On September 25, 1961, John F. Kennedy addressed the United Nations General Assembly. Albeit being indirect since he was addressing foreign attendees, he also talked so eloquently and cogently about weather modification, an issue that is ours now. What a loss the world suffered when he was killed!
“The scientific possibility of a world weather watch requires the attention of the World Meteorological Organization. The exploration of the oceans leads to the establishment of an Intergovernmental Oceanography Commission. … Scientists have studied the atmosphere for many, but its problems continue to defy us. The reasons for our limited progress are obvious. Weather cannot be easily reproduced and observed in the laboratory. It must therefore be studied in all its violence or ever it has its way. Here is an oceanography, new scientific tools have become available, with modern computers, rockets and satellites. The time is right to harness a variety of disciplines for a concerted attack. And even more than oceanography, the atmospheric sciences require worldwide observation, enhanced international cooperation. Some of our most successful efforts have involved the study of atmosphere. We all know that the World Meteorological Organization has been effective in this field. It is now developing a worldwide weather system, to which the nations of the world over can make their contribution. Such cooperative undertakings can challenge the worlds best efforts for decades to come. Fourth, I will mention a problem which I know greatly concerned many of you. That is our responsibility to control the effects of our own scientific experiments. For a science investigates the natural environment, it also modifies it. And that modification may have incalculable consequences for evil as well as for good. In the past the problem of conservation has been mainly the problem of human waste of natural resources, of their destruction, but science has the power for the first time in history now, to undertake experiments with premeditation which can irreversibly alter our biological and physical environment on a global scale. … We must for example balance the gains of weather modification against the hazards of protracted drought or storm. The government has the clear responsibility to weigh the importance of large scale experiments to the advance of knowledge or the national security against the possibility of adverse and destructive effects. The scientific community must assist the government and arriving at rational judgements and interpreting these issues to the public .“