Just yesterday, severe hail hit Longxi County in Gansu Province. The hail was as big as eggs, smashing farmers’ wheat fields, cornfields, and watermelon fields, and injuring many residents.
When I first saw this message, I hadn’t really processed it yet and thought it was just an ordinary severe weather event. But after thinking it over for a while, I remembered that it was already June, on the verge of the scorching summer, with only thirty days left until Minor Heat. In such generally hot weather, Longxi in Gansu — and even Langfang in Hebei and Guyuan in Ningxian not long ago — actually had hail as big as eggs! It really shows what China’s weather has become under the ravages of capitalism.
Of course, aside from long-term pollution and urban heat, the abuse of meteorological tools is also one of the direct reasons for the worsening weather in China. Many people have also been denouncing the fact that today’s severe weather is not purely a natural disaster, but something caused by human wrongdoing.
This reminds me of the scandal the Chongqing Meteorological Bureau caused two years ago.
Around mid-September 2024, Chongqing was being “roasted” by extreme heat. So the Chongqing Meteorological Bureau made a snap decision to carry out artificial rainmaking to cool things down. The result: the first time, they used the wrong ammunition and caused an eight-beaufort gale in Chongqing; the second time, they aimed in the wrong direction and made it pour in Sichuan; the third time, they got the force wrong and turned rain into snow; the fourth time, they again aimed in the wrong direction and caused torrential rain in Sichuan; and the fifth time, they got both the direction and the force wrong, sending a hailstorm over Guizhou.
How could the people not suffer when such a bunch of useless bureaucrats are messing with meteorological tools? Some people even lamented that in the socialist period of the 1970s, patrol vehicles armed with weather cannons would always be out on the streets defending against hail and other severe weather, safeguarding the people’s property and personal safety, but now there isn’t even the slightest bit of defensive capability or attitude left. This is the difference between two systems, two standpoints, and two roads.
Here we could also include a few reports from the socialist period about following the mass line, closely working with the masses to prevent hail, breaking the reactionary Confucian fatalist theory of heaven’s mandate, and promoting the idea that human will can triumph over nature.
