The Legal Aspects of Rainmaking
| Published date | 01 May 1956 |
| Date | 01 May 1956 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1956.tb00362.x |
| Author | Derek H. Hene |
THE LEGAL ASPECTS
OF
RAINMAKING
DOES WEATHER
MATTER
?
THE state of the weather affects everybody and everything more
than any other natural phenomenon.
It
can cause migrations of
entire peoples, destroy habitations, cattle and crops.
It
may
determine the sites of cities and the development of communities.
Wars may be won through its influence: the Armada was scattered
by storms, Napoleon’s armies were overwhelmed by snow and ice,
and even operation “Overlord
”
had to be postponed to await
less vicious weather conditions.
There can be
no
doubt as to the importance of the weather
in our, daily lives, but until recently there was nothing that we
could effectually do about
it,
and we therefore had to content
ourselves with measures to deal with the inevitable consequences
of natural phenomena: the human element did not affect the
problem.
WEATHER
CONTROL-PAST
m
PRESENT
For
centuries manifold deities have been invoked to provide rain,
prevent storms, pacify the elements and generally to produce more
desirable weather conditions.
During the past few decades, however, man has attempted to
solve these problems himself, by scientific means. Among the
early experiments to produce rain were attempts involving cannons
fired at the clouds, which proved fruitless, while a certain measure
of
fog clearance was achieved, locally, by expensive means such
as burning oil.
More recently, experiments with chemicals dispersed from
aircraft
on
clouds
or
even into the clear air itself, and tests
involving electric discharge to produce precipitation, have shown
some positive results.
In
the United States, for instance, silver-
iodide crystals were sprayed
on
clouds at a rate of more than
60,000
billion particles per hour, and
it
was subsequently claimed
that rain was thereby caused to fall
on
to
an
area where
it
would
not otherwise have fallen at that particular time.
It
is believed
that law suits involving claims of about
E1,000,000
are at present
pending as a result of these experiments.
The frequency and the potential range of these rainmaking
experiments are steadily increasing, and it
is
therefore quite
possible that fairly large-scale interference with weather conditions
may be effected in the near future.
It
may even be that in due
course the balance of natural phenomena to which life
on
earth
has become conditioned may be severely disturbed.
288
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