ISLAMABAD: In the wake of the latest war of words taking place between India and Pakistan, an author has accused India of manipulating the weather system of the sub-continent in 2010 and causing floods in Pakistan.

In the book ironically titled ‘Reality of Floods in Pakistan’, launched on Wednesday, author Waqas Ahmed claims that there is documentary proof of India using silver iodide to cause excessive rain in Pakistan.

Silver iodide and dry ice are among the chemicals used in cloud seeding, a weather modification method which attempts to change the amount or type of precipitation by dispersing substances which cause cloud condensation.

Disregarded as a fringe science for many years, the effectiveness of cloud seeding is debated in academic circles.

However, the author of this book hopes to raise alarm bells in Pakistan by warning that the technology is likely to improve and more droughts and floods can be caused by using it.

“The weather is being manipulated by external forces,” he said.

Waqar Ahmed claims that if such external interference continues, by 2020 Pakistan’s weather patterns would be so erratic that the agriculture sector would be completely destroyed.

“Life as we know it will change forever, we will wear warm clothes in April and summer fruits will never ripen,” he said.

A debate followed the book launch and scientists and experts appeared divided over the claims made in the book.

Scientist Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, who is famous for his research on Jinns and proposing in a Wall Street Journal interview that they could be tapped to solve the energy crisis, has reviewed Waqas Ahmed’s book. “It is a good effort. The book paves the way for debate,” he said.

He also warned that since climate can be controlled and manipulated, we should be conscious of the possibility of artificially induced floods.

Meanwhile, physicist Pervez Hoodbhoy rejected the claims made in the book as ‘assumptions’, not based on facts.

“If we suppose that the author’s theory is correct, a huge amount of energy will be required to bring about such a change. Maybe hydrogen bombs can create that much energy,” he said.

Dr Hoodbhoy also raised questions about the author’s qualifications and asked how a person with experience in telecom engineering can write a book on such a topic.

However, an environmentalist, Dr Mohammad Irfan, said that in 1968, there were people in the research advisory committee of the president of the United States who advised that technology should be used to manipulate the environment of other countries and cause natural disasters.

He said that he had been writing on this topic for the last 10 years and everything is possible in today’s world, with the strides made in technological development.

“I believe that this theory cannot be rejected and we must prepare ourselves for such a situation by building dams. If we have reservoirs we can store flood water in dams and defend against nefarious schemes,” he said.

Talking to Dawn, Waqas Ahmed claimed that India used silver iodide in 2010 to increase Indian cloud formation by 80 per cent.

“We should not forget that India and Pakistan share a weather system and this can be manipulated. We should be ready for attacks of natural disasters because these would replace conventional wars in the future,” he said.

In response to a question, Mr Waqas said the government should carry out soil tests to determine if there is silver iodide in our area.

“Over the last few years, National Disaster Management Authority’s (NDMA) predictions have been proven wrong so many times, we should ask who is manipulating our weather system. This is a very serious issue and we should not take this lightly,” he said.

Published in Dawn, June 18th, 2015

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