Page 92 - James Rodger Fleming - Fixing the sky

2.3 Tower and dynamite detonator proposed by Laurice Leroy Brown. Aside from
the danger of climbing a high metal tower when storms are building, the dynamite
(D) sliding down the sloping wire (B) would completely destroy that part of the
apparatus. (adapted from u.s. patent application 473,820, april 26, 1892)

appealed to the public’s sense of the possible and, for funding, to the govern-
ment’s general lack of good sense. They wrote speculative books, brandished
patents, and tinkered with their gadgets and toys, many of them incendiary
or explosive, like children with firecrackers on the Fourth of July. It would
be unfair to call them charlatans, since they explained their technical princi-
ples, experimented in the open (often with military surplus equipment), and
avoided direct or deceptive marketing techniques. Yet there was often more
hoopla than actual theory, and in lieu of results, their efforts produced perhaps
less promise than hype.
of course, things are different now, if only much larger in scale. Twenty-first-
century climate engineers behave as, well, altruistic monomaniacs who base their
vision of a prosperous and healthy world order on the ultimate control of a single
climate variable: either solar radiation or carbon dioxide (chapter 8). Yes, things

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