Mathieu Simonet is already at the origin of the international day of clouds, he wants to make them untouchable, while many “geoengineering” projects are on the table.
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Whether they are Cirrus, Stratus or Cumulus, from Verlaine to Baudelaire via Paul Éluard, clouds have been inviting humans to poetry and daydreams for centuries. But in a world that is warming and drying out, clouds are no longer just, and even less and less, the subject of rhymes, verses and metaphors, but increasingly a vital issue. While the water war has begun almost everywhere, their rain droplets find themselves at the heart of covetousness.
Hence the initiative of a writer, Mathieu Simonet, already at the origin of the creation of the international day of clouds, March 29, and who pleaded during this same week of March with deputies and senators for that clouds be listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This writer would like to make clouds untouchables. To prevent humans from playing apprentice sorcerers by manipulating them, to make them cry, with the sole aim, faced with the risk of drought, of recovering their tears.
Projects to modify the climate
Many so-called “geoengineering” projects are in fact on the table. The World Meteorological Organization lists dozens of them, the aim of which is to modify the climate, rather than prevent it from derailing. By injecting, for example, sulfur particles into the atmosphere to block the sun’s rays, or silver iodide into the clouds to make them rain, a technique already used in the United States and China. But while the World Meteorological Organization lists dozens of projects of this type, sending chemical agents into the sky from planes would not be without consequences, because upon falling back to earth they would inexorably end up accumulating in the grounds. Moreover, the European Commission itself warns against these geoengineering techniques “unacceptable level of risk”.
So since clouds really don’t deserve to be made to cry, why not add them to UNESCO’s world heritage, which brings together all the cultural and natural properties representing an exceptional interest for the common heritage of humanity. Humanity for whom every day it is enough to look up to remember, by seeing the ephemeral clouds, the impermanence of all things.