Page 221 - James Rodger Fleming - Fixing the sky

involved applying soot to the snowfields to absorb more sunlight; or perhaps
cheaper materials such as ash or peat could do the job. Reminding their readers
that “everyone knows what permafrost is,” Rusin and Flit recounted its horrors:
“A newly constructed house unexpectedly begins to shift, a Russian stove sud-
denly begins to sink into the ground, deeply driven piles spring from the ground,”
and when it melts and refreezes, the trees of the mysterious “drunken forests”
38
lean akilter, like a Siberian full of vodka. In the twenty-first century, permafrost
has reemerged not as a local curse but as something to be saved, in part to pre-
serve the migration patterns of the reindeer and caribou, and as a global envi-
ronmental issue because of its high methane gas content. In 1962 Rusin and Flit
opined, “Much has been learned, but it has been impossible to completely elimi-
nate permafrost” (27).

rehydrating and Powering africa

The completion of the Suez Canal in 1869 under the direction of the French dip-
lomat Ferdinand de Lesseps led to a number of mega-engineering proposals for
rehydrating Africa. one was proposed by an eccentric British adventurer and
entrepreneur, Donald Mackenzie, who proposed flooding the Sahara Desert in
Algeria with water from the Mediterranean Sea to improve transportation, ben-
efit commerce, and spread Christianity. The Daily Telegraph reported:

Instead of a pathless wilderness across which once in the year a line of camels carry
merchandise, the envious but admiring ears of M. de Lesseps are destined to hear
the fleets of merchantmen sailing over the conquered Sahara. Liverpool will only
be fourteen days from the Upper Niger, and while a magnificent new market will
be opened for British and other goods, the regeneration of Africa will be advanced
as if centuries had suddenly rolled over. 39

A colleague wrote to Mackenzie that the project “would recommend itself to
every Christian mind, spreading a net of Christianity over Africa” (274). The
French, not to be outdone, appointed geographer François Elie Roudaire to lead
a commission that suggested that the French Academy of Sciences explore the
idea. This discussion raised the possibility that an inland sea might enhance
40
rainfall and thus agricultural production in the Sahara, but also might adversely
affect the climate of Europe.
Jules Verne’s novel L’Invasion de la mer (1905) was based on the premise
that French engineers returned to Africa to complete Roudaire’s project. The

204 | fearS, fantaSieS, and PoSSibilitieS of Control