Cloudbusting in Algeria and a Heat Wave In Russia

Update by Joel Carlinsky

Friday, October 8, 2010 1:35 AM

I have received an e-mail from Dr. Heiko Lasek, in Berlin. He is making a documentary on the cloudbusting project currently underway in Algeria. This project is being done for agricultural purposes, which in my opinion, should be enough to raise a red flag even without any other reasons for alarm.

But there are others. From start to finish, this project is being done in the wrong place, at the wrong time, in the wrong way, for the wrong reasons.

To do a single, short-term cloudbusting operation that results in a single weather event, is one thing. It is far more anbitious, and potentially far more dangerous, to start a long-term project to change the climate, not just the weather, of an entire region. And, moreover, to do it in so ill-prepared and uninformed manner.

Before any long-term cloudbusting project is started, the very first thing to do, in the very beginning of the planing stages, is to consult an ecologist who is familiar with the area to be affected and can advise as to what the probable results of the project will be. It is standard operating procedure these days to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement, giving details of what to expect from any proposed project that will significantly affect the environment. No such consultation with a trained ecologist has been done for this project and no Environmental Impact Study has been done.

It is also the normal procedure thse days, at least in democratic countries, to give the public notice of any plans to change their environment, and provide some means, such as public meetings or a website, to permit members of the public to comment and ask questions of those who wish to change the environment in which those members of the public are going to have to live. Nobody connected with this project in Algeria has done anything like that either.

To conduct any scientific research project,it is first necessary to collect data so you will have a baseline of information to compare the results with in order to know what results you have obtained. For a long-term, climate-changing project, at the very least, one should conduct a botanical census, counting the number of species of plants, and the number of individuals of each species per acre in a few representative sample acres in the area to be changed so it will be possible to tell later if the effect of your actions was helpful or harmful. No such botanical census was conducted for this project.

When cloudbusting, it is important to keep in mind that as Reich said, "There are no borders or customs posts in the sky". It is not enough to watch what is happening around you in the area you are trying to influence; it is also important to watch what is happening in other places, often far-removed from where you are operating, and be prepared to modify or cease operations if there are unwanted side-effects in distant places.

For this purpose, a set of contingency plans should be drawn up beforehand and a set of guidelines in place so decisions do not have to be made on the spur of the moment under pressure to obtain results. Nothing like that was done in this case.

The whole project has been done in the full glare of publicity, but without any mechanism in place for the public to express any doubts or reservations. This publicity has given the organizers a strong incentive to ignore caution and do whatever they think they must to get impressive results, upon which future funding depends. The presure on the people conducting the project can only be increased by the fact that they have staked the credibility of the cloudbuster on success, risking all future funding if they fail. They have therefore put themselves in a situation where failure is unthinkable. This is not a good situation to encourage prudence.

And then the long list of errors caught up with them. In conducting long-term operations to import moisture into North Africa, they also, as a predictable ( but apparently not predicted ) side-effect, exported a hot air mass from North Africa to Europe. For a time, Europe suffered a heat wave. Then, impelled by the west-to-east motion of the atmosphere, the hot air mass moved eastward to Russia, where it became stagnant enough that it settled for a prolonged time and caused the worst heat wave in the history of Russia.

This heat wave was a disaster far beyond the borders of Russia. Causing severe crop loses to a country that is normally one of the world's major grain exporters will affect poorer countries all over the world. Russia has been forced to ban grain exports to ensure domestic supplies of food are sufficient for it's own people. So prices of grain will rise on the world market, weakening the economies of the richer nations and devastating those of the poorer ones.

All because of a short-sighted, incompetent, irresponsible arrogant misuse of the Reich cloudbuster by a group of people who have no idea of the meaning of the word ecology, and no sense of responsibility toward the rest of the world.

I have met Dr. Lassek. He seems like a decent man. An honest man. I am sure that if he was making a documentary of a trial of a new medical treatment, he would honestly report any unwanted side-effects. even if it meant that a promising new treatment might be judged too dangerous to be used. I can only hope that he shows that same honesty and integrity in making a documentary on a cloudbusting project that I would expect of him if it was on a trial of a new medical treatment.

For many more lives may depend on it.