Atmosphere

James Rodger Fleming, “Weather as a Weapon: The troubling history of geoengineering so far,” Slate Magazine

Is there a technological fix for global warming? Where would we put a “planetary thermostat,” and who would control the settings?

“Open the book to page ninety-nine and read, and the quality of the whole will be revealed to you.” –Ford Madox Ford

Page 99 of Fixing the Sky tells two stories of rain fakers: the charlatans Doctor Sykes and Colonel Stingo who conducted a weather betting scam at Belmont race track Read more »

Robert Krulwich, “The Bomb Watchers.”

This is an actual case of geoengineering (planetary scale intervention) in 1962.

Geoengineering in any form looks downright dangerous to Colby College historian James Fleming, whose latest book is Fixing the Sky: The Checkered History of Weather and Climate Control. Fleming does not mince words: “Geoengineering is in fact untested and dangerous. We don’t understand it, we can’t test it on smaller than planetary scales, and we don’t have the political capital, wisdom, or will to govern it. Planetary tinkering is not ‘cheap,’ as some economists claim, since the side effects are unknown. It poses a moral hazard by possibly reducing incentives to mitigate. It could be attempted unilaterally, or worse, proliferate among rogue states, and . . . learning from history, it would be militarized. Geoengineering could violate a number of existing treaties.”

– Quoting Christopher Cokinos in The American Scholar (Autumn 2010).

Fixing the Sky
Wilson Center book launch, live webcast 10:00 am, EDT, Wednesday, Oct. 6

http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?topic_id=1408&fuseaction=topics.event_summary&event_id=632154

or come in person and we can have lunch there…