By Brandon Keim
Not content to push the edge in cloning, architecture and geological engineering, China’s also leaving the rest of the world behind when it comes to controlling the weather.
When next summer’s Olympics roll around, the Beijing Weather Modification Office will be poised to intercept incoming clouds, draining them before they get to the festivities. No fewer than 32,000 people nationwide are employed by the Weather Modification Office — “some of them farmers, who are paid $100 a month to handle anti-aircraft guns and rocket launchers” loaded with cloud-seeding compounds.
Some estimate that up to 50 billion tons of artificial rain will be produced by 2010. But Taylor noted that this has resulted in competition between cities to seed clouds first, and bitter acrimony when when region receives water claimed by another.
1 response so far ↓
prof.T.Shivaji Rao // November 19, 2007 at 2:11 pm
China is world Leader in Cloud seeding
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China plans to produce 60 to 65 billion tons of additional annual rainfall at an inexpensive cost of US.$0.02 per cubic meter at a benefit to cost ratio of 15:1.China uses 37,000 technicians including 100% of their meteorologists who are patriotic and hence bent upon tapping more water needed by the farmers who are facing droughts frequently by clud seeding.Many poor countries like India have innumerable scientists and meteorologists who are not interested in copying the chinese example to augment annual rainfall by about 40% as secured by Japan and China to serve the needs of the farmers.Even the intellectuals of India are not creating awareness about how China is fighting the wter scarcity by cloud seeding as practised by Thailand since a long time.International funding agencies like World Bank and IMF must insist on cloud seeding for national development so that the new prosperity enables the aid-receiving countries to repay the debts in time due to increased production in agriculture and industrialisation in the developing countries.For more details , see web :http://www.indiawaterportal.org/blog/
prof.T.Shivaji Rao