Posts falsely claim Hurricane Helene 'geoengineered' to expand lithium mining

"If you don’t think the flooding in western NC was a geo-engineered weather weapon of war to induce a cheap land-grab on the largest lithium deposit in the country, consider this: Only ONE PERCENT of Hurricane Helene victims in western NC had flood insurance," says an October 7, 2024 X post from far-right radio host Stew Peters, who has a long history of spreading conspiracy theories.

Many of the posts imply investment firms BlackRock and Vanguard directly own mining companies that operate in North Carolina -- and that manipulating Helene would allow them to buy affected land to set up extraction operations without objections from property owners.

Show Hide

Content warning

Show

Image

Screenshot from X taken October 9, 2024

Hide

---

The same claim has circulated elsewhere on X, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, TikTok, Reddit, YouTube, Rumble and Gettr -- including in Canada. Public figures such as US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and InfoWars founder Alex Jones have spread similar theories.

Hurricane Helene swept through the states of Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee before dissipating over central Kentucky on September 29, causing harsh winds and rainfall throughout the region. Particularly hard-hit were communities in North Carolina and Tennessee, which have seen disastrous flooding along with shortages of food and drinking water.

Image

Map showing 7-day accumulated rainfall in the US after Hurricane Helene made landfall on September 27 (AFP / Nicholas SHEARMAN)

Conspiracy theories that the government has the technology to create or influence storms frequently pop up during hurricane season. BlackRock and Vanguard have also been the target of numerous false claims about controlling the world's largest companies.

North Carolina has deposits of lithium, a metal used to make batteries for devices such as mobile phones and electric vehicles. Significant amounts of the mineral are near Kings Mountain, about 27 miles (44 kilometers) from Charlotte, the state's most populous city (archived here).

However, claims that the government or companies can control hurricanes and "seize" victims' land are false.

No storm manipulation

Christopher Rozoff, a project scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (archived here), said Helene formed "naturally" and that current technology does not enable humans to change a hurricane's path.

Rozoff said that while methods such as "cloud seeding" can help increase rain and snow by introducing ice particles to certain clouds, they cannot affect storms like Helene.

"We're talking about minuscule changes, like very small changes from turning a cloud into a little bit of extra precipitation," he said October 7. "When you're talking about something of the scale of a hurricane and the floods that come with that, cloud seeding couldn't possibly account for that."

Rozoff added: "If we had the ability to modify storms, I can guarantee you our motivation would be to protect people. And so the idea that a government would actually steer storms as a weapon against its own people is so far off base, it's just hard to put in the words." 

Image

Graphic explaining the formation of hurricanes

(AFP / Cléa PÉCULIER, Sophie RAMIS)

Charles Konrad, a climatologist at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (archived here), said scientists have improved models predicting hurricane paths and that Helene did not drastically move off course.

"The National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center, I think, did an excellent job with the forecasting," he said October 7. "Unfortunately, it's what people do with this information, or if they get this information -- I think that's the challenge that we face here."

'Implausible rumors'

Many posts claiming the government deliberately steered Helene toward North Carolina also say BlackRock and Vanguard have stakes in several mining firms in the region -- namely Albemarle Corp and Piedmont Lithium.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission requires institutional and individual investors to disclose when they acquire more than five percent of a company and to state whether they will be an "active" or "passive" shareholder. 

Public records show BlackRock and Vanguard are two of the largest listed shareholders in Albemarle and Piedmont Lithium, owning between five and 12 percent of each company (archived here and here).

Blackrock and Vanguard offer customers exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which contain a bundle of stocks in the sector -- including shares of the two mining companies (archived here and here). The investment firms' filings say their stakes in Albemarle and Piedmont Lithium are "passive," meaning they do not intend to use them to take control of or influence the businesses (archived here, here, here and here). 

A spokesperson for Piedmont Lithium told AFP it purchased the land it needed to start its mining operations before Helene formed. The site is also in Gaston County -- "hours away" from the areas devastated by Helene, whose most severe damage centered in and around Buncombe County, home of Asheville.

Neither company's mines are up and running, but Albemarle's proposed location is in the same general area as Piedmont Lithium's (archived here and here).

"We are focused on helping those in need in the mountains, and not on the implausible rumors of those looking to stir up conflict in the face of this emergency situation," Piedmont Lithium said in an October 8 email.

BlackRock has also refuted online rumors that the firm received a $90 million grant intended for Albemarle to buy mining equipment, calling the allegation "completely false" in an October 4 X post (archived here).

The US Federal Emergency Management Agency, which coordinates disaster relief efforts, has said it cannot seize property affected by hurricanes (archived here). And like most states, North Carolina has a regulatory process for mining applications.

AFP contacted Albemarle and the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality for comment, but no responses were forthcoming.

AFP has debunked other claims about US hurricane relief efforts here.