In its battle with nature, the Chinese government has once again decided to meddle in forces they do not understand.  They spent most of the time leading up to the Olympics seeding clouds to make it rain and lower pollution, and now to fight an unseasonable slate of dry weather, they’ve decided to take to the air again, seeding the clouds once more.  Except this time, what fell wasn’t rain, but snow.   It’s the earliest snowfall in Beijing in a decade, and it’s all the state’s fault.

I love the cold weather of winter, and I love a good snowfall, but I hate having to negotiate any sort of traffic in the snow, and I definitely hate the dry weather.  My sinuses stay irritated or infected from September until March most years, and that’s the direct cause of it.  However, I don’t think the answer is to force precipitation when none should be falling. 

Droughts are bad, and lost crops are bad, but messing with weather patterns isn’t going to make things better in the long run.  In fact, it might just make things worse for other parts of the country.  Plus you have the cost of removing the snow from the streets, and having most of that precious liquid end up in the sewers.

Image:  Daily Mail

Tags: Beijing, China, cloud seeding to fight drought, snow storm in Beijing, man-made storms, weather control

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