For a very long time, mankind has tried to manipulate certain weather components. For just about as long, he has come to recognize that there are often repercussions from such manipulations.
Perhaps no time more than in the last few decades, people have become increasingly aware that weather and climate is truly global. When there is a drought in one area, there is nearly always deluges and floods in another. At any given time, there is a finite amount of moisture in the atmosphere, and while this may fluctuate from year to year, there is a necessary balance.
Even relatively simple manipulation, such as cloud seeding, can have wide reaching consequences. If clouds drop their moisture in one area, they cannot then continue on to another area to drop moisture. While we know about this effect, we still frankly do not have the knowledge to know just how wide reaching those consequences will be, or in what form they will take.
Our atmosphere is extremely dynamic and is constantly changing. Many scientists even firmly believe that if this wasn’t true, life might not even be possible on this planet. So controlling one weather pattern can cause very unexpected results. For instance, suppose that we were to somehow prevent or stop a hurricane. The rising and falling of the thermals that cause the hurricane in the first place, generate a huge amount of energy, and that energy must be dissipated in some way. Who is to say what the ultimate results would be if we “killed” a cat 5 hurricane? Such energy, released, could cause catastrophic events that far exceed the original extent of the original hurricane. Let’s face it, mankind’s ability to create is no match at all to mother nature’s ability to destroy. Do we really want to even try manipulating weather, especially on a large scale, without knowing what all the consequences will be?
Sure, it would be great to be able to make sure that it never got too hot, too cold, that agricultural areas got plenty of rainfall, that no place ever had a drought, but all of this is nothing more than wishful thinking. Even if we had the ability, and we currently do not, this is very close to an impossibility. Nature knows how to achieve a balance, man has proven again and again that he does not. I believe that it would be a mistake to try to control the balance of a system that has been working well for millions and billions of years. Maybe man would be far better off to simply learn new ways to withstand the tempest, regardless of what form it takes.
