Last December 16th, browsing through the China Daily as I sometimes like to do on Saturdays, I came across an interesting feature on the front page. It was headed "Weather experts in broadcast storm" and appeared under the byline of one Liang Chao. Let me quote for you its gist: "Addressing a symposium to mark the first anniversary of China's meteorological law, Qin Dahe, Minister of the China Meteorological Administration, said that enforcement of the law was being affected by some commercial media who randomly issued false weather forecasts or ran disaster warnings without the permission of the meteorological authorities. "This," said Qin, "has seriously violated China's meteorological law which authorises the state-run weather stations alone to issue weather forecasts and typhoon and storm warnings."
The issue is not unique to China, nor indeed is the concept of a meteorological law. In June 1948, for example, the US Congress passed a law by which "whoever knowingly issues or publishes any counterfeit weather forecasts or warnings falsely representing such forecasts or warnings to have been issued on behalf of the Weather Bureau, shall be fined not more than 500 dollars, or imprisoned for not more than 90 days, or both." Unlike the Chinese enactment, however, the US provision does not prohibit the promulgation of bona-fide weather forecasts by private corporations or individuals - and therein lies an issue. Few nowadays object to weather forecasts emanating from the private sector. It is pointed out that no one wishes to depend entirely on one national television network, on one source of news, on one daily newspaper or on a single source of economic predictions; so why then have only a single provider of weather forecasts? Many private weather companies provide reliable information and advice, particularly to individual customers requiring greater local detail and process-specific information than a government agency may be in a position to provide. But some feel that it is a different matter when it comes to potentially life-threatening weather events. Suppose an Atlantic hurricane is predicted by the US National Weather Service to come ashore at Miami, while a private sector operator predicts landfall 300 miles to the north at Jacksonville. Which area should be evacuated, and where should the relevant authorities concentrate the scarce available resources? There are diverse views, but the balance of opinion is in favour of critical warnings of this kind being allowed to be issued only by the government authorities, thereby avoiding wasteful dilution of preventive effort.