Beyond Climate Change

Would our military consider Weather System Engineering and Modification a weapon of mass destruction?

I have always rejected the term Climate Change. Climate, by its very nature, is changing. There is no part of Earth's climate that isn't in a perpetual state of change. Climate Change is an oxymoron.

Having said that, as the climate changes, it obviously has effects on our lives. So the degree of change and the duration of any specific direction of change are important to the stability of life on Earth. So let's all agree, Climate is important. As it changes it can be dangerous, but that is a given.

The question should be, to what degree should we interfere with our climate, and just who should be in charge of those programs?

Understanding climate better is an important science and dealing with its impacts are important civil policy goals. Irrigation and flood control, heat and fire mitigation, air conditioning, erosion and wind protection, and the capture of these forces to generate energy, are all important initiatives. Ocean levels, polar ice caps, cold and warm water ocean currents, and solar flares are all important contributors to weather instability and change. When you look at the immense amounts of energy each of these elements require, and how they are manifested by massive forces like solar radiation, magnetic and gravitational fields and atmospheric pressures, it makes mankind's influences seem inconsequential. Man's passive impact on weather is nominal at best.

But what about affecting climate on purpose? Have you heard about weather system modification? Is it a pipe dream or is it real?

We used Operation Popeye to seed clouds and prolong the Monsoon Season in North Vietnam to slow down enemy assaults on allied forces during the Vietnam War. That was over fifty years ago. Imagine how far that technology has advanced now.

Are we approaching a time when our technology can affect change on natural weather systems? Can we reroute high pressure systems and effectively send storms into another geographic area entirely? Could certain kinds of energy weapons push a mounting winter snow storm out of the Pacific, headed for Oregon and California and send it up over the Cascades and into the Northern Hemisphere? And if we could do that, would we? Would our military consider Weather System Engineering and Modification a weapon of mass destruction?

Why wouldn't it?

Do you think scientists would ignore collateral evidence that car emissions and cattle farts can change the weather, and not ask, why can't we do that too? In fact, wouldn't it make more sense to tackle climate change with a proactive technological strategy than to simply try to eliminate the single most evolutionary product in mankind's history, fossil fuels?

Wouldn't that be cutting off your nose despite your face?

It makes sense to at least try to understand what can and can't be done, what amount of influence man can direct towards massive weather systems to "manage" the damage those storms can inflict. We have been working very hard since WWII to fully understand and domesticate nuclear energy. As our knowledge of weather energy systems increases, we realize how dangerous they can be if harnessed for military purposes. But like nuclear energy, if we loose control of it, we may be committing worldwide suicide.

Do we trust our leadership to limit their weather manipulation technology development to purely humanitarian applications? What about the leadership of authoritarian states like North Korea and Red China? Or what about politicians that make Climate Change the central part of all of their legislative initiatives? Do they have the temperament to be trusted to avoid weaponization of the technology?

Can we trust politicians to tackle this threat in a cool and calculated way? The same folks we have trusted to protect our financial systems and keep us out of wars?

Pardon me if I am skeptical.