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Trump suggests 'nuking hurricanes'

Accepted submission by c0lo at 2019-08-26 07:10:17 from the build-a-wall-and-make-the-hurricans-pay dept.
/dev/random

Guardian [theguardian.com]

Donald Trump has reportedly suggested on more than one occasion that the US military should bomb hurricanes in order to disrupt them before they make landfall.

According to US news website Axios [axios.com], the US president said in a meeting with top national security and homeland security officials about the threat of hurricanes: “I got it. I got it. Why don’t we nuke them?”

“They start forming off the coast of Africa, as they’re moving across the Atlantic, we drop a bomb inside the eye of the hurricane and it disrupts it. Why can’t we do that?”

Quoting unnamed sources who were present at the meeting, Axios report that the response from one official was “We’ll look into this.”

Axios reports that Trump raised the same issue on another occasion with a senior administration official. This conversation was apparently recorded in a 2017 national security council memo which used the term “nuclear” in reference to the conversation."
...
Shortly after Trump came to power National Geographic published an article pointing out how frequent the idea of nuking hurricanes has been over the last few decades: “It’s an appealing thought, especially when, during hurricane season, we’re annually reminded of the immense destruction wrought by these storms.

“And it’s probably why, every year for the past six decades, government agencies have received missives from concerned citizens, urging preemptive attacks against hurricanes using nuclear weapons.”

In the article, entitled Nuking Hurricane: The Surprising History of a Really Bad Idea [nationalgeographic.com], they point out that the response from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was: “Needless to say, this is not a good idea.”

Ummm... why does an onion FA redirects to the Guardian?
(point: how deep the rabbit hole are we when it became plausible for POTUS to seriously consider blatant bad ideas and the risk of attempting them isn't negligible?)


Original Submission