Page 51 - James Rodger Fleming - Fixing the sky

necessity of the yearly return of ice and snow to conserve the rugged character
and “insistent energy” that has made the United States great, while pointing out
that continuous warm weather would “sap our strength” (194): “The cold gives a
zest to the blood that calls for achievement. In tropical countries the inhabitants
are mostly dreamers, and excessive humidity paralyzes effort” (280).
Meanwhile, it appears that Jones did not really know what he was doing or
the consequences of his actions. As Peck expresses it, “We were as two children,
Copernicus and I, playing around powder with a box of matches” (197–199).
Fame and fortune or infamy and prison are equal possibilities. For a ransom of
$1 billion, the two geoengineers propose to stop their magnet, “leaving the sea-
sons as we had found them.” In other words, they demand an exorbitant price
to maintain the status quo. Peck and Jones fend off an attack on their instal-
lation by federal troops armed only with wooden clubs (because the magnetic
force has stripped them of their metal weapons), but the iron butte is finally
destroyed by a cannon bombardment, since the giant electromagnet actu-
ally acts to attract the incoming shells to it! Peck and Jones survive, but Jones
has seemingly learned nothing, continuing his inventive scheming under an
assumed name and promising, “If anything unusual happens you’ll know who
should have the credit. . . . I’m off for Europe . . . to see what I can meddle with
across the pond” (317–318).

The Twist in the Gulf Stream

A different genre of story tells of large-scale and catastrophic unintended con-
sequences of tinkering in sensitive areas of the Earth’s system. The Evacuation of
England: The Twist in the Gulf Stream (1908), by Louis P. Gratacap, tells of geo-
physical and social dislocations caused by the collapse of the Isthmus of Panama,
which diverts the Gulf Stream, causing vast climatic and social changes, includ-
ing the refrigeration and depopulation of Europe.
The story begins with scientists’ warnings about instabilities along the west
coast of North and Central America that could result in massive geological
chain reactions. Earthquakes could trigger the release of the “volcanic energy”
of Panama and the West Indies, and the region could experience an “isostatic
rebound”—basically a rebalancing of the Earth’s crust—as it seeks a new equilib-
rium state. When Panama is breached (by either humans or geology), “again the
waters of the two oceans will unite, and the impetuous violence of the rushing
oceanic river, the Gulf Stream, that now races and boils through the Caribbean
Sea, will fling its torrential waves across this divide into the Pacific.” 12

34 | StorieS of Control