Questioning Cloud Seeding

24 May 2025 | ZeroGeoengineering.com | Missing from the following well researched discussion of cloud seeding is a key element of research ethics: the willing participation of the individual(s) and informed consent.

State legislators in Idaho are asking important questions about cloud seeding efficacy, spending, and weather modification policies. In her May 20 article examining facts around cloud seeding experiments, Senator Zito asks:

“…before we continue spending millions of public dollars each year on this experimental approach, we need to stop and ask the hard questions: Does cloud seeding actually work? Who’s tracking the results? Why is no one talking about the GAO study that raised major red flags?”

“In Idaho, the most commonly known ingredient is silver iodide, but the flares used, especially in aircraft, contain a mixture of chemicals, including ammonium perchlorate (an oxidizer), zinc powder and aluminum powder (fuels), and iodine-based compounds like copper iodide….

…Idaho has also begun using liquid propane generators placed on high mountain ridges…

what happens when these substances are released repeatedly into the atmosphere and snowfall year after year?”

Source

More context

PubChem: Propane Silver Iodide Ammonium perchlorate Copper iodide

Article – Potential risk of acute toxicity induced by AgI cloud seeding on soil and freshwater biota – ScienceDirect: “Under the guidelines of the Clean Water Act by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), silver iodide is considered a hazardous substance, a priority pollutant, and a toxic pollutant.”

Source

The GAO report referenced in the Senator’s article confirms that cloud seeding is 80 year old technology that is unproven:

“… in some studies we reviewed, when uncertainty was considered in estimates of cloud seeding effectiveness, the estimated effect was not distinguishable from zero with a high degree of statistical confidence (e.g., with 95 percent confidence). This is, in part, due to the high variability of natural precipitation compared to the potential effects of cloud seeding…”