shown in the geology.
And So what scientists are looking for is consistency
across things, not just that anyone.
You can't believe just one or the other.
You have to look at consistency across all of those aspects.

(55:30):
Thank you, and I yield any time remaining to the Ranking Member.
The the gentlewoman's time has expired.
I now recognize Mr. Burchett from Tennessee for 5 minutes of
questioning. Thank you, Chair Lady, briefly,
Mr. Marks, can you explain what cloud seeding is?

(55:52):
Yes, I can happy to explain it. So cloud seeding is the attempts
to enhance rainfall or snowpack on a very localized scale and
obviously back. Localized meaning.
We're talking on a like a couplekilometers, 2 kilometers, yeah,

(56:13):
yeah. Are the.
Are the materials used in cloud seeding safe?
There's are some concerns with silver iodide and how that
precipitate when it precipitatesout into the soil.
There's concerns that it negatively can affect marine
life, aquatic life, terrestrial life because of the the way
least of silver at high concentrations.

(56:36):
As far as dry ice, the dry ice method of it, which is something
with those pellets sublimate into CO2.
That's that's a harmless method.Would you would?
You feel comfortable drinking a glass of water with several
parts per million of silver iodide in it.
I probably would not want to do that, no.
OK, that's a good, good answer. Are states seeing measurable

(56:59):
successes in cloud seeding? Not, not on a very large scale.
We're talking not, not on a scale that's for 200 kilometers,
but on a on a localized scale. There is some evidence that the
statewide efforts especially in the Intermountain West in
Colorado can increase like the snowpacker or or precipitation

(57:20):
by up to 15%. But their range is 0 to about
20% based on the pure review studies that I have read.
But there's not a 100% success rate with that.
That being said, I don't think that we should be trying to do
that. Are you familiar with the
process where they basically do it in a grid and then they
follow it on the satellite to see where the rain had fallen

(57:44):
to, to verify in fact that it was effective or not effective?
Yeah, I've seen that they do. There's obviously control areas
and areas of experimentation andthere was also very inconclusive
in the literature. And basically the process is
they put this stuff in the air, it gets in the clouds, moisture
condenses on it and it falls in the form of water droplets or

(58:06):
snow weather due to the temperature, correct?
Correct. OK.
Is it possible that there could be lawsuits in the future of, of
people say they're being robbed of their rainfall, Say if the if
the winds were in a westerly position and the clouds were to
empty, say in one county that was east of this area, and then

(58:30):
they thought that the the rain should have come to them.
And yet, yeah, it was literally stolen from them by the the
cloud seeding prior to that. I think that people, I think
there could be concerns for lawsuits of, of stuff like that
for for sure. And that's that's something that
we probably almost saw or we might see from the Texas floods

(58:50):
this year. Again, the results are going to
be and I think the court findings would find it.
There's really no evidence that it that it had any material
effect because most of the studies show little effect.
But again, the results are inconclusive.
But that doesn't stop there being lawsuits being filed.
It should have the companies that were selling this process
to have come back and say we're not effective.

(59:11):
Correct. Yeah, I know so.
There would be. That would be interesting to
see. Mr. Pelkey Is the government
engaging in any weather modification or geoengineering
activities? The federal government is not
state governments, the GAO reported.
There's nine states in the US that support, and I will say
effectiveness is measured not just in rainfall but also in

(59:33):
marketing. I'm from Colorado and the state
let's it be known that for ski season there's clouds getting
going on so. And they've been doing it in the
past, though. They've been doing it for
several decades, the federal government.
Has been doing. It the federal government peaked
its weather modification investments in the 1970s, if it
was in this year's budget, it would be the equivalent of $500
million. So it was a substantial effort,

(59:56):
but it did peak and it has declined.
OK, what was the end result of that?
Uncertainty as you heard that there's, there's not a lot of
good science out there to say cloud sitting has this effect in
this region. And I question whether it would
even be possible because when you do an experiment, you have a
control and then you haven't theexperiment and you compare the

(01:00:18):
two. We have one Earth.
And so it's, if you can't, you can use models and so on.
But it is very difficult, I think, for weather modification
to reach that bar of certainty that would be required to
understand cause and effect. OK, Yeah, we can't keep
investing in it. Could the weather modification
activities or other countries have a harmful effect on
Americans? So this is 1 where I think it

(01:00:40):
necessarily has to be international.
It's in the 19. We've heard in the 1960's the US
government sought to employ weather modification techniques
as a weapon of war. And it would be important for
the community to get together and whether it's like nuclear
non proliferation to disclose and and set the ground rules for

(01:01:01):
that type of research, just likeyou might do for gain of
function research on viruses. Thank you.
Thank you, Chair Lighting. Thank you.
I now recognize Mr. Burleson from Missouri for 5 minutes of
questioning. Thank you.
Madam Chair. Doctor Pilkey, just to begin

(01:01:21):
with the basics, can you help usunderstand the difference
between localized efforts that might have and and Geo forming
efforts from a from a policy perspective, Weather
modification, as as you heard from Mr. Marks, is seeks to

(01:01:42):
affect rainfall over, say, a drainage, a ski area, a small
area. Geoengineering, as it's defined
by the IPCC, seeks to counter the effects of global climate
change. So at the much larger scale.
And usually the effects of climate change, for better or
worse, are measured in global average surface temperature.
So affecting that that metric is, is the focus of

(01:02:04):
geoengineering. Mr. Martz, I think.
And I saw in your notes that yourefer to it as that cloud
seeding or a lot of these efforts really don't have and
you had a term for it. I'm trying to get back to that
where it the, the impact is. It's but it's hard to get beyond

(01:02:26):
so many kilometers, right? Correct.
Yeah, above. Let me find it here just so I
get my terms right. You had a word.
For it mesoscale, yes, yes and there's different levels of of
mesoscale. So basically, so I said here, so
All in all cloud sitting is incapable of altering weather
patterns on what Orlanski in 1975, it's a period paper

(01:02:49):
defines as the as a scale level,particularly Mesoalpha, which is
greater than or equal to 200 kilometers.
So above that, that horizontal distance 200 kilometers, there's
really absolutely like no effectthat that way, not that much we
do know. But on small, much smaller
scales than 200 kilometers, there is a very much a lot of
uncertainty as to the efficacy of cloud seeing from a rainfall,

(01:03:10):
precipitation standpoint. And the big reason for this is
because natural variability is so large.
Yeah, Yeah. So I, I, I hear you.
So I think if folks are listening or paying attention,
you can definitively say you got, I mean, your PhD, you're a
meteor meteorologist, You can definitively say that these are

(01:03:33):
cloud seeding. While it may occur, it's
probably not occurring as often as people think because it's
it's, its effects are unknown ornot certain.
It's and, and then in addition, it only has effects a small
region. Would you both agree with that?
Yes, for all the effort that's been put in the weather

(01:03:54):
modification, if it is having aneffects, they're not large
enough that we can really see them very clearly.
I would agree to that, yes. Would you say that in general,
we kind of have a little bit of an arrogance about our impact on
on this planet? Very much so, and I also find
that it's a lot with climate change as well.
Obviously. Again, I'm going to just put a

(01:04:16):
disclaimer here before I am called a climate denier by
people. I agree that CO2 is a greenhouse
gas and yes, all else being equal, it does cause warming in
the lower atmosphere. However, how that translates to
changes in extreme weather is very much more complicated.
And I find that there's a very stark parallel between people
who claim that, you know, hurricanes are being caused,

(01:04:38):
it's called are caused by cloud seeding and it they're able to
control hurricanes, as well as people who think that hurricanes
are caused by, you know, a one part per 10,000 increase in
atmospheric carbon dioxide. And in fact, in my chart here
that I show shows data that shows that neither hurricane
frequency nor intensity is measured by the cumulative cycle
and energy index have increased since 1990.

(01:05:00):
And that's data from Colorado State University, actually one
of the schools that Doctor Pilkey's father taught at, I
believe, And there's also no increase, that there's an
increase in rapid intensification events globally.
This is a chart she went back to1990.
This was provided to me by Doctor Phil Clots back also from
CSU, and it shows that there's no increase since 1990 in the

(01:05:24):
number of rapid intensification events, which is the frequent,
which is a measure of how fast hurricanes intensify and is
defined as a 30 knot increase orgreater in 24 hours.
So there have been increases in heavy rainfall in some regions
and there's been decreases in other regions and some of that
could be tied to a warmer, you know, atmosphere in the Clausius
collapron relation. But overall, the idea that we

(01:05:46):
are able to control whether eventhrough climate change is
largely grossly overstated. Thank you.
I yield back the rest of my time.
The gentleman yields. I now recognize Mr. Sue
Brahmanyan from Virginia for 5 minutes of questioning.
Thank you. Madam Chair, I'm very concerned
about the this administration firing climate scientists and

(01:06:10):
scientists generally and cuttingoff research for science.
And we had a really good group of people outside NASA yesterday
talking about the importance of science and climate science.
And Doctor McCracken, I would just get your thoughts on what,
what is going to be the implications of cutting off this

(01:06:31):
kind of research and these typesof firings and, and what, what
is that going to mean for our future when it comes to our
climate as well as science generally in our country?
Well, without the information, it's hard to get projections of
exactly what's going to happen to get the best information.
So people can feel, can prepare themselves, can be resilient, so

(01:06:56):
society can design infrastructure that that will
withstand things. When when you increase the
temperature, when you have the CO2 concentration high, though
90% or so of the warming is going on in the ocean, what
happens with when the ocean warms, it keeps the air warm,
but it also evaporates more moisture.

(01:07:18):
And when the that moisture ladenair comes over land and runs
into a mountain range or a Mesa or something, it forces out
these drenching rains. And it's happening not just in
Texas, which was really tragic, but there's also been tragic
events in Pakistan and India andother locations that when the

(01:07:41):
ocean warms, that heat just addsto the moisture.
And if the ground is saturated in water already, all the
additional moisture that comes out will run off and that
creates floods that are larger than the region is used to.
And these weather events are costing us 10s of billions of

(01:08:03):
dollars, not more. As a country, it's going to cost
us trillions eventually. You know, what can we do to
prevent these weather events in the future?
Well, if you want to stop ocean warming, you basically have to
stop having carbon dioxide trapping, trapping infrared

(01:08:27):
radiation and energy that's hardto do to stop and get rid of all
the CO2 emissions. They provide a very valuable
service until it's proving difficult.
And that's why climate intervention is something we
want to look at and see. It's an approach to trying to
see if you can suppress the heating of, of the atmosphere as

(01:08:50):
a whole, mainly of the ocean, ifyou can, because the land will
respond pretty quickly. But the ocean build up of heat
is something that will persist for very long times.
And it, it just causes these atmospheric rivers that are
occurring that hit California that it are hitting other
countries. It's a a very serious issue and

(01:09:13):
can cause great harm. And there's it's very hard to
withstand it as things happen and.
Is do you think it's are we too late?
Is there or is there things we can still do when it comes to
curving the negative effects of climate change?
Well, there are, there are some doomsayers out there, but

(01:09:35):
there's certain things, certain things we can do.
One thing is cutting methane emissions.
Methane is natural gas that leaks out from fossil fuel,
things that comes from agriculture, other things that
has an atmospheric lifetime that's very short, where a CO2
has a long lifetime. So if you can sharply cut CO2
emissions, that really helps. And there is an international

(01:09:57):
initiative to do that. And, and so that's one of the
first things that that people will urge as something to to, to
do. Great.
Thank you. I yield back.
The gentleman yields. I request unanimous consent that
the subcommittee have a second round of questions for the
witnesses without objection. So ordered.

(01:10:20):
I now recognize myself for 5 minutes of questioning.
It's an interesting observation to listen to the discussion
between what I would call two sides in the belief on on
climate. And I'd like to ask each of you,
and I'll start with you, Doctor Pelkey has the Earth's, has

(01:10:42):
Earth's climate and and temperatures.
Has that been something that haschanged historically since the
creation of the world? Yeah, there's there's long time
series that go back thousands, millions of years showing vast
changes. However, the changes over the
last century and 1/2 have been judged to be largely driven by

(01:11:05):
the accumulating greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
So that's not particularly controversial.
What is controversial is what are the effects when we know
them. I I would disagree with Doctor
McCracken that we can control weather with carbon dioxide
emissions. It's there's no knob that says
more extreme weather, less extreme weather.
There's a lot of great reasons for reducing carbon dioxide

(01:11:25):
emissions, but I don't think anyone should think we're going
to stop hurricanes or floods or atmospheric rivers using that
knob. Mr. Mart.
I largely agree with Doctor, Doctor Pilkey about that
assessment pretty much entirely.I do agree that obviously the
planet has gone through all sorts of ebbs and flows
throughout its 4 1/2 billion year history.

(01:11:47):
And obviously the Earth has gotten warmer over the last 100
years. And I do agree that some, most,
I don't know how much of it is due to CO2 emissions, because
CO2 is a greenhouse gas. The laws of physics are very
clear on on that. However, there is uncertainties
as I highlighted in my testimonyhere.
And this is something that some of the scientists who work very

(01:12:07):
closely on this one and is Doctor Roy Spencer at the
University of Alabama in Huntsville.
He's a science team leader on one of NASA satellites that
measures the radiation flows andout of the atmosphere.
I know him very well. Mr. Martz, I only have a short
amount of time. So obviously the the natural
energy flows in and out of the Earth's atmosphere.
Right, but that's not controlledby man.

(01:12:27):
I mean, did man create the Ice Age?
No. Yeah.
Right. So none of us were alive back
then to know for sure. Doctor McCracken, do you do you
believe that the world has seen climate changes through it since
the creation of the world? Well, I I'd say I'm convinced by
the evidence that that has happened, yes.
Yeah. Thank you.
I'd also like to ask you all if you believe that people, regular

(01:12:53):
people, the American people and people all over the world, do
they have the God-given right toclean air, clean water, clean
crops? Or should governments and for
profit business, businesses and then scientists be be allowed to
override ordinary people, citizens of the United States

(01:13:15):
and spray all types of chemicalsinto the air, whether it's from
the ground or in the sky? Who, who, who's who?
Has a God-given right over that Doctor Pilkey?
Yeah, it's in my testimony. That's why I called for enhanced
oversight and regulation. I'm, I have this old fashioned
view, I'm a political scientist by training that the government

(01:13:36):
is the people. And if we start talking about
the government being separate from the people, then we,
something's messed up out there.And so I would much rather see
people, normal people, feel likethe the government belongs to
them and that they they are one and the same.
The government or clean air, clean skies and clean land.
Well, the way we regulate and get clean air as we come
together and work and call it government, call it whatever you

(01:13:59):
want to call it, but there's there's no way to have clean air
to regulate geoengineering unless people can come together
and make decisions that this is in our common interest.
Right, Mr. Martz. I agree with that sentiment as
well. I think that there obviously
needs to be stricter oversight and regulation on these some of
these technologies and and probably some more research into

(01:14:19):
them, but I think there should be largely good Doctor Pilkey, a
non use agreement, especially onthe solar geoengineering aspects
of it. And as a final point, yes,
people are people should have a right to, you know, free, you
know, I'm sorry to clean air or clean water and, and all of
that. Doctor McCracken.
Yes, of course they should. And there's actually a lawsuit

(01:14:40):
of the youth trying to ensure that is something that the
government does to make sure that there is clean air, clean
water and a healthy climate. Yeah, thank you.
I, I agree with that. I just want to point back to a
government funded project that that was in a government housing
where in St. Louis, MO where the US Army

(01:15:03):
sprayed that some sort of chemical fog over these people,
basically making them Lab Rats in an experiment.
And that's how people feel todayabout all types of weather
modification and geoengineering.No one wants to be a lab rat.
And I appreciate your comments Where we only have one earth,
one earth and we really honestlyshould be, should be taking care

(01:15:26):
of that. My my time has expired.
Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Thank you all for being here.
Doctor Pelkey, could you just briefly explain the difference
between cloud seeding and geoengineering?

(01:15:47):
I'll give you the broad brushes,but cloud seeding is an effort
to modify precipitation over a small scale.
Geoengineering is an effort to counter the effects of human
caused climate change at the planetary scale.
Got it. And.
Last July, as, as, as you know, there were catastrophic floods
in in Texas. Have you seen any evidence to
suggest the cloud seeding contributed to those floods,

(01:16:10):
exacerbated the problem or or had any impact on them?
I'll defer to Chris, who's talked about that in his
testimony. Sure.
Hi, Congressman. There is no evidence that while
there is, let me backtrack here.While there is evidence that
cloud seeding can be effective, there's also an evidence that
it's not as effective. There is very inconclusive
results in literature on it because natural variability is
so large. As far as the Texas floods go,

(01:16:32):
in particular, I think the cloudseeding, the company that was
accused of it was Rainmaker if I'm, if I'm correct on that.
But when they seeded, when they did cloud sitting activities,
they did it I think 2 days before the the rain began and it
was 200. I think it was 150 miles
southeast of Houston, TX or not Houston, San Antonio, if I'm
correct on that. Which means that in terms of the

(01:16:53):
Texas Hill Country, there was noway for that cloud sitting to
have any had had had any material effects on the on the
floods. Got it.
And Mr. Mark, so continue with you.
Are you familiar with the butterfly effect?
Yes, I am. OK, got it.
It, you know, kind of the the foundational principle of chaos

(01:17:15):
theory that small changes in initial conditions in a complex
system can have second. Third quarter, 4th order.
Consequences that are seemingly unpredictable.
How do, how do you think about that concept being applied to
weather seating? What it you know, small changes
in a in a complex system and how, how can you understand, how

(01:17:37):
can we get comfortable that there aren't going to be 3rd,
4th order impacts of a potentially much larger
magnitude? I think that there are again,
obviously very much large uncertainties about it and
obviously some more research into it needs to be done
probably on a modeling effort. But trying to, I think that the
to do it as far as the environmental impacts of it in

(01:18:00):
particular need to be studied, especially with silver iodide
and how it affects our water tables and our soil because
there's definitely concerns about that.
And and I think there is to be more labs, laboratory studies on
that, more research that's funded to do that kind of thing.
Given the complexity of the issue here and how how large

(01:18:22):
that this problem is, how how doyou study something like that?
I think that you would employ a group of scientists and you need
to do some sort of bipartisan effort to look and see what we
know about it. And in A to do a comprehensive,
thorough report, that would be people from different
perspectives that come together and discuss and mesh out the
details and then conduct experiments on it.

(01:18:44):
Because in science you can't just also you can't just use
them in modeling. You also have to test things and
do it through a laboratory experiment to have observations
because all science is numbers. Got it.
And Doctor Pilkey, back back to you.
It's been reported that China has spent $2 billion in the past
decade on weather modification activities.
How? How could an adversary use what

(01:19:05):
weather modification for nefarious purposes?
Yeah, this is a great question and also gets to your last
question as to why we want to understand effectiveness,
because if it's not effective, then they're not going to be
able to do much with it. And so This is why, as I said in
my testimony, let's start with the questions that that Sherwin
Green had in her first 5 minutesof, of, of questioning.

(01:19:27):
Fantastic questions. You guys have the National
Academy of Sciences at your disposal where you can ask
exactly these questions. And a great question would be,
given what we know about weathermodification, what could our
adversaries and enemies put it to use and how would we know it?
I will also say this is one reason why it's really important
to make sure that the observations and monitoring of

(01:19:49):
our atmosphere is fully funded, not just for scientists to do
research. But so with that, what is your
opinion on how an how an adversary could could use
weather modification? So my understanding is that
weather modification is not particularly effective.
And so I based on that level of knowledge, not much, but it's
certainly something that I wouldwant.

(01:20:09):
A range of experts to weigh in on, given that we don't know
what's going on in China and elsewhere.
Got it. Thank you, Madam Chair, Yield
back the remainder of my time. The gentleman yields.
I now recognize Miss Stansbury for 5 minutes of questioning.
Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Well, there's a lot going on in
this hearing, so I want to kind of break it into pieces because
I think it might help first out some of the challenges I think

(01:20:32):
the conversation is having. So let's talk about cloud
seeding as a technology. As a technology.
The idea of cloud seeding is just that it's based on the
physics of clouds, which is thatin order to have rain or
precipitation, a water droplet has to be heavy enough to
condense the fall out of a cloudthat that's what cloud seeding
is based on. And so there's been

(01:20:53):
experimentation going back to the 1940s to introduce different
particles into the atmosphere tosee if dust store these other
chemicals can create a precipitation moment and has
been identified by a number of our witnesses today.
There is still a lot of researchto be done about its efficacy.

(01:21:14):
There are studies that have showed in certain instances it
may have increased the probability of a specific
incidence of precipitation. But there's also a lot of data
needed and there's a very robustanalysis that GAO has engaged in
and talked to experts so that that's the science around cloud
seeding, that that's cloud seeding.

(01:21:35):
But climate change is a different situation.
Let's talk about climate change.And I think every single witness
here has identified that there'sno dispute in the scientific
community the global carbon emissions have gone up and that
we know from observational data.This isn't a theory.
This is not like, oh, we're we're trying to figure out if

(01:21:57):
this is true or not. The data are very clear.
We have had an increase in global, global temperature.
It has manifest in regional temperature increases across
different parts of the planet and in places like the American
Southwest, like where I'm from, it is manifest in an increase in

(01:22:19):
temperature year after year, especially over the last 30
years, a decrease in precipitation year after year
for the last 30 years, and the most intense drought we've seen
in recorded history since there was a major geologic change in
the planet. That's just facts.

(01:22:41):
That's just observational data. That's just measuring what we
see in the environment. So there's no dispute over that.
And So what scientists have consensus about is that carbon
is a pollutant that is coming from industrial activity all
around the planet. It is a challenge that involves

(01:23:04):
the Commons, which is our atmosphere.
I agree wholeheartedly with the chairwoman that we should be
regulating, spraying or putting things into the atmosphere.
And that's exactly what the EPA does.
That is why the EPA on the consensus of scientists not only
across the United States, decided to regulate the emission

(01:23:26):
of carbon because we know it's contributing to changes in the
global atmosphere. That's increasing energy in the
atmosphere that is producing measurable effects on the
ground. Now, I agree that the incidence
of individual weather events, the ability to change the
trajectory of individual weatherevents, whether it's something

(01:23:48):
as powerful as a hurricane or something as powerful as an
atmospheric river, as was statedby Doctor McCracken, those are
those are events that are so massive in scale.
We don't we don't know that an Aindividual entity or pollution
in one place is is culpable, if you will, for an incident

(01:24:12):
happening. What we're talking about is a
change in global chemistry and global atmospheric physics that
is driving the distribution of weather events all across the
planet. And that is why it is a common
cool problem. It is why we need international
climate agreements. It is why 10s of thousands of

(01:24:35):
scientists around the world are urging countries to take climate
action now. It is why the United States
regulates carbon, or was until Donald Trump took away those
regulations just a couple of months ago.
It's why we measure carbon emissions.
It's why we're prepared as Democratic members of Congress
to go show our faces and good faith on international forums

(01:24:57):
that the United States still stand strong with climate
action. Because as one of my colleagues
just pointed out across the aisle, it is an international
problem. It is an international problem.
Pollution and one side of the planet affects the entire global
Commons. And that is why we need climate
action in the United States and every single country on planet

(01:25:20):
Earth, because it affects all ofus.
So that's what the science tellsus, and I want to just be clear
on that. And with that I yield back.
The gentlelady yields. I now recognize Mr. Fallon from
Texas for 5 minutes of questioning.
Thank you, Madam Chair, appreciate it.
And I love the civil discourse. We need more of it in the
country, that's for sure. Doctor McCracken, thank you for

(01:25:42):
coming. And it's it's not often that I
get to talk to and converse withsomebody has learned it as you
Sir, you were graduate from Princeton.
Is that correct? Yes.
In 64, excuse me, in 196464, I don't know when that became 61
years ago and that's something, but it's a huge.
One time ago. Fair to say you've been a

(01:26:03):
climate scientist for over half a century.
Yes, Sir. Do you think that there's a
growing tendency for those in power, or at least I should say
for those, some of those in power, to engage in, in climate
alarmism? The scientists try, when they

(01:26:24):
speak about it, to be very careful in how they talk.
But I'm not talking about scientists.
I'm talking. About but in the politicians,
but in the yeah, in the media and others, things get
simplified and amplified. So in other words, like frat?
Gets reported, so that happens, yes.
Like making frightening fear mongering claims of doom and
gloom and being more hyperbolic and serious about climate and

(01:26:47):
the and the weather. Is that fair statement?
Well, I think the situation thatwe're facing is rather
unprecedented in what's happening.
And, and I apologize, doctor, I just have limited time.
So kind of yes or no, I suppose.Like for instance, Al Gore, a
former vice president of these United States made a name for

(01:27:09):
himself, some would say fame, some would say notoriety with
his his activism within the climate realm.
And in 2009 he said that he there he believed there was a
75% chance that the polar ice cap would be ice free in the
summer months. Did that ever happened since
2009? No, that did not.
That's not that has not happened.

(01:27:30):
In fact, on the Southern Pole, the Antarctica shelf grew a
little bit, didn't it? From 21 to 23.
Well, there are variations that occur with what?
But it didn't happen. He made a claim in O Nine.
It was rather it's been proven to be egregious.
It never happened. In 2006, in his documentary and
Inconvenient Truth, he claimed that sea levels could rise up to

(01:27:51):
20 feet in the near future. Did that happen?
It's starting to accelerate. And it did it.
Did it happen? It hasn't happened yet.
Not 20 feet. No, but that's a possibility.
But it did not happen in the near future. 20 feet.
Fact, we're at the right now. We're at elevation 410 feet in
DC. You grew up in Schenectady, NY.

(01:28:13):
I grew up in Pittsfield, Mass, very close to one another.
We are at 1039 feet in elevation.
Princeton was a 203 feet. What is a beach house?
What's the elevation of a beach house?
They tend to be a few feet. Yeah, zero, 2-3, something like
that. It's interesting that the Al
Gore ran for president or in theDemocratic ticket in 2000,
didn't make it. But the next president,

(01:28:34):
Democratic president did was Barack Obama, and he invested
$12 million in a beach house in Martha's Vineyard.
And Joe Biden, the next Democratic president, has
invested nearly $4 million, at least current value and a beach
house. Sea level pretty much 2 feet,
not to 20 feet. And in fact, what really
happened was sea levels rose, according to the National

(01:28:56):
Oceanic Atmospheric Administration.
And from 1993 to 2020, one 3.8 inches, not 20 feet.
By that rate, it will take 1136 years to reach 20 feet.
I don't think we would define that as in the near future.
Another committee member, a former committee member of the

(01:29:18):
Oversight Committee in 2021 madesome interesting claims.
She claimed that crop yields arealready projected to fail and by
2028 famine will hit the. World's most vulnerable.
Populations. Do you agree with that
statement, Sir? I'm sorry, I missed exactly what
Oh. Sure.
No, no, that's OK In a former member of this committee who's

(01:29:39):
rather prominent in the political realm, said that by
2028, which is only 18 months from well less than that now,
that crop yields would are projected to fail and famine
would hit the world's most vulnerable populations.
It is amazing how fast one can get into situations of drought
and failures in particular regions has that, it has not.

(01:30:04):
So if I can, because I just have30 seconds left, I just wanted
to share some data and facts, which are friends, like the five
poorest countries in the world, which would be the most
vulnerable. Madagascar had a population in
2000 of 16,000,000. Today it's 31 million, it's
doubled. Liberia, 3,000,000, now 6.
Somalia 9,000,019 million. Now Democratic Republic of the

(01:30:25):
Congo was 50 million, now it's 113,000,000.
Mozambique 18,000,036 million. You see the trend?
It is doubled. Famine has not occurred.
It is hyperbolic, It is not serious.
Madam Chair, I yield back. But a gentleman yields.
I now recognize Miss Crockett from Texas for 5 minutes of
questioning. Thank you so much, Madam Chair.

(01:30:47):
The Republicans have been so busy protecting pedophiles and
rapists that they forgot what this subcommittee is supposed to
be about. We're supposed to be talking
about improving government efficiency.
We're supposed to be talking about protecting taxpayer
dollars from corruption. But congressional Republicans
have led the most corrupt administration in American
history. Run wild.

(01:31:08):
Republicans have turned the United States government into
the world's largest Ponzi scheme.
And it isn't surprising the corruption is rampant in this
administration because, well, weknow who the president is.
It's actually been 84 days sinceour last hearing.
The chairwoman could have calleda hearing about how this is the
weakest hiring market since 2017, and we all know who the

(01:31:30):
president was in 2017. We could have had a hearing on
how Donald Trump's illegal tariffs are increasing the cost
of living for their constituents.
We could have had a hearing on why the Bureau of Prisons is
accommodating human traffickers like Ghislaine Maxwell.
We could have had a hearing on how the president is using the
office to enrich himself and hisfamily and friends.

(01:31:53):
We could have had a hearing on how this administration is
illegally stealing more than $400 billion in congressionally
directed funds, but they'd rather distract you from the
fact that their constituents arelikely to die from their
decisions to cut healthcare and SNAP before some chemtrail
conspiracy. The Republicans don't care about

(01:32:16):
their constituents suffering from anything.
They've been railing against theAmerican people for the last
nine months, and they've been doubling down.
Taking your health care wasn't enough.
They've attacked Americans housing, they've attacked
Americans food and child care assistance, and they've attacked
Americans environmental protections.
They're letting the oil companies and big data companies

(01:32:38):
write their energy and environmental policies.
These policies not only lead to sicker people, they also lead to
dirtier water, more polluted air, and increased utility
bills. And we know that these policies
will disproportionately impact Black and brown communities
around the country. So, Doctor McCracken, the Trump

(01:33:01):
administration has dismantled agencies, fired scientists,
defunded research, and is defunding universities.
Do these actions disincentivize institutions from engaging in
research and deter students wanting to work on climate
science? I would think the answer to that

(01:33:23):
would be yes. Thank you so much.
And Doctor McCracken, wouldn't you agree that eliminating
Environmental Research can have devastating impacts on
communities, particularly Black and Brown communities, which are
often located in highly industrialized areas?
Yes, I agree. And I might just say during the

(01:33:43):
national assessment, that was one of the issues we tried to
address by having some of the historically black colleges be
looking at the assessment of climate change and its
significance in the Gulf Coast region.
Thank you so much. I have a couple of UCS that I
want to answer into the record really quickly at this moment.
One is from September 11th of 2025.

(01:34:08):
It says August 2025, Earth's third hottest August on record
for nations and territories set or tide their all time heat
record in August, Japan, Brunei,the UAE and Martinique.
Without objection, so ordered. The next one that I have is AUC

(01:34:29):
that says State of the Climate 2025 on track to be second or
third warmest year on record. Without objection, so ordered.
The third one is natural disasters have caused more than
$131 billion in losses so far in2025 from CBS News.
Without objection sorted. The reason that I wanted to

(01:34:53):
point these things out because Ithink that we can't have a
hearing like this unless we settle on some basics.
One of those basics being that climate change is real.
Whether or not any individual has accurately predicted exactly
the day or how bad is going to be and when is one thing.

(01:35:14):
But the reality is that as I waslistening in, while I wasn't
physically here, I was tuned into the hearing.
I will say that even the Republican witnesses admitted
that we are heating up. So the question is, what is it
that we need to do to actually turn the heat down?
Unfortunately, it seems like this administration's decision

(01:35:34):
has been to defund any and everyone that actually could
work on saving us because we don't know what will happen if
this dag on planet, and yes, it's more than the United States
heats up to a ridiculous amount.I can tell you that other
countries acknowledge that climate change is real and that
we have real work to do and it is within the science realm

(01:35:56):
instead of the conspiracy realm.And thank you.
With that I will yield. The gentlelady yields.
I now recognize Mister Jack fromGeorgia for 5 minutes of
questioning. Well, thank you very much, Madam
Chairwoman, and I want to commend our witnesses for your
testimony. I find it enlightening
throughout today's hearing. And if I could start with Mr.
Martz, just to establish for this subcommittee's record,

(01:36:18):
could you briefly describe for us the history of weather
modification within our country?When did it start and how do we
arrive to where we are today? The weather modification has
been proposed at least since the1890s, to my knowledge.
Probably before that and back inthe 1940s is really when it got
started. Obviously there was Project
Cirrus and then they really started to peak during the 19.

(01:36:42):
About the 1960s and 70s is when it peaked in.
Starting in the 1980s, it started to significantly
decrease on a federal level. There's still a lot that's being
done at a state level, in a local level, but the federal
government, as Doctor Pilkey hadmentioned, does not largely is
not largely involved in such activities.
And to understand the science behind this, as I understand the

(01:37:02):
40s and 50s, scientists started experimenting by using, if I'm
not mistaken, silver iodide and dry ice to simulate
precipitation. And you mentioned, and I'm glad
you did mention Project Cirrus. This matters to both the
chairwoman and I because we represent the incredible state
of Georgia. But if you could brief this
committee on what happened with Project series.

(01:37:24):
And and as I understand it, Savannah, the third largest city
in our state, was struck by a hurricane because of some of the
activities they're in. Yes, a project series.
So an atmospheric Scientist by Anna Vincent Schaefer.
He worked for General Electric, General Electric Laboratories
and he discovered in 1946 he discovered that by putting dry

(01:37:46):
ice into an environment with super cool liquid water droplets
that he could get it to to freeze and this would could be
done. He extrapolated this to the
atmosphere where it could spur microphysical reactions and
clouds to auto precipitation. NO has a great article on this.
So they partnered with a Naval research laboratory and the Army

(01:38:07):
Signal Corporation to experimentin hurricanes.
So in October 1947, I think it was October 13th, 1947, they
flew 2B17 and AB29 and they dumped huge chunks of dry ice.
And specifically in their first in their first round, which was
half an hour, they jumped 80. Hold on, where is it at?

(01:38:29):
They jumped, they jumped a wholelot of dry ice and it was 80 lbs
rather over 100 mile course and wanted to see what the cloud
changes were in the hurricane. And then they did two more mass
droppings with 50 lbs each. And obviously the next day the
hurricane I was 50 miles east a 50 miles West rather of where it

(01:38:50):
was supposed to be. And the hurricane made 135° turn
and hit Georgia. And so this obviously was
generated a bunch of lawsuits and they were thrown around.
And one of the actually the headof General Electric, General
Electric at the time said he was99% sure that it changed course
due to cloud seeding. However, the US Weather Bureau,

(01:39:11):
which is now the National Weather Service, put together a
team of scientists and they found that really, there's no
evidence that the cloud seeding had that kind of effect, because
hurricanes can do those kinds ofturns naturally all on their
own, and there's been similar tracks to that in the past.
I'm grateful for that explanation.
And again, Madam Chairwoman, just want to submit for the
record that our own state was impacted by weather modification

(01:39:34):
in a hurricane that was not meant to strike.
Our state, naturally did strike our state in 1947.
In closing, I'm curious. One of my constituents, a really
smart guy from Coweta County, has raised the threat of SAIS,
stratospheric aerosol injectionsto myself and would love for you
to comment, Mr. Martz, on on on how SAIS are potentially going

(01:40:00):
to be developed over the years to come and and what this
committee can do to combat the threat thereof.
Yeah, to my knowledge, there's not really any sort of solar Geo
engineering that's being done worldwide to my to my knowledge.
There have been some attempts that have been shut down, such
as the University of Washington project, which I think got 20
minutes in before it was halted.But there it is the proposed

(01:40:21):
attempt and it's a very real proposal to inject primarily
sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, which is a layer
above the troposphere where we live.
And that these sulfur dioxide isreacts with other, the gas is in
the atmosphere and it forms sulfate aerosols, which are
highly reflective because their width in terms of the microns,
the tenths of microns is about the width of the radiation of

(01:40:44):
sunlight coming in. It's very highly reflective
particles. And so it could cause, if it was
successfully implemented, if it were to be implemented, could
cause significant global coolingthat would counteract, you know,
the warming that we've seen in the last 100 years.
But we know what the climate waslike during the Little Ice Age.
We know what the winters were like in 1850.

(01:41:05):
It was not a very pleasant time.So it claims that you know the
today's climate is is not ideal compared to them are just false.
Well, I appreciate in closing you acknowledging the threat of
SAISI. Want to thank my constituent for
briefing me on that thread. And Madam Chair, I want to
commend you for holding this hearing.
I think this is a hearing peoplewill study for years to come,
and I appreciate the testimony that our witnesses provided

(01:41:27):
today. And with that I yield back.
Thank you, Mister Jack. In closing, I want to thank our
witnesses once again for their testimony today.
I now yield to Ranking Member Stansbury for closing remarks.
Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I'll just note you can put
anything in a hearing record, whether or not it's true or not.
So we'll just say that for the record.

(01:41:50):
But I am grateful that we had this hearing today because as I
said earlier, we finally discovered the purpose of the
Environmental Protection Agency,which is to study and use
science to inform the regulationof pollution.
And I've heard a lot of statements from my colleagues
across the aisle today identifying that yes, indeed, we

(01:42:11):
do want to study and regulate pollution in the atmosphere,
that we want to make sure it's not adversely affecting
communities, which is the foundation of environmental
justice, which is something thatwe care deeply about.
And we understand that we can have cross-border impacts, which
is why we need international agreements and action on climate

(01:42:32):
change. All of these are the reason why
the Environmental Protection Agency exists.
All of these are the reasons whythe federal government funds
science. All of these are the reasons why
we have federal scientists who helped to vet science.
As was noted about the National Academies.
All of This is why we need to take climate action.

(01:42:56):
Now. I I want to just address some
comments I heard about urgency. Now, one of the things that we
didn't have the opportunity to get into today and our
discussion, even though we did, of course establish that the
science is real, the observational data is real about
the increase of carbon dioxide emissions and how that's driving
temperature and precipitation changes around the world.

(01:43:18):
But the reason why there is a global consensus about the need
and urgency of interaction rightnow is because there's an
overwhelming consensus in the scientific community that we
could reach a tipping point. And this is really about trying
to address the global risks of reaching A tipping point because

(01:43:38):
we know from physics and chemistry that if there is too
much energy in the atmosphere, it could continue to ratchet up
the impacts of these extreme events.
And we're already seeing these impacts.
We're already seeing it in my home state of New in New Mexico.
We've had the largest, most catastrophic fires ever in
recorded history, including backbefore humans were recording on

(01:44:02):
paper what happened. We've seen the largest scale
floods that we've ever seen in specific locations because of
extreme weather events. We are seeing temperature
changes and and snowpack changesthat are impacting food
production, that are impacting farmers.
It's already happening. We can't deny our eyeballs.

(01:44:23):
It's happening in front of us. The data are there.
And so the reason why there's anurgency to act on a global scale
right now is because we want to make sure that the Earth does
not cross the tipping point because of the things we're
putting into the atmosphere. Now, the way that we do that is
we have to take an all of the above approach because carbon

(01:44:46):
emissions are coming from all different sources.
There are some sources that are putting more in the atmosphere
and there are some less, and that is why we passed the
largest, all of the above climate strategy in American
history three years ago in the Inflation Reduction Act.
That's exactly what that bill was designed to do.
It was designed to address utility sector scale changes,

(01:45:07):
transportation changes, manufacturing changes, to help
people make that transition so we can reduce carbon emissions
and we can prevent our planet from crossing a tipping point.
That's all it is. It's not alarmism like that is
literally all we're trying to accomplish by climate action is
to keep our planet in some sort of balance because yes, we have

(01:45:28):
one Earth. We have one Earth.
This is our home. And so that is why we need
climate action. That is why the firing of
federal employees, the defundingof science, the firing of EP as
science panel, the deregulation of carbon emissions, and the
whole scale attack that we're seeing on the federal science

(01:45:49):
enterprise is not only problematic for many, countless
reasons in terms of continuing this enterprise, but because
it's dangerous for the planet and for our communities.
And so I hope that my colleagueswho seem to care about
emissions, who seem to care about environmental justice as
I've heard in this hearing, who seem to care about the localized

(01:46:11):
impacts of putting things in theatmosphere, can understand why
we need climate action now and without a yield back.
I now recognize myself for closing remarks.
What we've learned here today has been fascinating.
I hope the people watching it athome have been able to see the
radicalized positions on the other side of the aisle.

(01:46:34):
Remember, if you even question that someone could control the
weather, you were labeled A conspiracy theorist or crazy.
Then they change the message to,well, it's not hurting anyone
and it is to provide water for people.
And now they've come for full circle around to the point that
modifying the weather is how they save the planet from

(01:46:56):
global, from the global warming hoax.
Whether you agree or not, the people clearly disagreed with
the climate hoax and disagreed with my Democrat colleagues, so
much so that they made a big change last year.
They elected President Trump andthey elected Republicans to
control the House and the Senate.

(01:47:18):
These climate activists have come so far that they are
actively trying to inject chemicals into the air to block
the rays of the sun from hittingthe earth, and they want to take
away our God-given rights, our God-given rights over the earth
in order to satisfy their godless climate cult beliefs.

(01:47:42):
Imagine these geoengineering projects were implemented at
large scale across the globe because that's what they want to
do. These life giving rays of the
sun provide essential functions to the human body, including the
strengthening of the immune system, inflammation reduction,
strengthening of bone health, and so much more.
The effects of the human body ofa lack of sun exposure include

(01:48:05):
irregular circadian rhythm, depression and mental illness
deficiency and bone strength which can lead to a form of
tuberculosis and many more health problems.
Not to mention the potential damage done to the plant and
animal life as well as a possible ozone depletion.
And as mentioned here with one of our witnesses, potentially

(01:48:26):
cooling the earth could also 'cause people to freeze to
death, crops to to die and couldliterally lead to killing
millions and millions of people.Radical climate alarmist.
Worship the climate as if it is a religion.
They are so radical they glue themselves to the road blocking

(01:48:46):
traffic and destroy artwork in museums.
They scream global warming is going to kill us all and that
U.S. cities are going to vanish underwater.
One other interesting hypocrisy of the left is that they truly
if they truly believed their global warming hoax and the
rising sea levels the the cost of all of us will be underwater

(01:49:09):
in a few short years, why are they investing millions of
dollars into beachfront properties across the same coast
they they claim will be underwater?
Bill and Melinda Gates own a $43million beachfront front home in
California. The Obamas own a $12 million
waterfront compound in Martha's Vineyard.
Mark Zuckerberg is building a $270 million beachfront compound

(01:49:32):
in Hawaii. Mark Cuban owns the $19 million
beachfront mansion on the coast of California.
What this whole debate comes down to is who controls the
skies? Do we believe in God and that he
has dominion over his perfect creation of planet Earth?
Do we believe that he has given us everything we need to survive

(01:49:54):
as a civilization since the beginning of time?
Or do you believe in man's claimof authority over the weather
based on scientists that have only been alive for decades and
weren't here to witness the climate changes since the
beginning of time? This is why I've introduced
introduced my bill, the Clear Skies Act to end weather

(01:50:15):
modification and geoengineering.Because I don't believe planet
Earth is a lab and I don't believe people are Lab Rats.
I believe that people have the right and they have the
God-given right to have clean air, clean skies, clean water
and clean food. And with that, and without
objection, all Members have 5 legislative days within which to

(01:50:39):
submit materials and additional written questions for the
witnesses, which will be forwarded to the witnesses.
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(01:50:59):
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