China to Use Silver Iodide & Dry Ice to Control the Weather 387
eldavojohn writes "While we made light of it before, the MIT Review is taking a serious look at China's plans to prevent rain over their open 91,000 seat arena for The Olympics. From the article: 'China's national weather-engineering program is also the world's largest, with approximately 1,500 weather modification professionals directing 30 aircraft and their crews, as well as 37,000 part-time workers — mostly peasant farmers — who are on call to blast away at clouds with 7,113 anti-aircraft guns and 4,991 rocket launchers.' They plan on demonstrating their ability to control the weather to the rest of the world, and expanding on their abilities in the future."
Hmmm... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hmmm... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Hmmm... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hmmm... (Score:4, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Hmmm...Here We Go Again (Score:5, Funny)
China alleged that the violent weather activities were "masterminded" by the Mother Nature "clique" with the "vicious intention" of undermining the Olympics and splitting China. Mother Nature has denied the charge, and said she is ready for a dialogue with Beijing.
Re:Hmmm...Here We Go Again (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Sad, funny, History repeating itself (Score:5, Interesting)
"the country's biggest four evils - rats, flies, mosquitoes and sparrows? "
Read the article (those of you who don't know this important bit of history so we don't repeat it)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3371659.stm [bbc.co.uk]
which ended in disaster and famine. Well now its the weather. Too bad the weather in one part of the world effects all other parts, the butterfly effect.
Between genetic engineering on the "oh it will be alright, we have taken into consideration all the possible consequenses" and massive weather modification (for some games). I think we have made great evolutionary progress towards total survival and total good life for everone forever, don't you?
And all they need... (Score:5, Funny)
Wyoming Tested This (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Wyoming Tested This (Score:4, Interesting)
Very true, but one thing to consider:
91,000 seats at this stadium.
37,000 workers for weather control
Probably another 5000 general workers in and around the stadium (at a minimum)
133,000 people in the 'effect' area.
Now consider that Wyoming is a very large state, and only has a population of 493,782.
To me, that seems like a rather large concentration of people who will be exposed to this.
No, they will not (Score:4, Informative)
Re:No, they will not (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
DOH!
Re:No, they will not (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wyoming Tested This (Score:5, Funny)
Actually, this is used a lot. (Score:3, Insightful)
Cloud seeding has been used in Alberta too (Score:5, Insightful)
For the past dozen years, the government has regularly seeded clouds in its hail damage mitigation programme [weathermod.com]. As a Calgary resident I can say that it has noticeably reduced the frequency and intensity of hail storms, and has probably contributed to millions of dollars in savings in disaster relief and insurance claims.
Given that this is not only an old practice, but one that occurs frequently around the world, I don't see where the news-worthiness or controversy is in China's application of cloud seeding to divert precipitation from Beijing during Olympic events, aside from the mildly amusing reason behind the project.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The quantities and dispersion of chemicals involved in cloud seeding are infinitesimally small in comparison to the amounts of CO2 and CH4 released into the atmosphere, both from natural and man-made sources. Humans no doubt have an impact on climate, however I don't think we've even come close to mastering CONTROL of the climate on a global scale. Cloud seeding is quite localised and doesn't really work precisely enoug
All part of the master plan (Score:3, Funny)
Step 2 -- sharks with lasers
Step 3 -- Global domination!
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Step 5 -- Profit!!!
Also from the article... (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone please try to justify evicting one and a half million people for the Olympics.
I'm sure someone will try...which just proves that China's subtle information campaigns to attempt to make the world think that everything is rosy or somehow justified are working like a charm.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
On the other hand, from a Chinese collectivist, 'end's justify the means' perspective, why does it matter if 1.5 million drones are relocated?
Equally valid perspectives (Score:2)
On the other hand, from a Chinese collectivist, 'end's justify the means' perspective, why does it matter if 1.5 million drones are relocated?
For some reason people don't own up to one perspective being better or worse than the other. This mediocrity in critical thinking presumably greases the wheels, so I'm not saying it's a bad thing.
However... the Chinese perspective is equally valid if, and only if, conflict is an equally v
Re:Also from the article... (Score:5, Informative)
Eminent Domain (Score:5, Interesting)
In ATL, the citizens at least could use the 5th Amendment's taking clause [wikipedia.org] to get just compensation for any property lost to the government.
I had to look, but China does surprisingly have a version of the "eminent domain" clause in their Constitution [peopledaily.com.cn] - See #6 of "Amendment Fourth" down the page. Note it doesn't say "just compensation"... it just says they can take private property, and pay you something for it. Somehow I don't think, unless you are a Communist party big-wig, that value is decided by an impartial tribunal in a court of law.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Just Kidding. It's crazy. COHRE(the source for the estimate) does pretty much seem to hate the Olympics though:
http://www.cohre.org/view_page.php?page_id=268 [cohre.org]
Are you planning on not watching the Olympics and stepping up efforts not to buy products from China? Beyond that, there is approximately fuck all that citizens of other countries can do about it.
Re: (Score:2)
Are you planning on not watching the Olympics and stepping up efforts not to buy products from China? Beyond that, there is approximately fuck all that citizens of other countries can do about it.
Olympics? Maybe, not sure yet.
Products from China? I do avoid, whenever possible. Especially with my kids' toys and food products. Found that there is a lot of decent convenience foods we import into the states from Canada. Those chicken dinosaurs from CA are waaaay better too (I actually like them).
-nB
What does China gain from hosting these? (Score:3, Interesting)
So my question is, other than saying "we hosted the olympics in 2009", what benefit is it to them to do so? I'd think that they'd get more res
Re:What does China gain from hosting these? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What does China gain from hosting these? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
May some are going to make money from it: travel agencies, advertisers, etc, but I think the profit is relegated to a limited number of pockets, and I'm not so sure that the gov't pockets (aka the taxpayers) will be one of them, exce
Re:What does China gain from hosting these? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Basically, they can't win for losing. Here are some examples of what the average Westerner thinks of China and the Chinese:
1. There are a lot of them, and living conditions universally suck (but they don't know it because the Great Firewall won't let them go to those sites)
2. They pr
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I pretty much agree that the Olympics are going to be a huge expenditure with few tangible results, but I find it pretty unsurprising China is so gung-ho about this. In my opinion, hosting the Olympic games satisfies several agendas:
The number 8 as in 8/8/8 (Score:5, Interesting)
Assuming you meant to say "2008" rather than "2009", I can only give you a partial answer. More specifically as to why it has to be 2008.
In Chinese culture, as well as other Asian cultures that share that heritage, the number 8 is a very lucky number and is also associated with prosperity. This belief is also applied into dates. The olympics is scheduled to start on August 8, 2008, or in number representation 8/8/8. I recall back in August 8th of 1988 (8/8/88), many Asian people where I lived (San Gabriel Valley, California which is otherwise known as the new LA Chinatown) bought up many lotto and lottery tickets.
I would imagine this number thing is so central in their beliefs such that the Chinese govt must really want to display prosperity.
Re: (Score:2)
I share the general sense of outrage at the US's under-handed government oppression, including grotesque over
Re: (Score:2)
While I share the general sense of outrage at China's heavy-handed government oppression, including grotesque overspending on ill-conceived megaprojects that largely benefit a small number of high-placed stakeholders (three Gorges Damn, the Olympics) at the expense of the public good, I'm not sure that - at least in America - we're not living in a glass house. Let me rephrase the above to show why:
The difference between America and China is that you are free to speak your criticisms of the American Government without fear of punishment from said Government.
Re: (Score:2)
Care to point out the part of the Patriot Act that would authorize the Government to jail me if I protested our policies towards some repressed/conquered ethic group (say Native Americans)?
Re:Also from the article... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not being an apologist. I'm horrified at some of the actions undertaken by my Government in recent years. But anybody with any sense of objectivity can see that it's not nearly as bad as what's going on in China right now. Or Pakistan. Or Burma. Our people aren't jailed if they speak out against Government policy towards an oppressed/conquered racial group. Our opposition leaders aren't being assassinated. Our Supreme Court isn't under house arrest.
I will speak out against human rights abuses by any Government, including my own. This idea that we don't have the right to point out abuses in other countries because our own isn't 100% perfect benefits nobody besides the oppressive nations of the World.
Re: (Score:2)
By the numbers YOU quoted, that's 1/10th of 1% of their population.
Slum improvement (Score:2)
Re:Also from the article... (Score:5, Informative)
Depends what happend to those 1.5M people (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Also from the article... (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
That's more of a case of white people not helping black people out, than it is a case of white people forcibly evicting black people. As it is, the USA has put more money into that city as of late than most of the rest of the world's cities have ever received in the aftermath of a natural disaster. And, to top it all off, New Orleans should now be getting a share of the gulf oil money.
Bush failed in New Orleans. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm a long time Bush supporter and I have to concede that I was very disappointed with the way that he handled Katrina. Let me put it this way. If I was President, I'd have had an army in there on day one, stopping at every Home Depot on the way to pick up stuff to build with and sending the bills to Congress. I'd have had generators in there and the water out. That didn't take place. It doesn't mean that he's racist, as the original poster states, and nor does it absolve the local residents from their own admittedly corrupt local government, but, by the same token, when a man is drowning, you don't sit there and yell at him for not following proper safety regulations on the boat. You pull him out.
I wanted to see Bush with the megaphone in downtown New Orleans, the same way as he was on top of the WTC rubble. I thought that moment in September in NYC so long ago was Bush about as good as a President could get, and by contrast, the Bush we got for Katrina flew over the region in Air Force one, delegated the disaster to a low level functionary that wound up failing at the job, and then, to top it all off, gave us some vague excuses about seperation of federal powers and the posse commitatas act. The guy was already breaking the law doing wiretaps without a court order, so, if you are going to argue the President can bend the rules to protect the American people, then he should have bent them in New Orleans.
I mean, if Bush could muster the national purpose to turn an attack by a rogue group into an invasion of not one, but TWO countries, certainly going against the spirit of our own signing of the UN Treaty, then, he could have bent a few rules, and been that figurehead again, and mounted a national effort to rebuild New Orleans. The man had an opportunity to become a living legend, and he blew it, and America is lesser for it.
Re:Bush failed in New Orleans. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Bush failed in New Orleans. (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Also from the article... (Score:5, Informative)
First, the "big box" stores like Wal-Mart, Target, Home Depot, etc. try to find unoccupied land when they can because it's cheaper. Sure, in urbanized areas that's difficult or impossible, which is why their second choice is demolishing/renovating older shopping centers, warehouses, and so forth. There's several of these going on within ten miles of my home right now. Again, this is cheaper (and easier on the PR) than going after residential areas. The absolute last choice is a residential area because it's more expensive, more time consuming, and -- as you've noted in your argument -- it pisses people off sometimes.
Second, I question your use of the term "evict." Evict means they're forcibly parted from their property. This does happen from time to time, and when it does it makes news. There have been documented cases of eminent domain abuse centered around these types of stores, and you're quite right to complain about them. That is your argument: the encroachment on private property rights by local city zoning councils (which are after sales tax dollars) and the businesses they "work" for (who want your sales dollars and pay politicians with campaign contributions). You hurt yourself, though, by claiming it happens "almost every 6 months" to 30 families. The aforementioned abuses are inexcusable, but they are much rarer than you claim.
Third, you attempt to draw some equivalence between China displacing 1.5M people and our eminent domain abuses. That is a poor analogy for many reasons, not the least of which is that the Chinese have much more limited property rights than Americans do to begin with. Also, using your very own numbers, you claim 30 families are uprooted every six months in the U.S., and you claim it's been going on "for decades." By my calculations on your numbers (numbers I disagree with, BTW), the "fuckers in the USA" displace a maximum of 60 families a year. Assuming 3 people constitutes a family, that's 180 people per year. At this rate it would take over eight thousand years for the "fuckers in the USA" to displace 1.5M people, something the Chinese are doing in far less than a decade. Even that number pales when compared to the relocation required for the Three Gorges Dam project. Yet you seem to have a problem determining the difference in scale, morally equivocating one to the other.
Like I said, your argument against eminent domain abuses are quite valid, but your exaggeration and hyperbole degenerates your argument into frothing at the mouth. What we're doing with eminent domain abuse in this country is bad, but what's going on in places like China is much, much worse...so much so that it really diminishes the more egregious abuse by trying to link it with the lesser abuse.
Boycott the Genocide Olympics (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Boycott the Genocide Olympics (Score:5, Insightful)
Saying "Foreign involvement and investment in Sudan might actually be helping the place" is ridiculous. It's like saying that you can send 10,000 pounds of cereal to a corrupt African government and actually expect them to pass the food on to their starving citizens. The reason their citizens are starving is precisely because of government corruption and interference. Those people are never going to see the food if you give it to their government.
Likewise, expecting a government that is actively slaughtering its people to somehow pass on any of their profits to those same people is ludicrous. The companies you reference are doing business with the government, not with the country's population, and certainly not with any resident of the Darfur region.
control the air (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:control the air (Score:5, Funny)
A time-tested technology (Score:2, Interesting)
And wouldn't you know ... (Score:2, Funny)
Isn't silver bad for you???? (Score:3, Insightful)
If china pumps a ton of this stuff out, this will obviously get into the drinking water and then the athletes will drink that water as well as the local citizens and so you get blue skinned Chinese and athletes!
I think the US, UK, and its allies should boycott the Olympics. Of course I'd like our country to show China that democracy is way better than communism like we did to the Russians back in the hey-day, but China has smog (high levels of mercury and lead than any smog city in the world) and now silver iodide in their drinking water. I wouldn't want our strapping young athletes to end up with lungs like that of a smoker and have asthma attacks.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colloidal_silver [wikipedia.org]
It causes a condition called Argyria, which turns the skin permanently blueish-gray.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argyria [wikipedia.org]
I'm not sure if other silver-based chemicals also have the same effect or not.
Check out this dude who took too much of the stuff:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XV0I6Q70Yw [youtube.com]
---
In soviet china, every cloud has a silver lining. Weather they like it or not!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Bad for you? The Chinese government seems to think it's ok...do you have a problem with the Chinese government?
So China...wanna buy some Agent Orange? I hear it's great for clearing brush before construction jobs...and perfectly safe!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I know there's this concoction (that has silver)...
You are thinking of Colloidal Silver [wikipedia.org]. Silver is a natural antibiotic and quite a lot of it can be drank daily. A topical form, Silver Sulfadiazine [wikipedia.org], is often prescribed for severe burns.
...that if you take too much of it turns your skin blue and is irreversible.
The condition of drinking way too much of this is called Argyria [wikipedia.org].
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The libertarian candidate for Senator from Montana on the last go around took too much before Y2K, and he's as blue as his suit jacket! IMHO, didn't help the libertaria
Good lord.... (Score:2)
Isn't this from a spongebob episode, where plankton tried, yet again, to conquer the world?
"Die cursed, usurper clouds! Die!!!"
One Big Butterfly (Score:2)
Well, isn't that convenient... (Score:3, Funny)
Let's just hope the farmers load the shells from the wooden boxes with the clouds on them, not the skull and crossbones, during the Olympics.
Where's the tag (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Where's the tag (Score:5, Funny)
missing tag: whatcouldpossibleygowrong (Score:2)
RS
Re: (Score:2)
Cloud seeding works about as well as ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Messing with climate oscillations (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Hey I'm as leery of screwing with Mother Nature as the next guy, but let's not forget that Mother Nature was dangerous way before [wikipedia.org] we had the technology to "screw with" her and will remain so regardless of any technological advances that we may make.
At last.... (Score:5, Funny)
Now I can sleep happy knowing that the Chinese are going to be spraying them into the atmosphere. I'm not a chemist, but as someone with an interest in photography, I predict a negative effect on our climate which may take some time to develop but will take a whole lot of sodium thiosulfate to fix!
This Reminds Me (Score:5, Interesting)
The first was from the Lonely Planet's China guide, wherein one of the contributors said he was an avid jogger who moved to Beijing. Upon discovering the poor air quality, he decided it was better for his health to stop jogging.
The second was the funny and sad story of the fate of songbirds in Beijing. Apparently, Chairman Mao hated them. So he commanded all the citizens of the city to go outside and bang on pots and pans. The birds, scared by the racket, flew around and around until they dropped dead out of the sky from exhaustion. Subsequently, the insect population soared without the birds to keep them in check.
A reasonable person might have concluded that they should bring back the birds and restore equilibrium, but not Mao. He then decreed that since insects were breeding in the grass and vegetation in the capitol, that everyone should turn out and uproot all the plants and soak the trees down with DDT (a practice which continues to this day, in fact). Then, with no ground-level vegetation around, the city began to experience vexing dust storms.
The Chinese Communist Party efficiently proclaimed it a consequence of being downwind from the massive Soviet industrial complexes in Siberia.
The third anecdote involves the Three Gorges Dam. When the it looked like the CCP would put the plans into action, scientists and experts from around the world unanimously proclaimed it a Bad Idea. It would wipe out endangered species. It would erase one of the two greatest cultural and scenic features of China: the Three Gorges are somewhat analogous to the Grand Canyon and have inspired Chinese poets and artists for thousands of years. It would prove ineffective in generating power over the long run due to the rapid silting up of the reservoir. It would dislocate millions of people pushed out by the rising waters. It would create a potential disaster for the people living downstream (including Shanghai, one of the most densely populated cities in the world), because the dam itself was built across several faults.
But the CCP went ahead, because nature and man must be subsumed beneath the needs of the proletariat. Now it turns out, once the reservoir is filling, that all those concerns were true. For instance, the increased weight of water in the reservoir above the fault lines has accelerated the number of temblors. Also, with restricted water flow, regions downstream are experiencing drought (an unexpected consequence). And with the reduced water flow, pollution has become more concentrated and caused public health problems. And the last unexpected consequence is that the increased water levels in the reservoir have triggered all kinds of landslides.
In short, China's approach to the environment is nothing short of a disaster. And unhappily for them, the effects of the disaster are immediately felt and born by the rank-and-file Chinese, given the high population density. Yet because of the totalitarian presence of the CCP and its totalizing ideology and propaganda, the country and its people are unable to efficiently evaluate proposals and effectively respond to problems.
It's sad, because the Chinese are an incredibly inventive and resourceful group. They've given so much to the world. One wonders what they could achieve in a free and open society. But alas, they have, at least for the time being, chosen to handicap themselves with a system that turns all their genius to idiocy.
The rest of us should observe, and take notes for our own societies.
Not Songbirds Sparrows. (Score:5, Interesting)
Interestingly enough just at the same time that China was facing this massive grain shortage Russia called in, loans that it had outstanding demanding grain and other food in payment. Rather than Default the communists forced the loans to be paid but that ended whatever positive relationship the two countries had. All through the 80's when people talked of a "Communist Conspiracy" they ignored the fact that after that little stunt the Chinese hated the Russians.
One possible consequence of cloud seeding may be hinted at in this Guardian article RAF Rainmakers 'caused 1952 flood' [guardian.co.uk] Let's hope that isn't the case.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
RE: killing the birds:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_sparrow_campaign [wikipedia.org]
"It was decided that all the peasants in China should bang pots and pans and run around to make the sparrows fly away in fear."
Eye witness account of Great Sparrow Campaign:
http://zonaeuropa.com/20061130_1.htm [zonaeuropa.com]
"As I recalled, my fellow students and I climbed onto some tall trees on the side of the road and banged our gongs, drums, washbasins and anything else that can make loud noises. The sparrows were forc
Just goes to show... (Score:2)
"Weather modification professionals???" (Score:3, Funny)
The Red Chinese are looking more like bludgeoning buffoons every day.
.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Proof that it works (Score:2)
The only people who claim it really works are the rainmakers themselves.
Silicon Valley's weather modification program (Score:3, Interesting)
Santa Clara County, California used to have a weather modification program. [allenpress.com] It's Silicon Valley now, but it used to be a prime agricultural area; it has great topsoil. But it doesn't get quite enough rain.
So, for about thirty years, when rain clouds were passing over but it wasn't raining, the call went out to all the silver-iodide stations to start up their generators. These were basically oil burners that put out a smoke column with silver iodide in it.
It helped a little, enough to be statistically significant, but it wasn't spectacular. Beijing is putting in about 100x the effort to cover about 1/10 the area of the Santa Clare Valley effort, so they might get a useful effect.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Nice. Instead of raining water, it will rain lead. Good thinking china.
Then it rains bullets.
Then it rains rockets.
Then it rains assorted aircraft parts.
Finally, much to the sha-grin of the Weather Girls, it's raining men!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:More money!? (Score:5, Interesting)
Around $2 billion, which is less than a week's trade imbalance with the US. [census.gov] So don't worry, they can afford it easily. Where were the last 10 things made that you bought recently?
The interesting part (Score:3, Interesting)
But I also suspect that EU (and perhaps the west) will use issue of CO2 as
Re: (Score:2)
Re:More money!? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Everybody knows that the Aerospace industry, Oil companies, and by extension the Airlines are controlled by the Masons. They are the ones that from the Shadow government with the Greys that are doing the Chemtrail tests. And yes Cleveland is a major target of the tests. Why else do you think they put the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame there!
Please get your facts right and stop
Re:China weather control open, US CLOSED! (Score:4, Insightful)
Lets say YOU are in charge of a secret government program to try and control the weather. If you needed to conduct these tests would you:
A. Fly planes and dump chemicals over Cleveland, Ohio. Where any joe sixpack can look up and see the results.
B. Fly planes in one of the vast territories in which the human population is so sparse that you could walk in a straight line for days before even encountering a road? Or, barring that, the Pacific Ocean?
Extra Credit!!!!
For what nefarious purpose is the US government conspiring to control the sunny days in Cleveland?
Re: (Score:2)