Hurricane-Calming Technology?

[PersianPaladin]

http://www.usatoday.com/weather/research/2009-07-15-gates-hurricanes_N.htm

[Cookie]

really don't like the idea of messing with hurricanes or mother nature.

I don't want to see people lives being destroyed. but I don't think we should mess around with this kind of thing.

[dave48]

really don't like the idea of messing with hurricanes or mother nature.

I don't want to see people lives being destroyed. but I don't think we should mess around with this kind of thing.

I agree, I'm not to 'in to' hurricanes myself but as a general weather enthusiast I find them fascinating and to be honest find the biggest ones the most interesting.

Now obviously, no one wants to see loss of life or property but that is not the point here, the point is about messing with a climate that we already know so little about.

It's just my opinion, but I think controlling nature takes a lot of the 'fun' out of it, for example the difference between seeing captive and wild animals. I would hate to see the day that we have a captive atmosphere and while that will almost certainly not happen in my life time, it does cause me concern. As a weather enthusiast I obviously have a preference for the study of the weather than controlling it but I still think from a more general point of view this is a ridiculous idea. It's just another example of mankinds intolerance of the world around us and constant efforts to streamline our society at the expense of the natural world.

[Thundery wintry showers]

I have to say I'm getting increasingly tired of seeing the "we shouldn't mess with nature" argument (we see it a lot regarding geoengineering for example- where it's distinctly hypocritical as it says that humans shouldn't mess about with nature even though it's designed to counteract our messing about with nature!).

That argument could equally be applied in other fields- why have medicines and vaccinations because by having those we are messing with nature. Instead, we could let nature run its course, let scores of asthmatics end up on ventilators due to seasonal flu, scores of children get TB, and repeatedly say, "it is meant to be because everything happens for a reason". I'm pretty sure more of us would be interested in calming hurricanes if Britain was a hurricane hotspot (remember that there is a world of difference between an actual hurricane and a 70-90mph gale- even the storms of October 1987 and January 1990 were not as strong as your typical US hurricane).

These technologies are always prone to considerable risk though- there are question marks over whether it is worth the financial investment or whether saving one area could cause more devastation in another. The latter problem is the main reason why we have to be very careful over any climate engineering ideas.

I note that Microsoft has defined their patent as vaguely as possible so as to achieve as wide-reaching a range of implications as possible. It is no accident that Microsoft has a strong stance of protecting intellectual property to the max and widening its scope to the max, it benefits the big companies that already have a lot of power and strong IP to begin with. It also reflects a wider problem with patents in the USA, whereas I think of EU patent law as being pretty reasonable.