Should Scientists Try to Prevent Hurricanes?

September 08, 2008

I know all of you out there are as relieved as I am that the city of New Orleans was spared this time by Hurricane Gustav, although we did have to endure a brief disruption of nonstop cable news coverage of the Republican National Convention . (Btw, for those of you who were deeply disappointed by the delay of former New York mayor and failed presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani’s keynote address, maybe this video clip of him discussing his views on readiness for a possible attack by space aliens will help fill the void.)

Even so, it’s truly scary to think about what might have happened, had Gustav lived up to its advance billing as the “storm of the century.” Here’s some footage of 2005’s Hurricane Katrina that is the stuff of nightmares.

I’m not knocking the crucial importance of hurricane preparedness. But in truth, there’s only so much you can do to prepare for an onslaught of water and moving air powerful enough to lift up a car and throw it into the lobby of a hotel. Which leads me to wonder: What if we had a way to prevent hurricanes or at least lessen their severity?