Dominance
The Chinese goverment is so badass that it even represses the weather....
"CHINESE officials are preparing to go to extraordinary lengths to prevent rain marring the opening ceremony at the Beijing Olympic Games next year.I hate to think what they'll to to people that really piss them off...
Meteorologists will team with the military to fire rockets into the sky in an extreme form of climate control if rain looms."
posted by Tom Gara at 7:21 AM
11 Comments:
I have this vision in my head of a Community Party member screaming at an incoming rain clouds "do you want a piece of me ?!!take this !!" and launch the rockets dr. Evil style.
8:03 AM
Well, the central government can already make it rain whenever they want it to...preventing rain should be a piece of cake!
9:48 AM
It's like a story line from a Bond movie that never quite made it...
"I hate to think what they'll to to people that really piss them off..."
There are people stupid enough to try that? :P
9:55 AM
Exactly. They shot up gunpowder to make rain back in 1894 already, we are trying to catch up.
At least military can be put into another use... surprising, isn't it? Make clear sky, not war.
10:02 AM
Idea for opportunistic AIESECr:
Bring this technology ('cloudseeding', I think) to agricultural regions of the world plagued by droughts.
3:45 PM
i'm no expert - but i think it only works when there is already a fair bit of moisture in the air/clouds already. It can't just pull water out of nowhere - it just "encourages" rain that was going to happen anyhow to happen sooner...
wikipedia has the details...
plus, unbelievably, wikipedia has this fact:
"Noted atmospheric scientist Bernard Vonnegut (brother of novelist Kurt Vonnegut) is credited with discovering the potential of silver iodide for use in cloud seeding during 1946"
its all one great whirling interconnected something or other that we ride around in...
9:39 PM
Piss of the Chinese Government Pierre? Hehe I'd like to do it once virtually - like get blocked by their online whatchamacallit censor things.
1:41 AM
Ehrm... arent we demonising the Chinese government a bit here guys?
If for instance it was... oh I dont know...Sweden? doing this 'prevent rain from falling' stunt, I have a sneaky suspicion that the comments might be more like, 'those innovative Scandivanians!'
I vaguely remember watching a BBC program where it was British scientists pioneering this, 'shoot-a-rocket-into-a-rain-cloud-to-dissipiate-it' business. The Chinese are probably borrowing this from them
Just a little more perspective :-)
And oh yeah Pierre... the USA is the biggest kid on the block. They have the largest number of people trying to piss them off! You can bet the bigger China gets, the more people will get in line to piss them off! Haha!
7:48 AM
Whilst this is somewhat amusing it is certainly not new news. The use of rockets to either disperse clouds or conversely to make it rain in Beijing is a practise that has been going on for years and most people already know about it.
I remember a highly entertaining interview in a popular English language Beijing infotainment magazine with one of the guys that rides around with a 40-something year old rocket launcher strapped to the back of a truck to do it.
I wonder why this "news" is being trotted out again.
Cheers,
Nick
8:46 AM
hahhahah
as usually people give political connotation to the whole thing:)
i dont see it as China demonstration power or innovation or else...
i see it purely as good and free PR to sell tickets...
and nothing else :)
cheers
12:19 PM
Maybe we're a bit skeptical because China is at the bottom of the list in terms of transparent government, and is approaching the bottom in terms of the environment. Plus, China's recent history includes what's likely the biggest genocide in all of human history-- how big? We don't know because of the first point I made.
But hey, go ahead and accuse me of being racist and xenophobic-- it's the easy way out.
2:29 PM
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