The Science of diverting hurricanes is immature and theoretical at this point. If technologically and environmentally feasible, scientists SHOULD DEFINITELY be allowed to divert a hurricane away from a major city to a rural area. However, the rural residents should be evacuated and given ample notice before this is done. It is much less difficult to evacuate or rebuild a rural area than to rebuild a city. It may seem unfair to the rural residents if hurricane diversion is set to occur, however, the rural residents should be given adequate compensation for their sacrifice by the city and federal government! If human lives are at stake, why not? Surgeons play “god” all the time. The ethical implications of that does not change the fact that surgery saves lives. Why can’t scientists do the same thing? If we keep worrying about the negative ethical implications of grand technological feats how is our society going to advance? The same goes for stem cell research. Up to this point, all the “unethical” things we have done have still not lead to the demise of society in general.
Arguments against diverting hurricanes to rural areas just like saying “we dont want people to save lives”. The end should justify the means, as long as the means does not involve causing harm to people or the environment. Any reasonable minded person would not be against scientists manipulating the environment, as long as there are no long-term detrimental effects. As long as the diversion is strictly controlled and localized, and can be precisely predicted, it should not be a problem to save the rural residents from “doom”.
Many people attack scientists, engineers, and government agencies for doing things that are ethically incorrect or playing “god”. This is preposterous, for if these people did not do these things in the first place and challenge contemporary thinking, many of the amenities that we have today would not have existed. Do you think the free distribution of information on the internet wasnt met with the whole “thats so unethical” spiel? People need to learn to embrace and nourish new ideas, as long as they are beneficial. One-sided thinking is ignorant and leads to dictatorships, death, and anarchy. I’m not saying we should give scientists the power to run amuck and do whatever they want, but we should give them the encouragement and support to carry out benevolent work. Diverting a hurricane from a major city to a rural area is worthwhile.
Governments should give funding to scientists interested in controlling weather for the good of society. Just because weather is an act of “god”, doesn’t mean we can’t attempt to control it. However, we must be responsible in doing so. Democratic society by nature would not allow the rural residents to just perish or be “doomed”. We would help them rebuild. We would evacuate them before the hurricane hits. This is not to say that their livelihoods are memories are not as precious as those that live in the major cities, but the major cities are the breeding grounds for societal advancement and play a major role of the survival of rural communities anyway. There are much more lives at stake in a major city. Each life is equal, but the feasibility of evacuating a major city in a relatively short amount of time is not the same as evacuating a rural area. If the major city had less people at that particular time, then yes, the hurricane should hit there. However, this is never the case. We must make controlled decisions.
We want to preserve society, not watch it be destroyed if we can do something to prevent it.
