(6/11/2005)

Do you know a rainmaker?

The rains have arrived on the prairie and we are grateful. Did a rainmaker cause them?

Rainmaker is a funny word in our society. In business it usually means someone who causes money to "rain" on the company.

Sometimes people use it to identify the ancient pageants associated with the start of the local rainy season or "monsoon".

As near as I can tell, we westerners misapplied the term rainmaker to ancient cultures which were not trying to make rain, but were asking for some rain or expressing gratitude for the end of the dry season. Every farmer and rancher can relate to that.

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries westerners got the idea that loud noise caused rain because thunder was heard before rains. Others thought hanging black snakes in trees would cause rain.

All you needed was a drought and some cash and a rainmaker and his cannon would show up to save the day. Only the technology has changed.

People still dabble in rainmaking, but the modern term is "weather modification". During the recent drought, interest in such things as cloud seeding became a topic of discussion.

I have never seen any proof that a person can control the weather, although I know a man who claims his father could make rain. When a cloud is about ready to rain or hail, someone can cause some water to fall a little early and get moisture that would have fallen on his neighbor.

Maybe people can modify weather a little bit, but to control it…absolutely not.

The modern rainmakers charge more than the old ones. We give hundreds of millions of dollars to people who claim they have enough knowledge and power (or soon will) to control elements of the "climate" (weather with no specific location or time).

Those who think people are in control of the climate urge us to take action to prevent global warming before it is "too late". I can't buy it.

Maybe I am too much like the ancient peoples. I have seen the vastness of the land and sky and the unimaginable powers that turn the wheels of nature. It is impossible for my mind to look at those wonders and believe a puny little thing like a person can control it.

Besides that, everything we know about natural systems tells us change is inevitable and nature has a countermeasure for everything that happens to preserve balance. We just don't know it.

On the prairie we know enough about it if we "have enough sense to come in out of the rain."

I give the climatologists this, they know how to make it rain money. So, they are true rainmakers, even if they can't make it rain.

The only way to guarantee failure is to not try.

Larry Gabriel

South Dakota Secretary of Agriculture