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The UAE wants to prove that money can literally make it rain

AP Photo/Jon Gambrell
Are those storm clouds?
  • Tim Kruger
By Tim Kruger

James Martin Fellow, University of Oxford

Published This article is more than 2 years old.


There’s a reason why it is so wet: the prevailing winds carry moisture-laden air from the Atlantic onto the Welsh hills, and as the air rises, it cools, losing its ability to hold as much water vapor. The water vapor condenses and falls as sweet, refreshing rain—though I imagine the people of Eglwyswrw may have been employing somewhat different adjectives just recently.



I was asked to comment on this development as I work on geoengineering—assessing proposed techniques to cool the climate by either removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere or reflecting a portion of the sun’s light back into space. Whether the UAE’s mountainous ambitions quite count as geoengineering is debatable—I would argue not (sorry, it’s too small-scale)—but the term is sufficiently recent to allow people to play Humpty Dumpty with it (“’When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.'”).


To some people, this proposal exemplifies the triumph of the human spirit over adverse environmental conditions, enabling the deserts to bloom. To others, it is a manifestation of arrogance imposed on nature.


And there will be winners and losers. You’d hope that the winners would outnumber the losers, or the project wouldn’t go ahead. But even if the utilitarian calculus is positive overall, there will be some who don’t see the benefits of additional rainfall—and losers make more noise squealing than winners do in their contentment.

The viewpoints you take are value judgements—and value judgements are not universally shared. Yet it may be possible to accommodate the differing viewpoints, provided the effects of the mountain are constrained within the territory of a nation. And even if the mountain were to deprive a neighboring country of its fair share of rain, some sort of compensation could be made to avert conflict.



My guess is that Eglwyswrw will remain a real, really wet place, and the UAE will remain a surreal, really dry place.

