Last week, while I was in the wake of a friend's son, a college batchmate from the UAE sent a disturbing message: "I have been 'trapped for days' at the airport."
Having just arrived from a long trip abroad, I was deliberately not yet in the loop of the daily local and world grind. This came as a shock!
This colleague, who I got in touch with in one of my recent trips from Europe with layover at the Dubai International Airport, is a manager of one of the duty-free shops there. In a crisis situation, like when there is a red alert and all flights are on hold, she had to stay on to man the post. "This is a first," she said.
As the busiest for global passenger movement, the international airport was teeming and overcrowded for days.
While my colleague said the sales went up, she was sincerely concerned for stranded overseas Filipino workers who are always scrimping on the limited cash they were to bring home. She did not mention, though, if the airlines were took responsibility for the force majeure state of passengers.
Cloud-Seeding Not To Blame
On Tuesday, April 16, UAE experienced the heaviest downpour ever with a year's worth of rainfall in just 12 hours of continuous volley. In a matter of hours, there was flooding in the desert, in the residential and commercial areas, and at the Dubai airport. This is the worst since 1949, the government claimed.
The estimated damage wrought by this apocalyptic flooding is pegged at $1 billion in just one day. Everything was disrupted -- transport, power, gas, potable water supply, residential, commercial and public infrastructure, and, most specifically, the environs.
Before the overwhelming torrents, the UAE National Center for Meteorology set off a cloud-seeding mission. Later, the NMC claimed that the six pilots deployed to spray atmospheric aerosols to trigger rain "had not seeded any cloud."
To support this, even with the conjecture of many, The Telegraph quoted the University of Reading in England denying that "cloud-seeding technique has nothing to do with the catastrophic flooding in Dubai."
Scientists succinctly attributed this freak phenomenon to "the low-pressure systems and climate change." Whatever the cause, science can explain it.
What Is It For?
Also known as pluviculture, cloud seeding is done in desert or super dry areas to induce rain.
For some, what happened in UAE days ago is a consequence of global warming, no less. The surrounds were so dry that the government decided to deploy a cloud-seeding mission.
Clouds are suspended water vapor and to infuse rain, planes or drones are set out to spray substances. Then, water vapor will start condensing or freezing until they expand to bring out rain or snow, the Global News, quoting an official from the Canada Research, explained.
Even PAGASA does cloud seeding.
It was invented in the United States in the 1960s to thwart forest or big fires or to prompt snowfall.
Mother Earth Is Calling
As Science claims to have an explanation for everything, the storm dumps happening in UAE also occurred recently in Saudi Arabia and in Oman.
These areas are deprived of water supply and had to resort to scientific means — like desalination — to provide the populace with continuous supply of potable water.
Now these countries experienced being dumped with overwhelming rain.
Worldwide, the climate cycle has slowly changed to petrifying proportions.
While there is constant call to be mindful of our natural surface and underground resources, Mother Earth seems restless of what humankind has made to his environs.
Man-Made Damage
April 22 was Earth Day! For me, everyday is Earth Day.
Hope we be kinder to Mother Earth, the only one we've got, who is suffering from man-made damage that has disrupted biodiversity. This included abusive land-use, downright deforestation, intensified agriculture and aquaculture, wildlife trading and habitat degradation, among others.
We are well within the United Nation's Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030). The UN program, if followed and respected, will eventually "put an end to poverty, combat climate change and prevent mass extinction."
We, the residents of Planet Earth, will only succeed if all play our integral role with commitment and conviction.
(email opinyon.luchie@gmail.com or luchiearguelles@yahoo.com)
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