Controlling the weather is no longer a prospect of the future; it is becoming part of our current reality. Cloud seeding, which is quite a controversial practice, is moving into the spotlight now that it is available to the world’s wealthy elite.
One company, known as Oliver’s Travels, has begun offering its services to the rich, promising them clear, sunny skies for important events. There is even a wedding package available, if you’re willing to spend the money. According to their website, prices for a perfect day start at just $100,000, but “you can’t put a price on perfection right?”
Though cloud seeding was actually first developed in the 1940s, it is only recently that it has been offered to common citizens. Cloud seeding has generally been practiced over much larger regions for slightly more altruistic reasons, such as increasing rainfall. For now, the practice is only being offered in France, but it will surely spread across the globe in due time, and that will certainly come with a host of problems.
In addition to extra aviation fuel being burnt up in the sky, the fact is that no one can really say what the long-term effects of geoengineering will be. Scientists love to say that it’s totally safe and that there will be no ill effects, but the fact remains: it is still unnatural.
Turning geoengineering into an everyday activity serves only to remove doubts about the practice. Allowing people to manipulate the weather so they can have a “perfect wedding” is not just absurd, it is obscene. Sure, they can afford the hefty price tag, but they are also normalizing a heavily scrutinized practice that many independent scientists believe could be catastrophic not just to our soil, water and air, but also to the atmosphere and the ozone layer – you know, the stuff that basically prevents us and all life on earth from being burnt to a crisp by the sun; nothing too terribly important.
Geoengineering Watch reported that geoengineering practices have already begun to damage the ozone layer, as evidenced by the increasing amounts of UVA and UVB radiation passing through the stratosphere.
Dane Wigington of Geoengineering Watch writes that, “Current testing reveals that almost 70% of incoming UV radiation is currently in the UVB and UVC range.”
UVC rays used to be filtered out completely by the ozone layer, but have been increasing over the last several years. The amount of UVB rays reaching through the ozone layer has also increased. Wigington also notes that there is plenty of environmental evidence that the ozone layer is being damaged by geoengineering. Excessive UV exposure is very apparent when plants start to die or experience reduced growth and don’t sprout seeds.
If that is what geoengineering does to the ozone layer, what do you think it is really doing to the rest of the planet? And is it really ethical to allow people who would spend $100 grand on weather control for a wedding to actually have that kind of power?
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