Inciting people to rage against their neighbour in the name of the environment, or because of concerns about the climate, has been a constant part of human society’s obsession with who’s to blame for acts of God, or natural disasters.
In the pagan tribal cultures of the Americas, a bad crop meant another child sacrifice. Described by Cortez as ‘the most horrid and abominable custom; where many girls and boys and even adults, and in the presence of these idols they open their chests while they are still alive and take out their hearts and entrails and burn them before the idols, offering the smoke as sacrifice.’
In the 2nd Century, the formidable, North African theologian, Tertullian, noted that the causes of public evils were maliciously blamed on Christians:
…If Tiber overflows, and Nile does not; if heaven stands still and withholds its rain, and the earth quakes ; if famine or pestilence take their marches through the country, the word is, Away with these Christians to the lion! (Apology, Chapter XL)
To which Tertullian asks where were the Christians when Pompeii was consumed by Vesuvius, or when Hannibal threatened Rome?:
Plato tells of a tract of land bigger than Asia and Africa together, devoured by the Atlantic Ocean. Besides, an earthquake drank up the Corinthian Sea, and an impetuous force of water tore off Lucania from Italy, and banished it into an island, which goes now by the name of Sicily. Now these devastations of whole countries I hardly believe you will deny to be public calamities…
We have not a word of complaint against the Christians from Tuscany or Campania, when Heaven shot his flames upon Volsinium, and Vesuvius discharged his upon Pompeium. Was there any worshipper of the true God at Rome when Hannibal made such havoc of the Romans at Cannae, and computed the numbers of the slaughtered gentry by bushels of rings picked up after the battle? (Apology, Chapter XL)
Today, the darker corners of the internet bubble and hiss with the hideous use of the term “deniers”, an emotionally charged term nefariously employed as newspeak, in order to lay blame for the alleged “climate change holocaust” on anyone critical of the prevailing apocalyptic climate change hypothesis.
Add on to this the equally grotesque blame game which claims that Jews are in control of the weather.
Then there are extreme anti-Chemtrail advocates who, according to the BBC, view chemical trails in the sky as evidence of ‘a massive, secret government conspiracy to control the weather; that secret powerful groups are spraying us with chemicals to make us pliant and easy to control.’
Connected to this group are those who propose a much more plausible theory about how Governmental use of cloud seeding is affecting natural weather patterns. They’re openly questioning how much of what we’re told about anthropogenic global warming (unnatural levels greenhouse gases in the atmosphere) and man-made climate change (the suspected result of those unnatural levels), is in fact, humans trying to manipulate the climate? Or the side effects of said manipulation?
The evidence to justify such questioning isn’t hard to find. In a 2015 article for the Sydney Morning Herald, Scott Hannaford wrote about the dubious practice of cloud seeding, stating that:
While little evidence exists to support the conspiracy theories of the Americans investing in the practice during the Cold War, the US did use cloud seeding for military purposes during the Vietnam War, according to The New York Times. In July 1972 legendary journalist Seymour Hersh reported that the US had been conducting a highly classified cloud-seeding program known as Operation Popeye on a massive scale over North Vietnam, Laos and South Vietnam to increase and control rainfall. By dumping silver iodide and lead iodide into clouds, the Americans were reportedly able to extend the monsoon season by more than a month over the Ho Chi Minh Trail, softening roads to cause disruption to military trucks using the area.
In 2016 Business Insider reported on the much talked about Chinese Government’s use of cloud seeding to manipulate the weather in order for the Beijing Olympics to take place free of rain. Worth noting, the Communist Government has a growing Weather Modification Office, whose department, according to The Independent, ‘employs nearly 40,000 people, 3,000 of whom work with an arsenal of 7,000 cannon, 4,687 rocket launchers, and have a budget of around £50m…’
Cloud seeding involves the use of ‘rockets full of chemicals (such as silver iodide), which are launched into clouds accelerating the creation of ice crystals that eventually become rain.’ QZ.com also described the process as a ‘meteorological enema’ that can make it rain, “clearout” pollution, as well as stop rain from falling.
The ability to control where and when it rains, and when and where it doesn’t rain, raises a lot questions about climate modification’s relationship to alleged man-made climate change.
Any possible connection between chemical manipulation of rainfall via cloud seeding, and the prevailing apocalyptic climate change hypothesis seem to be dismissed by most activists. NSW Greens senator, M.P. Dr. Mehreen Faruqi typifies the general blasé response from Climate Change activists. In her appraisal of Australia’s use of cloud seeding over the Snowy Mountains, Faruqi’s main concern was for the animal food chain and how those chemicals may impact endangered species. This is despite Faruqi acknowledging that the possible dangers of cloud seeding could be catastrophic, stating ‘we don’t know the long term impacts, but we do have the lessons learnt from DDT, asbestos, CFCs and their impact.’
One would think that the launching, or adding of more chemicals into the atmosphere, when there are raging concerns about unnatural levels of chemicals in the atmosphere, is counter-intuitive.
More so when the impact of making it rain in once place, is likely to mean it won’t rain in another. Thus, any unnatural disruption of natural rainfall patterns, would have a dire impact on the environment, and forge an anthropogenic adjustment of the climate.
Ignoring the possible contribution of cloud seeding to “climate change”, and conflating climate change with global warming (by calling it a climate change emergency) is irresponsible, and dishonest. It leaves out questions about the negative impact chemical modification of the weather has on the overall climate.
It also means that political opportunists are deliberately scaring children and the vulnerable in order to impose change via the reigning hypothesis. This criticism is further buttressed by an historical pattern of blaming humans for acts of God or natural disasters, and the questionable practice of cloud seeding; to be more precise, deliberate chemical modification of the weather.
If the “doomers” are correct and apocalyptic climate change is as bad as they have prophesied, then perhaps man-made climate change is a direct result of man’s attempt to control the climate?
I agree that there’s a socio-political, geopolitical, economic and environmental need to address our dependence on fossil fuels, and unnatural levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. However, the answer rests in a calm response, which looks to horticulture – planting trees; water storage/management, new technology and improving our understanding and use of nuclear, which, as books on climate science admit, is far more powerful (and much more cleaner) than coal.
The way forward would also include a thorough critique of the practice of cloud seeding, and its negative impact on rainfall patterns and the climate.
