Iran is in a bad predicament. Largely self inflicted but that in no way diminishes from the horror of a looming humanitarian disaster.
How should we think about cloud seeding? Does this technology actually move the needle at all on Iran's water needs or is this just some dubious marketing campaign?
Climate change and bad decisions from the last 50 years are starting to bite now. It’ll just get worse. Expect migrations and countries collapsing as millions of people are pushed to migrate for survival.
For those unfamiliar, climate change and drought are believed to be one of the major causes of the bronze age civilization collapse
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Bronze_Age_collapse#Droug...
Water for farming and power stations are the things that will be hit first.
And it’s not just water going away—it’s impingement by salt as well.
The dubious part is the coditions to rain are chaotic patameters and unpredictable.
Right, the chance of it working is 0-20% in some tests and found to be highy conditional. I’m in support of them trying something to help, but it’s not a silver bullet (though it is silver iodide).
It's a way to take someone else's rain.
It's hidden in plain sight, and the only people who ever seem to talk about it are total wingnuts who also believe things like climate change is real but manufactured by the US and other world power militaries (using secret technology) for geopolitical purposes, often conflating real cloud seeding with variations on the classic chemtrails conspiracy theory.
It's a largely unregulated continent scale weather and climate modification experiment. I haven't booked too deep into the research on it, but because powerful agricultural interests are involved, I'm sure nobody is looking too closely at externalities and would prefer to keep it that way.
https://library.noaa.gov/weather-climate/weather-modificatio...
China also had a big program. They tried to create rain for the Beijing olympics
All this time the chemtrail people I know have been talking about weather control, I hadn't heard of mind control being part of it.
My take has been yeah I know cloud seeding and solar geoenhineering is real, ergo some amount of chemtrails are "real" in that they are deliberate particulate being sprayed and not just water. While the thing the chemtrail people claim that seems dubious is the scale and other nuances - claiming that all contrails are chemtrails. It's the scale that we don't know and that I assume it's pretty small because it seems expensive and pointless to do it constantly. But I don't know how I could ascertain the scale at which it's done either.
The governing mullahs' interests are brutally divergent from those of the people in whose name they pretend to govern.
Hence, the nuclear weapons program and all the cozying up to Russia.
Desalination technology can solve their problems completely, but they armed proxies that attacked the two countries in the region (Saudi Arabia and Israel) that can help them.
They also imprisoned the one qualified guy in their country who blew the whistle on their water mismanagement (e.g. farming water intensive crops in a desert), Dr. Madani.
You could read the Wikipedia page to learn the other man-made reasons behind this crisis. That's preferable than coming here to play defense for a corrupt theocracy. Not that I doubt that climate change is one of the causes.
Iran has desalination facilities(75 in 2022 to be exact). But not enough and obviously only by the water. Iran has way less energy production than Saudi Arabia, which per capita would put it at a 4th or so. That's with the fact that Iran is a massively industrialized economy which none of the states in the area are. A lot of the UAE and especially the modern desalination plants are built in collaboration with France, Spain, China and Japan. Desalination technology transfer and construction by third parties in Iran is specifically restricted by the US.
One of the things that would have helped Iran's energy problems is nuclear energy and we all know how that goes. It's kinda cute how you don't think that every single one of these facilities is a target for the US and Israel if Iran does not have any weapons deterrent. Iraq's civil infrastructure was leveled by the US in the beginning of the war in 2003.
ETA: China imports 40% of Iranian oil production followed by Iraq, UAE, and Turkey.
The drones are produced by Russia btw. You know, kinda how you guys keep saying that you'll punish China for supplying components for them. Meanwhile every single drone that Ukraine uses is built with either Chinese components or is a modded Chinese drone to begin with.
[1] https://www.upi.com/Archives/1984/04/24/Ayatollah-bomb-in-pr...
People dismissed North Korea’s ability to do so for a long time. They thought they were too poor and isolated.
https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2003-01/news/north-korea-qui...
Either way, if you are threatening to annihilate another country, I wouldn't gamble on the latter.
you mean what Israel is doing and saying every single day? Doesn't seem to bother anyone.
Anyway, I cant comprehend why anyone would try to defend the actions of the Iranian regime, it's just a horrible regime.
The silver lining is that we don't have to suffer the internet commentators saying "Pakistan has been weeks away from nukes for fifty years!"
You can choose to put your head in the sand about a theocracy that enriches uranium to 60%, holds up mushroom clouds in their protests, and repeatedly violated the NPT with clandestine facilities. Others won't be so naive.
No they can't. Canada can. Japan can, SK can. But Iran poured concrete into the rods of its only, then completed heavy water reactor that would have been able to produce the plutonium needed right after they signed the JCPOA before actually receiving any of the concessions they were supposed to get which would have actually given them leverage.This was also detailed in Wendy Sherman's book.
The entire airspace around Iran is controlled by the US's allies and Iran's enemies. Iran would never be able to fly a bomb anywhere close to Israel. They would need a ballistic missile delivery mechanism which's research was confirmed by the US to have been stopped in 2003.
They are also deployed domestic production of them in Russia but a substantial amount of components (foremost motors) still delivered from Iran. If you look at the chart of Russian Shahed launches you can see a lagging dip in early August after Israel's bombing of Iran in June.
This doesn't mean don't conserve, be intelligent, etc.
But this does mean that your water won't "balance out" year to year, you need to look at big 25-30 year intervals.
Right now the single biggest waste of water in Austin is leaky pipes. Like infrastructure pipes owned by the city. Meanwhile our water conservation budget is going to billboards telling people to rush in the shower. The entire population could stop bathing and not reduce enough to make up for the leaks happening in the crumbling water infra.
I think OP is talking more about groundwater depletion:
https://abc7amarillo.com/news/local/panhandle-runs-on-water-...
Nobody wants to vote for water rationing, and the state can’t even enforce consumption limits against corporations and the wealthy.
So desalination only makes economic sense after removing all farms from an area.
I hope to see this legislation in TN changed to allow cloudseeding.
For example, the aquifer situation in the Central Valley of California is in some ways similar to Ogallala aquifer in Texas. "If we don't want to end up like Texas, we need to get a handle on this." Enact laws and conservation measures which make it difficult for those coming from out of state to bring their ecologically irresponsible practices with them. Ideally, reduce the ecological impact wrought by well-established California interests as well, but if necessary grandfather them in in order to prepare.
The only real usage of water is evaporation and that's stuff like growing plants and cooling towers.
If you decide to think here is a clue for you. You won't because it goes against your programming. They worsen the problem with the same signature that the problem has. And then it gets you cheering for something that will bring our demise. Fun.
paxys•2h ago
UebVar•2h ago
thepratt•2h ago
malfist•2h ago
magicalhippo•1h ago
Come on now. It's not nowhere, there's 24 people living on that island, of course that's worth building a $45 million bridge for them[1].
(just the latest silly bridge project here in Norway)
[1]: https://www.nrk.no/nordland/nordland-fylkesrad-vil-bygge-bro...
gus_massa•54m ago
> However, there are only 24 permanent residents and five active farms on Hamnøya. Therefore, there is regular transport of tankers, concentrate feed and livestock trucks.
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamn%C3%B8ya,_Vevelstad
> Hamnøya is an island in Vevelstad Municipality in Nordland county, Norway. The 16.6-square-kilometre (6.4 sq mi) island lies about 500 to 700 metres (0.3 to 0.4 mi) off shore from the mainland of the municipality, separated by the Vevelstadsundet strait. The island is only accessible by boat and in 2021 it had 35 permanent residents living on the island.
I'm not sure if it's cheaper to upgrade both posts, but a bridge doesn't look so silly.
meindnoch•1h ago
Marsymars•2h ago
gus_massa•1h ago
adgjlsfhk1•2h ago
CapitalistCartr•1h ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Popeye
testing22321•1h ago
drewmate•1h ago
First I'd heard of it... though Salt Lake City did just have its rainiest October on record.
WhereIsTheTruth•1h ago
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/18/united-arab-emirates-is-usin...
BurningFrog•1h ago
But it obviously can't create more moisture than already is in the air.
DANmode•1h ago
I’m a little surprised how this has gone under the radar,
considering the black box “effing with the weather cycles” truly is.
blackoil•10m ago