I frequently go on about all the technological marvels that await us “just around the corner”. Given that, I have been somewhat surprised by reactions to the news items reporting on China’s manipulation of weather.
Beijing’s first snow of season ‘artificially induced’
[Excerpt]
(AFP) – – Chinese meteorologists covered Beijing in snow Sunday after seeding clouds to bring winter weather to the capital in an effort to combat a lingering drought, state media reported.
The unusually early snow blanketed the capital from Sunday morning and kept falling for half the day, helped by temperatures as low as minus 2 Celsius (29 Fahrenheit) and strong winds from the north, Xinhua news agency reported.
Besides falling in the northeastern provinces of Liaoning and Jilin and the northern province of Hebei, the eastern port city of Tianjin also got its first snow of the autumn, the report said.
“We wont miss any opportunity of artificial precipitation since Beijing is suffering from the lingering drought,” the report quoted Zhang Qiang, head of the Beijing Weather Modification Office, as saying.
Chinese meteorologists have for years sought to make rain by injecting special chemicals into clouds.
As they progress along this front [no pun intended] and refine their capabilities I grow ever more uneasy and queazy.
Is messing about with the weather a good thing? By doing so is there a risk of unintended consequences? Will the ability lead to a potential weapon? What happens if China decides to punish a rebellious province by withholding precipitation… or perhaps bringing on torrential rains that ruin crops quicker than a drought would?
I’m probably being uncharacteristically silly. After all, I find the fear of genetically modified foods to be unrealistic because I view that ability as our best hope to feed an ever growing world population. Is not the ability to cause rain also beneficial, and specifically beneficial to crop production?
Is it the fact that I view one as solidly grounded in science and the other to be “god like powers” of control? Why one and not the other?
I’m genuinely puzzled by my reactions and the thought lines inspired by them.
Ultimately, I fall back on my assumption that anything that relieves human suffering is a good thing, god like or no. Weather manipulation is not the first technological advancement that has pressed the nausea inducing button labeled “Gone too Far”. Nor will it be the last as we stand at the precipice of astounding advancements, most we are not even yet capable of imagining. So I suppose I should just get used to that nausea on occasion.
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