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China Is Splashing $168 Million To Make It Rain (fortune.com)
China, the world's second largest economy, is pouring 1.5 billion yuan ($168 million) into a program aimed at making it rain in its usually arid northwestern region. From a report: No stranger to using technologies like cloud seeding to influence and even control weather patterns, China's top economic planners recently gave the go ahead for what will be one of the country's largest weather-modification projects, reports the South China Morning Post. According to the Post, a feasibility study by the country's meteorological agency concluded that the three-year program could see a rise in precipitation over an area of 960,000 sq km, or as much as 10% of the country's landmass. The multi-million dollar budget allocated by the National Development and Reform Commission will reportedly cover the cost for four new aircraft and updates to eight existing planes, nearly 900 rocket launch systems and over 1,800 digital control devices.
Except what about the countries where that rain would otherwise have landed? Not such a problem if it would have landed over sea, but this will be in the middle of the continent. Not a very nice neighbour to have.
Oh great, one country hacks our elections, the other rains on them to affect voter turnout.
Table-ized A.I.
I sure hope COBRA doesn't get their hands on this technology...
"Usually arid northwestern region" indeed. They'd have better luck doing what Africa is doing to combat the spread of the Sahara -- e.g. restoring grasslands.
You can't change the amount of water in the sky. There are always enough nucleation sites for raindrops, especially in polluted China. And $168m isn't going to change global weather patterns.
Glad to see that China is becoming more like the US. Big contractors selling snake-oil to the government.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
The last thing they need is for it to be raining men.
I see it has been tried at various points but I don't see that it has a 'program' per se.
On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
There is an International Treaty banning the use of weather modification for hostile purposes I'm afraid.
On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
Yes, because if WWIII ever happens, everyone will follow all the existing international treaties. They should just sign a treaty agreeing to never engage in WWIII at all.
A rain shadow desert.
Any "countries where that rain would otherwise have landed" already got most of the moisture out of the air, which is why that place is a desert.
Cloud seeding is part of Chinese plan to build a Green Great Wall to stop the spread of the desert and the sandstorms.
Which seems to be doing something, at least in the sense that it is apparently lowering the water table in the areas where trees are planted.
Or that is at least what the opposition to the forestation program claims, suggesting instead simply fencing off the area and "nurturing the land by the land itself".
How would that create trees in areas which were "treeless in the last several thousand years", or how would temporary fencing off prevent sandstorms (even should grassland work that way) once the fences are removed and the grasslands are once again used for cattle grazing... the article doesn't mention that.
Then again, water levels have been dropping long before forestation project started. And trees are supposed to keep the water in the ground...
On the other hand, Epoch Times is more than a little a Falun Gong paper.
I.e. Whatever Chinese government does is wrong. While whatever Falun Gong does might get them arrested and "reeducated" by the government. Or harvested.
In any case, weather modification is being done in order to provide water for the Green Wall in the area which got desertified as the water from Shiyang River was used for irrigation upstream decades ago.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
That's a matter of interpretation of words. English is ambiguous, it has nowhere near the precision of say a programming language. I tried to keep it short rather than more accurate but fastidious and verbose because most readers in this context like it that way (for good or bad).
If a country exposes internal documents from one party but NOT the other party, and creates mass fake news stories in order to influence voter decisions, that is arguably still "hacking the election". If I wanted to say hacking the voting machines, I would have said hacking the voting machines. "Election" is a more general word/concept than "
I did not objectively say it wrong.
Table-ized A.I.