SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
China Goes 'Rogue' With 'Artificial Weather' Scheme
Geoengineering technique of 'cloud seeding' involves rocket-launching chemicals such as silver iodide into the clouds to boost rainfall
Jan 14, 2015
Within five years, China intends to use a dubious geoengineering technology known as 'cloud seeding' to induce more than 60 billion cubic meters of additional rain each year, its government said this week.
Backers of the program--which involves rocket-launching chemicals such as silver iodide into the clouds to allegedly boost rainfall--say the strategy aims to mitigate China's severe and growing water scarcity problem, which is exacerbated by demand from the industrial and power-generating sectors. The silver iodide droplets provide a nucleus within a cloud around which water can coalesce, forming raindrops or snowflakes.
Critics have long warned that geoengineering projects could have unintended, unknown side effects. Last year, former vice president Al Gore called geoengineered solutions to global warming "insane, utterly mad and delusional in the extreme."
"[T]he truth is that geoengineering is itself a rogue proposition," Naomi Klein wrote in 2012. "By definition, technologies that tamper with ocean and atmospheric chemistry affect everyone. Yet it is impossible to get anything like unanimous consent for these interventions. Nor could any such consent possibly be informed since we don't--and can't--know the full risks involved until these planet-altering technologies are actually deployed."
While China has a fifth of Earth's population yet only 7 percent of its freshwater resources, government reports have said that more than 70 percent of the country's rivers and lakes are polluted and almost half may contain water that is unfit for human consumption or contact.
The country launched its "human affected weather" program in 1958, and has since met a target of increasing artificial rain to more than 50 billion cubic meters per year.
According to Reuters:
China has already allocated funds of 6.51 billion yuan ($1.05 billion) for artificial weather creation since 2008, the State Council, or cabinet, said in a document setting out the programme from 2014 to 2020.
"Weather modification has an important role to play in easing water shortages, reducing natural disasters, protecting ecology and even safeguarding important events," it added.
The figure of 60 billion cu m is equivalent to more than one-and-a-half times the volume of the Three Gorges reservoir, part of the world's largest hydropower plant.
In December, the Wyoming Weather Modification Pilot Program showed that cloud seeding produced a 3 percent increase in precipitation with a 28 percent probability that this result happened by chance.
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Deirdre Fulton
Deirdre Fulton is a former Common Dreams senior editor and staff writer. Previously she worked as an editor and writer for the Portland Phoenix and the Boston Phoenix, where she was honored by the New England Press Association and the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies. A Boston University graduate, Deirdre is a co-founder of the Maine-based Lorem Ipsum Theater Collective and the PortFringe theater festival. She writes young adult fiction in her spare time.
Within five years, China intends to use a dubious geoengineering technology known as 'cloud seeding' to induce more than 60 billion cubic meters of additional rain each year, its government said this week.
Backers of the program--which involves rocket-launching chemicals such as silver iodide into the clouds to allegedly boost rainfall--say the strategy aims to mitigate China's severe and growing water scarcity problem, which is exacerbated by demand from the industrial and power-generating sectors. The silver iodide droplets provide a nucleus within a cloud around which water can coalesce, forming raindrops or snowflakes.
Critics have long warned that geoengineering projects could have unintended, unknown side effects. Last year, former vice president Al Gore called geoengineered solutions to global warming "insane, utterly mad and delusional in the extreme."
"[T]he truth is that geoengineering is itself a rogue proposition," Naomi Klein wrote in 2012. "By definition, technologies that tamper with ocean and atmospheric chemistry affect everyone. Yet it is impossible to get anything like unanimous consent for these interventions. Nor could any such consent possibly be informed since we don't--and can't--know the full risks involved until these planet-altering technologies are actually deployed."
While China has a fifth of Earth's population yet only 7 percent of its freshwater resources, government reports have said that more than 70 percent of the country's rivers and lakes are polluted and almost half may contain water that is unfit for human consumption or contact.
The country launched its "human affected weather" program in 1958, and has since met a target of increasing artificial rain to more than 50 billion cubic meters per year.
According to Reuters:
China has already allocated funds of 6.51 billion yuan ($1.05 billion) for artificial weather creation since 2008, the State Council, or cabinet, said in a document setting out the programme from 2014 to 2020.
"Weather modification has an important role to play in easing water shortages, reducing natural disasters, protecting ecology and even safeguarding important events," it added.
The figure of 60 billion cu m is equivalent to more than one-and-a-half times the volume of the Three Gorges reservoir, part of the world's largest hydropower plant.
In December, the Wyoming Weather Modification Pilot Program showed that cloud seeding produced a 3 percent increase in precipitation with a 28 percent probability that this result happened by chance.
Deirdre Fulton
Deirdre Fulton is a former Common Dreams senior editor and staff writer. Previously she worked as an editor and writer for the Portland Phoenix and the Boston Phoenix, where she was honored by the New England Press Association and the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies. A Boston University graduate, Deirdre is a co-founder of the Maine-based Lorem Ipsum Theater Collective and the PortFringe theater festival. She writes young adult fiction in her spare time.
Within five years, China intends to use a dubious geoengineering technology known as 'cloud seeding' to induce more than 60 billion cubic meters of additional rain each year, its government said this week.
Backers of the program--which involves rocket-launching chemicals such as silver iodide into the clouds to allegedly boost rainfall--say the strategy aims to mitigate China's severe and growing water scarcity problem, which is exacerbated by demand from the industrial and power-generating sectors. The silver iodide droplets provide a nucleus within a cloud around which water can coalesce, forming raindrops or snowflakes.
Critics have long warned that geoengineering projects could have unintended, unknown side effects. Last year, former vice president Al Gore called geoengineered solutions to global warming "insane, utterly mad and delusional in the extreme."
"[T]he truth is that geoengineering is itself a rogue proposition," Naomi Klein wrote in 2012. "By definition, technologies that tamper with ocean and atmospheric chemistry affect everyone. Yet it is impossible to get anything like unanimous consent for these interventions. Nor could any such consent possibly be informed since we don't--and can't--know the full risks involved until these planet-altering technologies are actually deployed."
While China has a fifth of Earth's population yet only 7 percent of its freshwater resources, government reports have said that more than 70 percent of the country's rivers and lakes are polluted and almost half may contain water that is unfit for human consumption or contact.
The country launched its "human affected weather" program in 1958, and has since met a target of increasing artificial rain to more than 50 billion cubic meters per year.
According to Reuters:
China has already allocated funds of 6.51 billion yuan ($1.05 billion) for artificial weather creation since 2008, the State Council, or cabinet, said in a document setting out the programme from 2014 to 2020.
"Weather modification has an important role to play in easing water shortages, reducing natural disasters, protecting ecology and even safeguarding important events," it added.
The figure of 60 billion cu m is equivalent to more than one-and-a-half times the volume of the Three Gorges reservoir, part of the world's largest hydropower plant.
In December, the Wyoming Weather Modification Pilot Program showed that cloud seeding produced a 3 percent increase in precipitation with a 28 percent probability that this result happened by chance.
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.