What to do when the country is experiencing its worst drought in five years and again government fails to stop the illegal burning of forests ? In a village, people are staging a cat wedding, before throwing cats in a pond. Or if you say you are more scientifically inclined, you put salt in water buckets. Yes, it was recommended by an official from the environmental group leading the country.
The members of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) last month called on people across the country for mixing water with salt to create rain. Unfortunately, putting buckets of salt water does not create rain.
Humans have a certain power over nature, but it is the supreme ignorance and arrogance to think they can control the weather. What people can do with the shovel is making things worse by destroying the environment, treating the planet like a giant dump and its precious forests as something to be destroyed for short financial gain term.
International studies conducted by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have found that urban pollution, industrial and agricultural can suppress precipitation due to fine particle pollution inhibit water condensation clouds drops radar, while the remaining rain falls in a greater intensity.
Parts of Sumatra, Kalimantan and Singapore and neighboring Malaysia have since more than a month was covered in poisonous fog lights on illegally. It is an annual problem caused by poor enforcement of Indonesia. The fires are started by farmers seeking to clear land and by persons acting on behalf of timber and palm oil plantation companies. The smoke causes respiratory problems and led to the temporary closure of schools and cancellation of flights.
The appeal of Walhi for people to fight against the fog by putting salt in water buckets was widely circulated via BlackBerry Messenger, and some new online portals.
In Jambi province of Sumatra, the mayor of the city of Jambi, Syarif Fasha, September 12 held a meeting with the principals and education agencies to call on schools to salt water buckets. Some schools could not immediately comply because they were closed due to fog.
The schools were also responsible for keeping sholat istisqo - a mass Islamic prayer for rain. The preacher leading prayer usually apologizes, as if the drought is divine punishment for sins.
In Jambi State Junior High School 1 (SMPN 1), hundreds of students were told to carry buckets of water and salt from home. They had to bring their own water because a teacher said the school has faced a water shortage. The buckets were left outside for a week. No rain was created.
The director of SMPN 1 Jambi, Nana Sunarya, later told local media that although the decision of rain activity has not worked, it was educational for the students to learn about the process evaporation and condensation.
The head of the Division of organization and networking Walhi in the province of Bengkulu, southwest Sumatra, Feri Van Dalis, was told to put buckets of water salt per day, preferably 11 to 1 p.m., would accelerate precipitation if performed simultaneously by many Indonesians, like millions of cubic meters of water vapor would be created. He said each bucket should contain about 10 liters of water and a salt half a kilo.
The State Agency for Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT) quickly issued a statement explaining that salt water buckets do not break the drought. Tri Handoko Seto, a meteorologist who runs the artificial rain unit BPPT, said the creation of rainfall is not simple, because many factors, such as mountains and wind patterns, the influence of rainfall. He said the sea water off the coast of Jambi, South Sumatra and Riau evaporates, but wind patterns sent north of condensation and northeast, so the clouds form in the northern and north-eastern Indonesia.
BPPT has in the past tried cloud seeding, an attempt to induce precipitation by dumping silver iodide or dry ice into rainclouds, but practice only has a success rate 30 percent and some scientists doubt its effectiveness. Singapore has not cloud seeding this season because there is no appropriate clouds.
Tri said haze is better addressed by stopping people burning the land and forests during the dry season. He said that communities should form Fire movements and must report immediately to the authorities incendiary.
Hello Kitties
In a town Tulungagung regency of East Java province, locals stage a 'Wedding Cat' ( Mantu Kucing ) in rain summoning hope. Despite the name of the ritual, the pair of cats involved does not get married or even companion. The ceremony is called a "marriage" because it involves a beautifully colorful and noisy procession, where residents of the village Palem dress in their finery. There is often a choir, an orchestra of drums and dancers. A male cat and a female cat, also dressed in finery or just batik shawls are worn by human agents at the front of the parade, which concludes with a spring or pond or 'a waterfall. Felines are blessed on thrones undressed, sprinkled with magic potion and then thrown into the water. They always come out very quickly.
Legend has it that hundreds of years, Tulungagung was afflicted by a terrible drought that had drained the rice fields, a river and a lake. Prayers for rain were not answered, until one day an old woman went to the local source for a bath. A Tortoiseshell Cat jumped with her. Suddenly the rain began to fall. Since then, the superstitious people believed that immersion of a cat in water will create precipitation.
In 1926, the region suffered another drought. Locals say two tortoiseshell cats were taken from the east and west ends of Palem village and sprayed the waterfall near Coban, and a few days later, the drought broke. In the 1980s, people began to dress the cats in fancy wedding outfit, while employees would wear elaborate umbrellas over them. At one time, it was difficult to find the tortoiseshell cats, so the villagers have started using regular cats of all colors.
While cats do not seem to enjoy the end of the ceremony, some people jumping into the water, because they believe it has been blessed with cats and can bring good luck and ward off even old age.
In other parts of Java and Bali, the rain making rituals often involve fights between two combatants wielding rattan sticks. It is believed that when the blood begins to flow zebra, it will symbolize the coming of the rain. At Mount Slamet volcano Pemalang, Central Java, there is a rain dance production called sintren , which should be done by teenage virgins.
Although there is no harm - outside wet cats embarrassed and injuries in stick fighting - keeping old traditions, environmentalists and schools should not be encouraging communities believing in pseudoscience or superstition. Instead, communities may be better to protest outside the homes and offices of officials who fail to punish those responsible for illegal forest fires.