Atmosphere

Air, Weather, and Climate History Blog

Journalistic Misfeasance

…on October 6th, in Washington, D.C., the Woodrow Wilson Center will be the site of a presentation by James Rodger Fleming, a professor of science, technology and society at Colby College and author of “Fixing the Sky: The Checkered History of Weather and Climate Control.”

If, as the Washington Post article suggests, there is an interest in geoengineering, Fleming writes that “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.” Read the entire article…

Slate

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?

The Page 99 Test

“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…] about The Page 99 Test

The American Scholar: Prozac for the Planet

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).

Wilson Center Book Launch and Webcast

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…

NYT advance review

New York Times, June 28, 2010 by Cornelia Dean, “When the Day After Tomorrow has Come,”

[Fleming maintains that] “geoengineering proposals are “untested, untestable and dangerous beyond belief.” He fits them neatly into what he calls “a long tradition of imaginative and speculative literature involving the ‘control’ of nature.” Read more…

New Scientist

The hokum and hubris of geoengineering our climate

FIXING the weather is an old science fiction standby. Today, some believe we can fix our atmosphere’s ills by geoengineering the climate. Science historian James Rodger Fleming is having none of it. Read more…

Shooting at the sky

From an interview with Sandra Chung:

When I was a student of atmospheric science, I became aware of weather control, but I wasn’t convinced about its usefulness. There was a military guy, a corporal. He was trying to get his master’s degree in atmospheric science as part of an Air Force rotation. His project was to shoot laser beams at clouds to see if he could make them get bigger and angrier. It never worked. But he had this mindset, well what do you do with a cloud? You shoot at it. Read more…