Originally published at: Take a look at fake rain in Dubai created by cloud-seeding technology | Boing Boing
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I would say it’s real rain. It’s not Gene Kelly being drenched in milk…
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OK, but it’s real rain, right? It may have been caused by the cloud seeding, rather than happening naturally, but it’s actual rain; it’s raindrops that condensed out of the clouds and fell to the ground, which is rain.
Calling it “fake rain” suggests that there’s a nozzle behind the camera spraying water. That isn’t happening. Instead, it’s raining.
Is this part of the trend of denying the existence of objective reality and contending that we each have the right to our own truth? (Or am I overreacting to somebody using the word “fake” differently from me?)
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The National reported the heavy rainfall caused waterfalls to appear in the city of Ail Ain and made driving conditions hazardous.
I’d say what is hazardous is the oil on the roadways in the first minutes of rainfall. And you know…it’s the UAE, so maybe more time than that.
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Jinx
I agree, I also had a surprisingly strong gut reaction against the word “fake”
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Did they hire Charles Hatfield?
Futility Closet - The Rainmaker
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So, this is rain that’s supposed to fall somewhere else not on, you know, the desert, that will not now get said rain? Yeah, fuck Dubai.
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Except that there’s zero evidence cloud seeding works. It’s always been pseudoscience filled with crackpots going around shooting things in the air until it rains anyway, then claiming causation.
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Yeah, the “enhanced rain” term in there sounded worse. That made me wonder if there was something in the content of the raindrops that might cause concern.
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I’m sure in an authoritarian police state like Dubai (never fall for its tourist-friendly, Western image) there is no way of doing it - but I’d imagine American lawyers would live well off liability cases arising from someone being injured as a result of man-made rainfall.
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I feel like you’re missing my point, or ignoring it at least. If you think the rain was caused not by the cloud seeding but rather by natural processes, then you must agree with me that the word “fake” in the headline was misused.
I’ll edit my post to change “was caused” to “may have been caused” so people won’t get distracted.
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‘Fake’ used to mean fake but now ‘fake’ means “fake”.
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I would never lambaste an entire country for attempting to use the scientific method to solve their issues. Couple thousand years ago, Dubai was considered the garden of eden or very close to the OG one. People still remember this because it’s their history and they yearn for hunting grounds and orchards of the old days without having to move away from home. It’s certainly true that Mother Earth has a water cycle that is hers and hers alone and messing with it tantamount to playing god, however the amount of available water for consumption in some areas will either force a change in how we share water, or war. You’re so right, it has to fall somewhere, and then the locals of that place should be sharing with the desert folk. Let’s move fresh water through those oil pipelines y’all.
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Username does NOT check out.
So, people living in fertile areas trying to grow food should “share” water with people who “yearn for hunting grounds and orchards of the old days [i.e., a “Couple thousand years ago”] without having to move away from home.” And those people have the money to shift the rain to their location because of extractive industries that are making their homeland less and less inhabitable.
Hmm.
Let’s just call it what it is: people with money are able to take water, and people without money can’t stop them. If technology is cheaper than war, great. But the end goal is the same.
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I dig the water pipeline idea. Without hijacking the thread toooo badly, can anyone point me to a good overview of desalinization tech? Seems like we’re about to have a lot more ocean in the coming decades. If I understand correctly, the biggest drawback to desalinization is dumping the salty slurry back into the ocean. But if we piped it out to the desert….
I’m surprised; no Tank Girl references yet? 
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In summer, Persian Gulf humidity is extremely high, but barely any of that water ever falls to the desert or coastal cities. It just stays in the air and is pushed over to the Indian Ocean.
And to be clear, the Persian Gulf is a thimble compared to the Indian Ocean. If Dubai could make it rain and supply enough water to drink and irrigate – and other posters note that this is questionable – the actual impact on neighbors would be too small to measure.
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The Wikipedia article is decent. It has the helpful note not to confuse it with De-Stalinization.
Another big issue besides the brine disposal is the energy required. Gulf State energy supply issues can be surprisingly complicated.
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