Paul Chehade - History of Weather Modification Ethical Issues - Chapter V of VI:

Paul Chehade – History of  Weather Modification Ethical Issues – Chapter V of VI:

Weather modification is the effort of man to change naturally occurring weather, for the benefit of someone. The best-known kind of weather modification is cloud seeding, with the goal of producing rain or snow, suppressing hail , or weakening hurricanes.

Ethical Issues:

There are several broad classes of ethical issues that are relevant to cloud seeding:

A scientist’s alleged ethical responsibility for use of his/her discoveries or knowledge for “undesirable” goals. This concern was initially voiced in response to scientists who designed and developed nuclear weapons, which could kill millions of people. I say “alleged ethical responsibility”, as I believe that information is morally neutral, and it is the use of that information that causes benefits or harms. Any ethical or legal responsibility for the use of information clearly belongs to the user, not the discoverer, of the information.

A  scientist’s obligation to conduct his/her research in an ethical manner, including obtaining consent from affected people. This concern was initially voiced in response to physicians who conducted medical experiments on people without their consent.

Society’s ethical or legal obligation to use technology wisely, to avoid long-term adverse effects on the environment. This ethical concern was initially voiced in connection with industrial pollution of air and rivers, which are natural resources that belong to everyone.

The ethical obligation of a professional scientist to share his/her discoveries with other scientists through publication in scholarly literature or books.

From this viewpoint, it is remarkable that research scientists in the late 1940s and during the 1950s apparently had no hesitation in releasing AgI into the atmosphere, as if the atmosphere were their private laboratory, instead of part of the natural environment that belongs to everyone. Perhaps the enthusiasm of those scientists was part of the Zeitgeist in the early 1950s in which science and technology could solve all problems and make a better world. And there was no governmental mechanism in the late 1940s and early 1950s by which scientists could have asked permission to experiment with the natural environment. It is inappropriate to apply modern ethics and laws to scientists in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

Even more remarkable to me is the rapid development of corporations that performed operational cloud seeding, which intended to modify everyone’s weather in a large area, without the consent of a majority of the affected people (indeed, without informing most affected people).

Among other concerns, it is possible that some unregulated commercial cloud seeding contaminated scientific experiments on cloud seeding. In my opinion, it was premature to be conducting operational cloud seeding before such programs had been scientifically proven to be safe and effective, a point that I make later in this essay.

Ethical Obligation to Publish?:

Unlike scientists who share their discoveries and knowledge in journals published by professional societies, the early commercial cloud seeders regarded their knowledge as proprietary information (i.e., protected by the law of trade secrets) to be used to enhance their ability to earn an income, but not to share with others.

One commercial cloud seeder, writing just four years after Vonnegut’s discovery, said:

It is estimated that fully 85% of the cloud seeding conducted in a reasonably professional manner has not been reported on in any scientific or technical journal.

Elliott, 1951. An analyst who examined approximately 1300 articles in the meteorological literature, published between 1946 and 1960, concluded:

… commercial projects place in the open literature only about one-tenth as much information as that generated by comparable non-commercial projects. This is not to say that complete documentation may not reside in the files of commercial operators and their clients.
 
Below, I mention the need for publication of the results of weather modification experiments in archival professional journals and books to share knowledge, to prevent repetition of past mistakes, as well as to provide a basis for public recognition of a technique as safe and effective.

There are two contrasting attitudes about publication. Scientists doing basic research are oriented toward publication, because that is how they build their professional reputation amongst other scientists. On the other hand, industrial employers of technicians and engineers commonly regard their discoveries as proprietary information that gives the employer an advantage in a competitive marketplace.
 
It is incorrect to frame these contrasting attitudes about publications as professors vs. employees of industrial corporations, because research scientists employed by major for-profit corporations (e.g., Langmuir and Vonnegut at General Electric Company) are often prolific authors. Industrial corporations can protect their financial investment in scientific research through patents, or make a profit on research contracts with the government that involve publication of results of basic scientific research.
 
However, commercial cloud seeders are small for-profit companies that cannot afford to engage in basic research (i.e., these small companies cannot afford to do what General Electric did in 1946 in sponsoring Langmuir’s and Vonnegut’s work on cloud seeding, nor what Bell Telephone Laboratories did in other areas of science and engineering). The goal of a company is to serve its customers: clients of commercial cloud seeders want modified weather, not scientific experiments, and not technical publications in scientific journals.

Environmental Zeitgeist:

From the viewpoint of the history of technology, it is interesting to speculate on the effect of the environmental protection movement during the late 1960s and early 1970s on weather modification. The Zeitgeist of 1950 was that science and technology were Good, and could cure all problems. The Zeitgeist of 1970 was that technology caused many problems and that “natural” was better. The point here is not to discuss which Zeitgeist is correct or preferable, but simply to recognize that each Zeitgeist affected public enthusiasm for the technology of cloud seeding.

There is no evidence (and no reason to suspect) that cloud seeding produces long-term (e.g., time durations of years or tens of years) environmental changes. In this way, cloud seeding is unlike slowly decaying radioactive waste, accumulations of toxic chemicals in the ecosystem, or long-term inadvertent weather modification (e.g., global warming or destruction of the ozone layer in the stratosphere).

However, environmental awareness may have convinced many people to avoid cloud seeding, only because cloud seeding was “unnatural”.

History of Weather Modification Basic Technology – Chapter I
History of Weather Modification Earlier History – Chapter II
History of Weather Modification Problems with Experiments – Chapter III
History of Weather Modification American Meteorology Society’s – Chapter IV
History of Weather Modification Ethical Issues – Chapter V
History of Weather Modification Support of Basic Scientific Research Chapter VI

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