Australians vie for 'stupidest idea' award 15 April 04

Alright, it’s not a real award, but the idea is very, very stupid. The government of New South Wales has decided that seeding clouds is the best way to help its ski industry tackle the threat of global warming. Yes, really – they plan to blow silver iodide crystals into passing clouds in the hope that enough snowfall will be generated to keep the ski lifts running an extra five days. As a techno-fix solution, which nicely illustrates human folly in trying to engineer away the symptoms of climate change, it’s a winner. As a project to “mitigate the impact of climate change on our precious alpine environment”, in the words of state agriculture minister Ian Macdonald, it’s bound to be a dead loss – and possibly even seriously damaging to other regions. D’uh!
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