Chicken Little: The Sky is Not Falling… Yet!
What have we done to our world, to our children’s futures!? Is this the end? Is this how “the end” starts, exceptionally hot summers and inexplicably mild winters with a near total absence of precipitation? This is hardly news, except the Lebanese have had their heads up their ----- for so long, consumed as they are by their petty quarrels, that they have failed to notice: our weather is changing. Well, decidedly that, it has officially changed.
Most of you out there are probably in denial just about now, trying to convince yourselves that this is just a fluke, a really long freak weather pattern that will resolve itself soon. Meanwhile, other Arab countries, among them Syria, have been doing something about it since the problem of water shortage in the Arab world began getting critical in the mid-1980s.
Cloud seeding, while not universally accepted, is one option to increasing the amount of rainfall in the winter months. It’s certainly better than watching clouds drifting by or having one’s head in them as our government seems to have!
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) views cloud seeding favorably. An excerpt from a UNEP report states: “There are regions in West Asia that could potentially benefit from this technology, including the coastal mountains in the eastern Mediterranean, in Yemen and the Saudi Arabian highlands along the Red Sea, and some internal regions.”
The report goes on to add: “Despite the diversity of opinions on the feasibility of the technology, primarily because of the difficulties in assessing its results, the prevailing opinion is that it has reached a relatively advanced stage of application, and it can be considered one of the technologies capable of contributing to the augmentation of freshwater supplies in semi-arid regions.”
Believe it or not the technology of cloud seeding is relatively simple: most popular methods of “seeding” clouds, usually with the chemical compound Silver Iodide (AgI), involves aircraft spraying it into the clouds. Both fixed wing aircraft and helicopters can be used. Otherwise, the agent can be dispersed using ground generators that create a cloud of silver iodide that slowly drifts upwards to the clouds. A less conventional method would be to bombard the clouds with the chemical using anti-aircraft guns or rockets. Finally, a useful application for Hizbullah’s rocket stockpile!
So, how does it work? The UNEP report states: “The technology of cloud seeding is based on the principle of introducing artificial frost nuclei to the already-existing natural frost nuclei within clouds.” This apparently induces rain to fall, and in some instances snow to fall over mountains.
The report points out that several countries, especially those in arid and semi-arid regions, have used this technology to try to increase rainfall volumes. “Experiments in Russia, United States of America, Australia, China, India, Morocco, Syria and other countries have demonstrated that artificial cloud seeding can increase the quantity of rainfall between five to 20 percent over large areas and relatively long durations (monthly or over the rainy season),” according to the report.
The cost, you ask: well the UNEP estimates it to range between $0.016 and $0.113 per cubic meter of water generated from rainfall. I’m no financial analyst, but that does not sound too bad.
Of course, no technology can halt the irreparable damage to our local flora and what’s left or our fauna, much of which, including our proud Cedar, will likely die out if temperatures continue to rise. How people and religions will interpret this is beyond the scope of this blog, I neither wish to examine this nor delve into the psyche of the human parasite and its feeble response to natural disasters. Suffice to say, we are a cork bobbing on the raging sea of our living and ever changing Earth, deal with it!
Most of you out there are probably in denial just about now, trying to convince yourselves that this is just a fluke, a really long freak weather pattern that will resolve itself soon. Meanwhile, other Arab countries, among them Syria, have been doing something about it since the problem of water shortage in the Arab world began getting critical in the mid-1980s.
Cloud seeding, while not universally accepted, is one option to increasing the amount of rainfall in the winter months. It’s certainly better than watching clouds drifting by or having one’s head in them as our government seems to have!
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) views cloud seeding favorably. An excerpt from a UNEP report states: “There are regions in West Asia that could potentially benefit from this technology, including the coastal mountains in the eastern Mediterranean, in Yemen and the Saudi Arabian highlands along the Red Sea, and some internal regions.”
The report goes on to add: “Despite the diversity of opinions on the feasibility of the technology, primarily because of the difficulties in assessing its results, the prevailing opinion is that it has reached a relatively advanced stage of application, and it can be considered one of the technologies capable of contributing to the augmentation of freshwater supplies in semi-arid regions.”
Believe it or not the technology of cloud seeding is relatively simple: most popular methods of “seeding” clouds, usually with the chemical compound Silver Iodide (AgI), involves aircraft spraying it into the clouds. Both fixed wing aircraft and helicopters can be used. Otherwise, the agent can be dispersed using ground generators that create a cloud of silver iodide that slowly drifts upwards to the clouds. A less conventional method would be to bombard the clouds with the chemical using anti-aircraft guns or rockets. Finally, a useful application for Hizbullah’s rocket stockpile!
So, how does it work? The UNEP report states: “The technology of cloud seeding is based on the principle of introducing artificial frost nuclei to the already-existing natural frost nuclei within clouds.” This apparently induces rain to fall, and in some instances snow to fall over mountains.
The report points out that several countries, especially those in arid and semi-arid regions, have used this technology to try to increase rainfall volumes. “Experiments in Russia, United States of America, Australia, China, India, Morocco, Syria and other countries have demonstrated that artificial cloud seeding can increase the quantity of rainfall between five to 20 percent over large areas and relatively long durations (monthly or over the rainy season),” according to the report.
The cost, you ask: well the UNEP estimates it to range between $0.016 and $0.113 per cubic meter of water generated from rainfall. I’m no financial analyst, but that does not sound too bad.
Of course, no technology can halt the irreparable damage to our local flora and what’s left or our fauna, much of which, including our proud Cedar, will likely die out if temperatures continue to rise. How people and religions will interpret this is beyond the scope of this blog, I neither wish to examine this nor delve into the psyche of the human parasite and its feeble response to natural disasters. Suffice to say, we are a cork bobbing on the raging sea of our living and ever changing Earth, deal with it!
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