Primed for industrial economy … forget any changes in the air

James Mpinga

…THE weather has never ceased to amaze the human species.

In Vietnam, we read that people once feared that a giant frog was eating their sun during a solar eclipse. Chinese mythology speaks of a masculine fire dragon that attempts to eat the moon during lunar eclipses and of their efforts to chase him off by making loud noises, such as firing cannons towards the sky.

Although a few astronomers of the 8th century successfully debunked some of the myths and legends, “the majority of people didn’t really understand what eclipses or shooting stars were until at least the 17th century,” says Edwin Krupp, director of the Griffith Observatory, located in California.

According to him, people’s understanding was hampered by limited education and inadequate access to information. Newly found discoveries were almost always shared in very small circles, “so myths and superstitions from older traditions perpetuated.”

While most of us now consider these myths to be utter nonsense, back then, in almost every culture, lives were heavily dependent on the sky.

Things like sunrise and sunset, the lunar cycle, and the change of seasons gave order to the world, traced the passage of time, and in many ways determined people’s ability to understand them.

During the 16th century, Christopher Columbus and his crew were marooned at a spot where local natives offered them food and fresh water.

But they soon got tired and withheld further help, upon which Columbus threatened the natives that his God would punish them.

Unknown to the natives, Columbus had prior knowledge of an impending solar eclipse which would later a dark blanket across the islands.

Armed with information about how long it would take, he seized the hour, telling the inhabitants that he would petition the good Lord on their behalf if they resumed supplies.

When the skies cleared, Columbus and his sailors became instant heroes, nay, human gods in the eyes of the natives.

I happen to have lived during a time when local weather men (I never heard of female rainmakers); and these were the men we believed could “make” rains out of barren clouds.

And, there was an oracle -- to booted – where felling of trees was strictly prohibited (the only good piece of superstition, if you ask me), and was immediately sanctioned by traditional law.

On reflection, I believe there’s something in common between my own rainmakers and Columbus; both were good at ‘reading’ the clouds for signs of a change in the air, although our rainmakers didn’t have the advantage of instruments to ascertain their predictions; instead, they relied on the gods of rain --totally.

Now don’t ask me why I also feared walking through that sacred grove, even when it held ripe wild fruits.

These days Tanzania has weather men and women who have since gone to school, and some are still in school somewhere in Kigoma region. And these guys can tell you, with fair accuracy, what the weather is likely to be next Sunday.

We need them because there’s a lot at stake within our collective development effort. In the words of Prof. Petteri Taalas, director-general of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO),

“… the economies of many African countries depend on agriculture, and therefore need adequate and reliable weather reports to keep farmers aware of the best farming practices…”

A native of Finland, Prof. Taalas says his organization has been supporting many developing countries to develop their own meteorological and climate services through funding and other bilateral programmes.

Fittingly, our visitor also had occasion to attend the launch of Tanzania’s National Framework for Climate Services, itself part of the Global Framework for Climate Services under WMO funding.

An Italian writer once penned that “ … futures not achieved are only branches of the past: dead branches…” and we need hardly affirm that a grip on the local weather is the first, if not best, way to assure such futures are achieved.

Not very long ago, weather prediction read like shots in the dark; a prediction soon after some news broadcast would announce some ‘scattered showers’ along the coastal strip – only for Dar to find itself in blessed floods across the Jangwani Valley. In fact, those predicted scattered showers became a byword for unpredictable weather bulletins.

Not anymore – and that’s why we welcome a visit from a man at the top of WMO leadership; with our expanded reaches into aviation, agriculture and other activities that depend on full utilization of data on the local weather, this visit couldn’t have come at a better moment.

Kublai Khan is quoted to have once asked Marco Polo: “Is what you see always behind you?... Does your journey takeplace only in the past?”

Well, we’re a forwardlooking nation, primed for an industrial economy – no matter what weather ahead.

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