You might have seen the latest claims that China is handing out degrees in "weather engineering" and that they have vast weather control capabilities.  I can't find any independent confirmation that China is handing out weather engineering degrees but I can say they do not have the vast weather modification abilities ("changing the land from desert to green") claimed.  Per the American Meteorological Society , here's what can -- given the right atmospheric conditions -- be done: One tool available for mitigating some of these weather impacts is planned weather modification through cloud seeding. In its most common form, specially formulated aerosols or very cold materials are dispersed in targeted locations within clouds to achieve precipitation enhancement, hail damage mitigation, fog clearing, and other intentional effects. In the above context, "aerosols" are tiny particles such as silver iodide crystals. And, while we have had some success in ...

This was published Tuesday.  This, published yesterday, is the first 12 paragraphs of the above.  The full article is behind a paywall and I have been able to read only about half, but there are so many similar articles floating around the media these days that I can pretty well figure out what the rest says.  The (strongly left-leaning) Bloomberg wants to convey the impression that weather forecasting and storm warnings are a federal government monopoly. They aren't; not even close. The article has all of the hallmarks of originating within NOAA in a desperate attempt to stave off the major changes most everyone in the field knows need to be made. Note that in the first 11 paragraphs (all that are available before the paywall) there isn't a single non-NOAA source.  Left-wing reporters at left-wing organizations, especially in Washington, will generally take federal agency press statements and run with them. But NOAA has never been a monopoly or even a real leader in...

I am getting many inquiries about weather modification -- from email to Twitter  (as with the item below)  and I'd like to clear the air a bit. Please read my qualifications at the bottom.  Snow Increases There is one area in which weather modification in which mild success is documented.  In mountainous areas during winter, silver iodide generators can put that (not harmful) chemical into low-lying clouds and increase the amount of snow 5 to 15% over what would have fallen anyway. The qualification is because if nothing would have fallen anyway, weather modification cannot do any good. The illustration above is incorrect in that the mountains need to be in the clouds or almost in them.  Hail Suppression In the summer, especially in the High Plains of the U.S., and in other parts of the world, there have been efforts to suppress hail to limit crop damage with the added benefit of limiting damage to buildings, et cetera.  For hail suppression, aircraft ...

It is already happening in other nations.  The article goes on..... We know that China paid the Biden family $4.2 million for ?? services (this reported by the hardly conservative Washington Post ), so I fully expect this to be attempted if President Biden gets a second term.  Global warming: Where the cures are worse than the disease.  Hat tip:  https://joannenova.com.au/

It is absurd to be preparing to send troops to Ukraine. Ukraine is not a key national interest of the United States. In the meantime, China appears to be preparing for war against Taiwan, which is  in our key national interest. What are we doing to prepare for that? If you agree with either part of the above, I suggest you let your congressional representatives and the White House know your position. And, why isn't this the lead story on every network? I get the impression the media would rather change the subject than write something that may subject President Biden to criticism. 

From Jo Nova : China has committed to renewals for public relations reasons, only. They are building as many as two coal plants per week  to provide electricity for their population. They are not pretending that renewables are valuable in and of their own. Yes, we should decarbonizing energy but we should do it through nuclear and hydro, not unreliable wind and solar. 

Michael Shellenberger has a compelling column on how Democrats in Congress are so determined to subsidize wind and solar that they don't care about the plight of the Uyghurs held in slavery in China. His entire piece is here . 

The Chinese launched this rocket a few minutes ago to resupply their space station. I took this screen capture before the launch occurred. Note the headline at the top. The launch cannot be a success before  the rocket lifts off. The Chinese Communist Party does it again. 

We've talked about electric cars many times in the last year, primarily about the fact that the grid could not handle a widespread change from gasoline to electric.  But consider these facts about manufacturing just one battery for an electric car. When you add that much of the mining is done by slave labor and child labor, what's not to like?  /sarc off. The bottom line:

Can political correctness get more destructive? Of course, that maybe has been the point all along. 

It is a disgrace the U.S. and western nations are participating in the China Olympics. 

A terrifying story about the military progress China and Russia are making against the United States. At the time, I wondered why President Trump was starting a Space Force. This story not only makes it clear why he did it but also that it was the right thing to do. Where was our media when all of these aggressive moves in space were being made? Perhaps it way past time the USA stops worrying about pronouns and the other nonsense permeating our society and start realizing that our way of life is at stake. 

As the useless COP26 meeting continues, China (which withdrew along with Putin and the Pope) thumbs its nose at the rest of the world.  China isn't stupid -- it is dangerous. It is building coal and nuclear power as fast as it can.  Challenging the United States is going to require tremendous amounts of electricity.  Meanwhile, when President Biden's Secretary of Energy is asked about more energy, this is the absurd response, especially since her administration has cut U.S. petroleum production by two million barrels a day. We better wise up fast.

For reasons that are not clear to me, wind power has been a huge topic of conversation the last few days. A friend of mine -- in view of the fact that during an especially hot period in July we were asked by utilities to conserve electricity -- sent me this video of stationary wind turbines in Kansas. Our state, unfortunately, gets 43% of its energy from unreliable wind.  Did you know that the turbines do not  turn when the wind speeds are less than 7 mph or stronger than 25 mph? That is an awfully lot of the time. They are also very high maintenance ,  This financial strategy has also affected the reliability of the balance-of-plant maintenance at many [wind] farms as well, where the short lifecycles of transformers and often unreliable underground collection systems have increased down time and service calls. But that’s another article. Compared to traditional power generation facilities, the risk is spread over many generators, so the total effect of these design weak...

We rarely write about economics, but this is worth including. It is from an article, The Most Terrifying Map in the World.     I completely agree this is terrifying: The political implications for freedom and prosperity for the people of the United States and world are profound.  There are many who are, correctly, concerned about wages and opportunity in our nation. I don't see how that can materially improve while our markets are shrinking across the world.  But, on an even more profound basis, China is an "evil empire" (to borrow a phrase from President Reagan) under which people do not have basic rights. And, I don't see our politicians doing anything to arrest these disturbing trends. 

This occurred Friday. Wuhan is the city where the coronavirus is believed to have begun.  Daily Mail The tornado was caused by a supercell with a hook echo -- exactly what we would expect to see on American radar.  There were casualties but I don't know a final number. 

"Save Uighur, a Chicago NGO, lists 83 companies profiting from Chinese prison camp labor. Among them are Adidas, BMW, Calvin Klein, General Motors, Nike, Jaguar, and Mercedes. Forced organ-harvesting is rampant in these camps.” The full story is here . It is required reading. If you are doing business with these companies, you are indirectly contributing to this horror.

 This is simply stupefying . Mind-boggling. At first, I thought it was a hoax.  But, no, multiple news organizations are reporting it. Looks like China is already getting a good return on their investment in bribes to President Biden's family. The New York Post's  bribery story was the one the MSM buried immediately before the election .  Because of his dementia, I suppose Biden wants to earn his stipends from China quickly but the second day?! Even though I knew we would disagree about many political policy items, I was completely sincere when I wished President Biden well on Wednesday . I still do. But, the moratorium on criticism I had planned is now rescinded. There is nothing about allowing the Chinese to be involved in our electric grid that can bring anything good to any American with the exception of the many politicians -- of both parties -- that are in China's pocket. 

I don't know what the deal is with Bloomberg 'opinion' but they have run multiple stories praising the success of China's weather control program. Except it is all baloney. Below is a small sample. It is scientifically impossible to break a drought with cloud seeding. Why? There are no clouds to seed.   Is it possible they have had some success lessening hail? Possibly. We don't do it in the United States because they know there will be tremendous litigation.