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David Tewes, a reporter for The Victoria Advocate and who has studied meteorology, explains that hurricanes play a useful role. They redistribute energy that has built up in a particular location. If you curb the hurricanes, that energy won’t get redistributed and could cause unwanted impacts on the atmosphere.
For whatever reason they exist, it would only be logical for humans to ask why and why can they not be controlled? With the recent onslaught of two major hurricanes that left so much destruction and human loss in our area and in view of the technological advances and capabilities of today, the question again arises of the need for controlling these powerful wind giants.
Scientists and researchers have been on record, since the early 1950s, that there are ways of controlling the forces of nature that nurture these destructive giants. In fact, there have been and there are ongoing studies that claim proof that man can control the forces of a hurricane’s strength, velocity and direction, but they have only been done with simulated models. Some of these include cloud-seeding, bombing the walls of the hurricane and most recently dropping floating water pumps that could pump cooler water from the bottom of the ocean to the surface thus cooling the warmer surface water which seem to trigger the hurricane.
Ben Livingston, a noted cloud physicist and researcher, insists that controlling hurricanes is a “no-brainer when it is explained in simple terms,” and that discussions and commitment could come up with a viable solution, that would not only curb hurricanes but save lives and property.
“"The bottom line is, you cannot make an argument against saving lives and property,” Livingston said in an interview with the Midland Reporter Telegram. “If it can be done, it ought to be done.”
On the other hand, there are those who believe there are moral and ethical questions and problems that could result in control of the hurricane, its path and its strength. One such question arises in the altering of the direction. What if the hurricane’s path is altered to an opponent’s country or other properties, and what if it hits a friendly but economically disadvantaged nation? Are those lives and those properties less important than ours?
The question is one that should not be discarded or forgotten, but one that must be well thought out and researched. Until substantial proof exists that the curbing or altering of any hurricane is a responsible answer, then only Mother Nature should be left to control that force.
This editorial reflects the views of the Victoria Advocate’s editorial board.