Page 281 - James Rodger Fleming - Fixing the sky

level, use low-tillage farming methods on all the world’s cropland, and increase the
global area of solar panels by a factor of seven hundred. (92–93)

Note that all these wedges involve large geometric factors: 2-, 50-, even 700-fold
increases (or decreases) in current practices, with unspecified costs or other con-
siderations. The global back-of-the-envelope nature of these suggestions, the sheer
scale of the challenge, and the lack of fine-grained analysis regarding local and
regional implementation strategies had led some, geoengineers included, to won-
der if it can be done efficiently—or at all. At the 2007 American Academy meet-
ing on geoengineering, Socolow was musing aloud about adding a geoengineering
wedge to his portfolio; I suggested that this was probably a premature move.
The middle course is Phaethon’s ideal path, as advised by his father, Helios, to
spare the whip, hold tight the reins, and “keep within the limit of the middle
zone,” neither too far south or north, nor too high or low: “the middle course is
102
safest and best.” Inviting people from different cultures and diverse walks of
life to take action on climate change involves defining a middle course, not a path
of least resistance but one between doing too little about climate change (which
has been the case recently with much of U.S. policy) and doing too much (which
would most certainly be the case if the climate engineers have free rein to turn
the planet into a machine). For that matter, it is also possible for well-meaning
social engineers to attempt to do too much, by promoting overly aggressive or
one-size-fits-all approaches to energy-climate-environment issues. We have yet
to demonstrate that economic prosperity can exist or that development can pro-
ceed without the use of fossil fuels, although it seems we must indeed do so in the
interest of long-term sustainability. Many minds are currently working on plans
for expanding the middle course, but these should not include taking up Phae-
thon’s reins and repeating his mistake.

* * * * *

Paper, even that provided by the Patent office, lies still for anything to be writ-
ten on it. Recall the 1880 patent of Daniel Ruggles “for producing rain fall by
conveying and exploding explosive agents within the cloud realm”; the 1887 pat-
ent of J. B. Atwater “to destroy or disrupt tornadoes”; the 1892 patent of Laurice
Leroy Brown for a tower to transport and detonate explosives automatically for
“aiding rainfall”; and the patent awarded in 1918 to John Graeme Balsillie for ion-
izing a volume of air and switching the electrical polarity of clouds, “by means of
suitable ray emanations.” Not to slight the modern era, recall also the 2003 prom-
ise by Earthwise Technologies to clear the air and enhance rainfall in Laredo,

264 | tHe Climate enGineerS