The The leaves are out, temperatures are climbing into the 70s and 80s on a regular basis, and it feels like summer.

To make it feel more like summer, Southern California has already had a wildfire as intense as the late summer variety, and the first tropical storm of the season formed northwest of the Bahamas.

The odd weather may be an aberration, but it is certainly going to give an energy boost to global warming fanatics and to people who want a quick fix to solve the perceived problem of climate change.

I just read an article about some scientists who want to tackle global warming by instituting their own form of climate change: weather modification. Actually, it's more like Earth modification.

The gist of the article in the Wilson Quarterly is that a small group of scientists is considering raising private funding to reflect solar energy back into space before it has a chance to further warm the planet.

The reasoning is that global governments are too slow to effect change.

The article's author, James R. Fleming, notes that scientists with radical ideas have a history of marching forward without fully understanding their downside if implemented.

The development of the atomic bomb was a great breakthrough for physics but a giant risk to humankind. There must have been a great amount of excitement when mustard gas was developed, until someone said, "oops, this might be used to kill people."

Consider that stubborn nail. You pull back your arm to take a mighty swing with the hammer. "I'm going to take care of this problem once and for all!" Energy is applied to your arm and in a great sweeping arc; the arm muscles unleash a powerful stroke. The hammerhead is a flicker of an eyelash away from firmly sinking the nail into the wood with the mighty sound of metal against metal - when you suddenly realize your thumb is in the way.

The words uttered, the thoughts and the anguish felt at that moment, have been repeated by scientists and politicians since time immemorial who realize too late that what they have wrought in idea or deed will be used for evil and not good.

Weather modification, also known as climate engineering, may be the next great science blunder.

The scientists want to restore the Earth's climate to some former blissful state. The same science involved with this good deed could be used by a lunatic to alter the climate with the intent to control the population of an enemy by creating havoc with manmade drought, floods or frozen oceans.

Climate change can be unnerving, but allowing weather modification to go unchecked in the hands of well-meaning scientists is truly frightening.

Chris Orr is a Certified Consulting Meteorologist in private practice, morning meteorologist at KNBN-TV NewsCenter1 and can be heard on the radio show Live With Jim Thompson on Wednesdays. E-mail him at weather@rapidwx.com or go to www.rapidwx.com.