How many times do I have to remind you to leave Mother Nature alone?
No hurricanes!
No hurricanes?
That’s what Peter Cordani proposes, if someone would just give him a few billion dollars’ “seed” money to find out. Click here to read the whole story, which I’ve excerpted below.
Seems weather modification is a field that comes in and out of vogue every few decades or so. Problem is, no one knows for sure if it works or if it’s just snake oil.
"It's like a religion. [Whether it works] depends on who you talk to and what
you believe," said Steve Schmitzer, the Denver Water Board's chief of water
resources analysis.
Remember the good old days when you went to your local shaman or witch doctor for pesky problems like flood or drought? If he didn’t cure the problem, the villagers just stoned him to death. Eventually it would rain, someone else would take credit for it, and become the new rainmaker. Simple. Now it’s very costly.
Weather modification already operates at a staggering scope. Projects in some
three dozen countries seek to save wine crops, ease drought and kill fog. The
Chinese government spends $40 million a year to seed clouds for rain. Canadian
insurance companies pay to suppress hailstorms blamed for crop damage.
Are you scared at the thought of the Chinese (with their limitless budget for military uses and total disregard for human life) messing with the weather? I am. They would let their own people die of drought and famine if they thought pushing all their precipitation over our coasts would result in deadly hurricanes. Hmmm. I’ve long suspected Syria of stealing my sunny days…
"You're really playing with fire, because if you don't understand the
fundamentals of what you're doing, you have no ability to predict the
consequence of your actions," said Michael Garstang, a University of Virginia
atmospheric scientist involved in a 2003 report on weather modification for the
National Academy of Sciences. It called for fundamental study. "It's derelict
not to have funded research," he said.
Really? (Insert Blue Oyster Cult’s Godzilla here…)
After years of lobbying centered in her home state of Texas, Republican Sen. Kay
Bailey Hutchison proposed in March 2005 that a federal board be formed to draft
weather modification policies and devise ways to carry them out.
Uh, oh. Republican, Texan, Wanting to play God. What are the odds?
I’d feel so much better knowing the government was controlling my weather. Good days to plan a picnic: Fourth of July. Dick Cheney’s birthday…
North Dakota alone pays $650,000 to $700,000 a year in tax money for hail reduction, said state Atmospheric Resource Board Director Darin Langerud. Seven states in the Colorado River basin -- Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming--are seeking to formalize and expand cloud seeding.
How ticked would I be if my car incurred hail damage when my tax dollars were being spent on ‘hail reduction therapies’? Real ticked.
As for Cordani,
He has made overtures for funding from oil companies, insurance businesses
and the government. Figuring he might need to drop a lot of powder, he's working
with an Oregon company that modified a 747 to fight forest fires. His first
tests with it may come this summer.Taking on a hurricane might take a fleet of
four or five planes, Cordani guesses, perhaps flying more than once. Field tests
and computer models will determine how much powder and how many planes, he
says.
Oh, there’s three entities I really trust. Love to be the pilot told to fly into a hurricane.
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