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The weather might be the most important thing to humankind. It affects our moods, what clothes we wear, what foods we eat and how we live. Despite centuries of scientific victories that have enabled us to exert some control and "air condition" the elements out of our lives, we may never escape the weather.
The desire to modify the weather has been around forever; but the threat of catastrophic climate change, water wars, and intensifying hurricanes, a new breed of weather control emerged.
Mixing character-driven verité with the scope of an essay film, OWNING THE WEATHER tells the story of weather modification in the United States, from Charles Hatfield's infamous rainmaking days to modern plans to engineer the climate.
There are more than fifty active weather modification programs in the United States alone. Through the eyes of key individuals on the front lines of a crucial but largely unknown debate, the film introduces the cloud seeders struggling for mainstream recognition, the "legitimate" scientists who doubt them, and the activists who decry any attempts to mess with Mother Nature.
Will the scientific renegades in the weather modification community ever shed the label of "snake-oil-salesman"? Will they succeed in securing government funding for the first time in decades? What does it mean to our society and our consciousness if there are no more acts of God?
Traversing vast ethical, political, and social currents, the film asks the question, "will we have to own the weather to save the planet?"
