Page 20 - James Rodger Fleming - Fixing the sky

ing the planet, saving humanity, and minimizing unwanted side effects, whether
physical or moral—is now both possible and desirable. How did we arrive at
this situation? 3
This book examines historical and current ways of thinking about weather
and climate control. It includes stories from a long and checkered history and
a dizzying array of contemporary ideas—most of them wildly impractical.
It examines the proposals and actual practices of a large number of dreamers,
militarists, and outright charlatans, of rain kings and queens, of weather war-
riors and climate engineers, both ancient and modern. It provides scholars and
the general public with new perspectives that are missing from the technically
oriented or policy-oriented conversations about control. This book is based on
research in original manuscript and document collections; it also contains fresh
interpretations of existing work. It is an extended essay arguing for the rele-
vance of history, the foolishness of quick fixes, and the need to follow a “middle
course” of expedited moderation in aerial matters, seeking neither to control
the sky nor to diminish the importance of environmental problems we face.
This history is located within a long tradition of imaginative and speculative
literature involving the “control” of nature. Early efforts to exercise some form of
control over the environment included seeking shelter from the elements, using
fire for warmth, herding animals, cultivating plants, and moving and storing
fresh water. Yet control of the heavens remains far beyond the ability of mortals.
our ancestors either bowed or cowered before the ancient sky gods, while the
mythological figures of classical antiquity met with tragedy when they sought
to exceed mortal limits. Many societies, seeking a measure of influence over the
vagaries of the sky, invested their rulers or shamans with the title “rain king” or
“rain queen” and charged them with ceremonial duties of vast significance not
only for upholding the physical well-being and prosperity of the tribe but also for
maintaining the proper relationships between heaven and Earth.
Since the seventeenth century, the Baconian expectation that increasing
knowledge would lead to new technologies “for the common good” has been
widely applied to all scientific fields, including, notably, meteorology and clima-
tology. For several centuries now, planners, politicians, scientists, and soldiers
have proposed schemes for the purposeful manipulation of weather and climate,
usually for commercial or military purposes. Their stories have tragic, comedic,
and heroic aspects. Control of weather and climate is a perennial issue rooted in
hubris and tragedy; it is a pathological issue, illustrating what can go wrong in sci-
ence; and it is a pressing public policy issue with widespread social implications.
Enlightenment philosophers supposed that the climate of Europe had moder-
ated since Roman times in response to human activity. Thomas Jefferson thought

introduCtion | 3