January 02, 2006
Disturbances in the force
Just about everyday, I wake up to WNYC's NPR programming. Usually that means that stories like terrorist attacks in Iraq (IEDs-Improvised Explosive Devices), genocide in Uganda, Sudan, etc. and domestic spying by our "elected" administration, plague my dreams. While I know that all around the world, chaos is not raining down on all of us, it sure does feel like it when that alarm goes off the radio clicks on and the reporters start their daily barrage of mostly bad news from around the globe.
Here we are at the beginning of another calendar year and I wake up with all this in my head slowly yet deeply convincing me that perhaps I should just roll back up in the covers and not face the day. I can see why some people tune out the news completely and why many have stopped buying or reading the newpapers. It seems like the world is always falling apart and that no matter what we do, we make it worse. Yet, somewhere within, optimism creeps in and I say to myself, get up time to help stop all this madness.
But where does one start? Often I am reminded that one must choose one's battles wisely. Rarely have I mastered this art, however in the spirit of New Year's resolutions and organizing ones life by setting some goals for the year, I decided that "choose your battles wisely" will become my mantra for this year.
One of the issues we have heard a lot about, particularly over 2005, was climate change. The days last year seem like they could be measured in natural catastrophies. This morning, over my morning coffee (fairly traded and shade grown), I listened to a brief mention that Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison had managed to get support for passing of S. 517 the WEATHER MODIFICATION RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER AUTHORIZATION ACT OF 2005 and it has been placed on the legislative calendar. "Weather Modification, what the hell does that mean?" I thought.
The NPR story gave a short background decribing how the committee will reopen research and experimentation into weather modification research, which was "shelved" back in the 70's. The coverage and story were cursory at best, but the issue is extremely provacative. My mind reeled with some of the potential unintended consequences of changing a weather pattern in one place and the consequences abroad. What kind of disturbance in the forces of nature would this create? I sat up and shouted at the radio. "Does she have any idea what the potential consequences would be?" She being, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, who introduced the bill back in March of 2005. Next I realized, I don't have a clue what the consequences would be either.
Also, I realized my anger and questions should not solely be levied on Senator Hutchison, despite my own personal bias and displeasure in her performance in the public sector. I don't know enough about Weather Modification or scientific evidence, models, or current thinking on direct human intervention in weather patterns. And perhaps Senator Hutchison and the other Senators supporting this bill were thinking the same thing. Better find out before its too late.
Nonetheless, it is hard to get past those gut feelings, that trying to effect the weather patterns over one area will have negative consequences somewhere else. I could not help but think of one of the most basic laws of physical reality the law of conservation of energy, whereby the action upon one body is translated into action or energy release within/upon another and so on until the effects are mitigated and diffused across an area of influence. But in my layman's understanding of the nature of the physical world, I think scientists and other experets might be able to speak more to the potential consequences of modifying the weather in some part of the world.
To say that I'm deeply concerned by potential consequences and uses of this technology, might be a gross understatement. Apparently I'm not alone. In May of 1977, at an Assembly of the United Nations, leaders from around the world raised similar concerns and debated and agreed that hostile actions and uses of Weather Modification could arise and convened to establish rules in the parties research and application of such technology.
Then I thought back to events of the past year, the record number of recorded tropical storm activity, Hurricane Katrina, and storm systems brewing on the west coast now and thought, maybe they are on to something. But should htis be something that we as Americans pursue alone? We aren't the only ones on the planet the last time I checked.
Yet, after doing a brief search on the internet I found that we have been working and actively trying to alter weather patterns for a number of years already. Take down in the Senators own home state (my original home state) where they have been seeding storm systems for years trying to deepen and lessen the effects of storm systems in the "West Texas between the Permian Basin and the South Plains, at the headwaters of the Colorado River of Texas" [1]. I was also surprised to see them admit that, "In some cases, there is evidence that cloud seeding in one area has actually increased rainfall at distances of up to 100 miles, or more, downwind from the area of intended effect."
My suspicion is, like many other areas of science, we are tampering with something we should not, yet again it is something we perhaps are already doing in our everyday daily practice. Perhaps this will increase the dialogue and debate that journalists like Elizabeth Colbert raised in her Climate of Man series in The New Yorker. Or perhaps this will lead to more abuses by our great nation upon agreements that we have made with other countries at our table in the United Nations. Only time will tell.
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