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Iran begins cloud seeding operations as drought bites

arabnews.com

121–130 of 224 posts

Re: Iran begins cloud seeding operations as drought bites

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>> How should we think about cloud seeding? It's a way to take someone else's rain.

Under international law, countries have complete and exclusive sovereignty over this airspace, just as they do over their land. They aren’t “taking someone else’s rain” because the clouds they’re seeding are effectively theirs anyway

> Under international law, countries have complete and exclusive sovereignty over this airspace

Iran isn’t operating under the protections nor restrictions of international law. Neither is its relevant neighbor. (Practically.)

What they choose to do and how the other chooses to interpret it is very much…up in the air.

Re: Iran begins cloud seeding operations as drought bites

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The American Southwest needs to get started on desalination. It’s the only long term answer we have now, know works, and is at least within shooting distance of cost-feasible.

The southwest, for the most part, refuses to accept the federal funding & infrastructure support that would be necessary for desalination at scale to be feasible. Nobody wants to vote for water rationing, and the state can’t even enforce consumption limits against corporations and the wealthy.

Is it really feasible if a state can only pull it off with large federal funding efforts?

It seems like a problem those in the area will just have to deal with given that they're knowingly walking down that path. If you can't fund desalinization or other options, won't take federal funding, and choose not to region or conserve water then you collectively made your own bed.

Re: Iran begins cloud seeding operations as drought bites

#123

It's about time to start preparing for global geoengineering. Spraying our atmosphere with stuff that reflects light would buy us time to get emissions under control, and help avoiding the worst scenarios. Best of all, we know it works, thanks to emissions from maritime traffic and the spike in temperature rise after they got cleaner.

Or we could put 3,100 people on house arrest and the major emissions will stop.

This is the sweet summer child thinking that lead to protests in Canada and France. The people whose livelihoods are tied up in these industries will not go quietly. Even if their oligarchs are defanged.

Re: Iran begins cloud seeding operations as drought bites

#125
post #77

What is the deal with the image of the article ? Mosques are as empty in Iran as churches are empty in the west. Yes the government is tightly coupled with religion, but this image isn’t representative of Iran at all.

Are there any good books which layout out the true state of Iran on the ground today?

Not a book, but a 'fact'book; https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/iran/

Religions

Muslim (official) 98.5%, Christian 0.7%, Baha'i 0.3%, agnostic 0.3%, other (includes Zoroastrian, Jewish, Hindu) 0.2% (2020 est.)

Compared to the United Kingdom; https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/united-king...

Religions

Christian (includes Anglican, Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist) 59.5%, Muslim 4.4%, Hindu 1.3%, other 2%, unspecified 7.2%, none 25.7% (2011 est.)

Re: Iran begins cloud seeding operations as drought bites

#126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The southwest, for the most part, refuses to accept the federal funding & infrastructure support that would be necessary for desalination at scale to be feasible. Nobody wants to vote for water rationing, and the state can’t even enforce consumption limits against corporations and the wealthy.

Is it really feasible if a state can only pull it off with large federal funding efforts? It seems like a problem those in the area will just have to deal with given that they're knowingly walking down that path. If you can't fund desalinization or other options, won't take federal funding, and choose not to region or conserve water then you collectively made your own bed.

I don't really know what they're talking about, states almost never refuse federal funding for anything.

Re: Iran begins cloud seeding operations as drought bites

#127
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israel also said Pakistan was trying to build nukes, but they were stopped by the Indian PM in the 1980s from launching a preventive attack. 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, a…

Iran can of course build a nuke in a relatively short timespan if they want to, but for a range of reason they have made the decision not to. Perhaps they should have built a nuke, if they had one Israel and the US wouldn't have bombed them.

> if they had one Israel and the US wouldn't have bombed them

If Iran had one nuke we’d bomb them relentlessly.

Their delivery mechanisms and ground infrastructure aren’t advanced enough to guarantee launch, and a single Fisher Price nuke is not game over. Iran with the capacity to build a bomb can be dealt with now or later. Iran with an actual nuke has to be dealt with now, or else be accepted as a regional nuclear power. (Which would mean a Saudi nuke. Which would mean a Qatari nuke, and probably also Emirati nuke.)

Re: Iran begins cloud seeding operations as drought bites

#128

Earlier today I watched a video[0] that helped contextualize the water situation in Iran. The key takeaway for me was that Iran has been rapidly depleting their water reserves and they don't have any ways to quickly refill them, nor do they have treaties with neighboring countries to guarantee water. That video doesn't mention cloud seeding at all. How should we think about cloud seeding? Does this technology actuall…

Typically the precious metals needed have a cost that is more than the water gained. That assumes there are clouds just on the verge of raining that just need a small push.

Cite? Silver iodide is common, silver is not particularly expensive, and cloud seeding is used quite extensively - including in quite poor countries.

Re: Iran begins cloud seeding operations as drought bites

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if you’re selling the water at rates that aren’t below cost farms will remove themselves. Desalination is cheap enough for humans to live and do most work things, it’s hard to imagine it ever being cheap enough for farming.

The problem is that the farmers own the water, its not about selling it to them but getting it from them.

Then tax them at a rate equivalent to their environmental cost? I don't think this is complicated (except politically, of course). You just want everyone to carry the cost of their own externalities.

Re: Iran begins cloud seeding operations as drought bites

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The southwest, for the most part, refuses to accept the federal funding & infrastructure support that would be necessary for desalination at scale to be feasible. Nobody wants to vote for water rationing, and the state can’t even enforce consumption limits against corporations and the wealthy.

Is it really feasible if a state can only pull it off with large federal funding efforts? It seems like a problem those in the area will just have to deal with given that they're knowingly walking down that path. If you can't fund desalinization or other options, won't take federal funding, and choose not to region or conserve water then you collectively made your own bed.

Like people who build in flood zones and don’t have flood insurance, they do have a nasty tendency to make their problem your problem somehow though.
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