Meatballs with a chance of cloudy

Welcome back to The Strawman, the daily climate newsletter that’s like that first moment of walking into an air conditioned building after being outside in the sun. Feels gooooood man.

Today we’re diving into the world of weather engineering - it’s not a new concept, but it’s starting to pick up steam. We’re here to figure out what’s legit and what is just hot air.

Let’s dive in.

Come to Dubai habibi

It’s such a human thing to want to take something that works perfectly fine, and play around with it (potentially breaking it in the process). We’re kinda like a bunch of overgrown kids - sure we like testing the limits of our toys, but we also cry when they stop working.

Let’s take a step back for a second - weather modification.

Seems like stuff out of a science fiction novel right?

Press a button boop - sunny summer day, press another button boop snow like it’s Christmas eve at the North Pole.

This might actually become a reality - for those of you scratching your heads, we’ve known the basics of weather modification since the 50s. You essentially take an aircraft, fly it up into the sky, and get it to apply a charge to the clouds.

Boom - you now have rainfall.

One country that’s been pioneering this kind of work for a while now is Dubai - known for it’s intensely hot weather, they started experimenting with “Cloud seeding” (creation of artificial rain clouds) in the 90s, and have ramped up experimentation in recent years.

A little bit of controversy

Here’s where things get interesting - no one knows the long-term impacts on the climate of these interventions.

For those of you thinking this doesn’t matter - quick reminder that the modern day climate issue is almost directly caused by the industrial revolution; we didn’t know the long term impacts then either.

That’s why it’s controversial that the EU has stepped in to the debate for the first time, calling for a global assessment of the risks and uncertainties tied to climate interventions, including solar radiation modification.

Although the text isn't legally binding (yet), it's the first time a governing body has officially recognized the rising interest in this controversial field.

Maybe we can engineer our way out of this mess after all…

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See ya tomorrow,

The Strawman