Bill Gates Has a Plan to Stop Hurricanes

But will Mother Gaia be impressed with his efforts?

Recent patent filings have shown Bill Gates and his friends exploring subjects as diverse as electromagnetic engines and beer kegs. Now they're thinking even bigger -- trying to stop hurricanes.

Microsoft's chairman is among the inventors listed on a new batch of patent applications that propose using large fleets of vessels to suppress hurricanes through various methods of mixing warm water from the surface of the ocean with colder water at greater depths. The idea is to decrease the surface temperature, reducing or eliminating the heat-driven condensation that fuels the giant storms.

The filings were made by Searete LLC, an entity tied to Intellectual Ventures, the Bellevue-based patent and invention house run by Nathan Myhrvold, the former Microsoft chief technology officer. Myhrvold and several others are listed along with Gates as inventors.

Have Gates and his fellow mad scientists considered the effect his invention will have on Mother Gaia and global warming? Hurricanes are one way Mother Gaia uses to take excess surface heat and thrust it into the upper atmosphere. Killing hurricanes in the womb could result in even warmer temperatures, and since Prince Charles only gave us 96 months to save the planet, he might have to revise his numbers.

Must I think of everything?