Freivalds: Weaponizing weather (and any forecasts)

Published 9/11/2019

By John Freivalds

Roanoke Times, Roanoke, Virginia

While the Department of Defense has long been researching how to physically weaponize weather, e.g., lengthening or shortening monsoons, like the Popeye project during the Vietnam War, a sophisticated form of cloud seeding. And if you can't physically weaponize the weather (like dropping an atomic bomb on a hurricane as Trump suggested) then weaponize the forecasts (and anything else) for political benefit.

Goodness, the Trump administration has weaponized forecasts for economic statistics, immigration, money flow and everything else. Now it wants to weaponize weather forecasting. If reality (e.g., global warming) doesn't fit with the administration's perception of what it should be then reality is false like the real path of hurricane Dorian. Fake News. Thus, any sort of reality-based forecasting should be dismantled and banished. An example is dismembering and relocating the Economic Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture to Kansas City. And farmers and grain traders need good and reliable to numbers to plan their operations and manage risks.

A profit-driven business or farm can't operate forever on fake forecasts. Just one example from my background as a commodity trader is why we need good and honest weather forecasting and crop forecasts. One trader scanned the weather news wire every morning. Nothing unusual, fog in San Francisco, frost in Moscow, steamy hot in Bangkok, rain in Lima, Peru. But wait, rain in Lima? The urban legend is that the Incas in revenge against the Spanish told them to establish the Spanish capital where it is always gloomy and drizzly. The commodity trader called a NOAA oceanographer friend in Hawaii and told him what he saw and asked "What's going on?" He was told that the Humboldt Current, which is a low salinity, cold ocean current that flows along the west coast of South America, had shifted further out into the Pacific Ocean. "El Niño at work." The current accounts for 29% of the world's fish catch. And if it shifted the anchovies that are caught for fish meal, a high-protein animal feed, would raise the prices of all proteins which the USDA predicted are in short supply.

Here's a case where an unethical administration would suppress this news in order to keep prices low. The Trump administration, with the effort to dismiss the true path of Hurricane Dorian, has shown it is willing to change reality to fit its own perceptions. So, with this administration if there is a drought in China, typhoon in Thailand, port delays in Brazil or a bad crop in Australia, we will have to question it. It's no wonder that people in agriculture, from traders to farmers, are now relying on outside sources.

Here is what the people are saying!!

jsrepass Sep 12, 2019 5:39am

Everybody complains about the weather but no one ever does anything about it.

Originally said by Charles Dudley Warner and not Mark Twain as popularly believed.

The reason is mankind has no control over the weather as is popularly believed. The Dems are blaming Trump now for causing hurricanes and using them to further his agenda. They can’t get over that the Russian collusion hoax failed! What will they come up with next, so far everything they have thrown at Trump has failed, even the $millions they spent to defeat Bishop in TX just to embarrass Trump.

Sandi S Sep 13, 2019 11:07am

Remember when we thought education was the answer? Wrong.

Remember when we thought internet access was the answer? Wrong.

People choose their ignorance, bias and lack of integrity and there is nothing the education system or the internet can do nothing about it either. "You can lead a horse to water..." Trump supporters will make excuses no matter what he does. In that regard, this nation is dumber, less patriotic, more gullible and more dangerous than when Nixon was forced to resign. Sad days.