Can Bill Gates Prevent the Next Katrina? 380
theodp writes "He once controlled the world's PCs. Now Bill Gates has set his sights on controlling the world's weather. And patenting it. On Thursday, the USPTO revealed that Gates and ex-Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold have filed five patent applications that propose using large fleets of vessels to suppress hurricanes through various methods of mixing warm water from the surface of the ocean with colder water at greater depths. The idea is to decrease the surface temperature, reducing or eliminating the heat-driven condensation that fuels the giant storms. Hey, a guy can only play so much golf in retirement."
Gates-way to eco-disaster (Score:5, Interesting)
Ok, as much as hurricanes hurt and destroy peoples homes, lives, and regions economies, I can tell you right now that to suppress them is A BAD IDEA.
Hurricane season and storm activity represent a huge portion of the rainfall/water collection/water renewal in the Caribbean, and is still a significant water contributor in the southern U.S.A., a region that is still experiencing drought conditions, even if its not as severe as last year. What, is this a plot to dry up an important freshwater source for a large region, then sell expensive desalination plants?! Desertification of a whole region to put up solar plants or harvest silicon?
Plus the hurricanes help to suck up all the warm water that's killing the the coral reefs - you know, one of the bastions against the waves pounding coastlines?
Oh wait, the Caribbean is full of small islands and a few unnecessary Central American countries that act as the hurricane buffer for the U.S.A., and absorb the majority of the insurance hikes when Florida/Louisiana/Texas gets hit. Shafting us and destroying our ecology is business as usual.
It's apropos that Gates should be the one doing it (Score:3, Interesting)
Cause the most prominent argument regularly put forth as to why weather control is bad is:
Do *you* want to be the one who causes lots of insurance companies to have to pay out because someone can make a reasonable case that where the hurricane landed was no longer an Act Of God?
Gates is used to playing God.
Oh, I don't know, but (Score:3, Interesting)
I figure it will probably be the same pseudo science employed by Gore.
In other words, claims of consensus, its for the children, we're smarter than you, and such should suffice.
Any reduction in storms proves their process works, any increase proves it wasn't executed properly and would work with more money and adherence to their process.
1000 level (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Gulf Stream (Score:2, Interesting)
Anyone who thinks they can change the weather.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyone who thinks they can change the weather is either absorbed in hubris or insane.
A Hurricane can't be stopped or prevented. Or influenced in any way by anything human beings could do to it. You could detonate the largest nuclear bomb ever made in the middle of a hurricane and it wouldn't even dent it. A hurricane has so much energy that it releases more energy than all explosives ever detonated by humans every MINUTE...
Re:How will they know.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:How will they know.. (Score:2, Interesting)
its not to stop the hurricane its to lower the speed by making slightly cooler water. Im more worried about bottom fish, not all fish like the warm water. there's a reason they are on the bottom
Re:How will they know.. (Score:3, Interesting)
One possibility: If the mixing warms the water at the bottom it may be enough to release methane from methane hydrates deposited in the ocean bed. On the down side this will make global warming worse, on the upside the mass of bubbles will sink Bill's fleet of ships.
Re:Gulf Stream (Score:2, Interesting)
No one is saying you don't have the right to build in earthquake territory. It's just that insurance rates will be 10x higher and the government won't help you.
No one is saying you don't have the right to build in flood territory. It's just that insurance rates will be 10x higher and the government won't help you.
No one is saying you don't have the right to build in Wild fire territory. It's just that insurance rates will be 10x higher and the government won't help you.
No one is saying you don't have the right to build in Tornado territory. It's just that insurance rates will be 10x higher and the government won't help you.
No one is saying you don't have the right to build in High Crime territory. It's just that insurance rates will be 10x higher and the government won't help you.
No one is saying you don't have the right to build in Blizzard territory. It's just that insurance rates will be 10x higher and the government won't help you.
we could go on for a while.
The Mad Scientist Stuff is the Point! (Score:3, Interesting)
And he will laugh maniacally, when the change in nature's cycles creates huge storms that wipe out entire Europe and half of Africa.
If you've been paying attention to history, weather and climate have huge geopolitical and strategic consequences. North Atlantic storms stopped both the Spanish Armada and Nazi Germany from invading England. Weather almost stopped the D-Day invasions. Japan is still a nation because of such a storm: the Kamikaze.
Climactic shifts sparked the movements of barbarian tribes and may have contributed to the fall of the Roman Empire, prevented the early Nordic colonization of North America, and paved the way for the Renaissance.
The ability to prevent or to create a storm would have huge strategic implications. Nations with the resources to wield this sort of weapon could wreak economic devastation on their enemies and be immune to invasion. (And save on the huge cost incurred from such storms.)
I also suspect that global warming is actually desired by some strategic thinkers in the industrialized nations. (But not all. Not conspiracy. Just a part of the oligarchy pushing to exploit coincidence.) Some of the greatest suffering will be visited on up and coming economic powers (India) while the established ones will be able to cope more easily. I think this may be part of the reason why China is building the largest river dam system in the world -- to buffer themselves against shifts in water availability.