This led to massive changes in weather and climate on sea and land: “sidereal blast, Vapour, and Mist, and Exhalation hot, Corrupt and Pestilent” (10.693–695). Northern winds (Boreas, Kaikias, and Skeiron) burst “their brazen Dungeon, armd with ice and snow and haile, and stormie gust and flaw” (10.697–698), and other winds (Notus, Eurus, and the Tempest-Winds) in their season rent the woods, destroyed crops, churned the seas, and rushed forth noisily with black thunderous clouds, serving the bidding of the storm god Aeolus. But the angels had one last task: evicting “our lingring Parents” (12.638) from Eden. In this, too, Milton evokes climatic change when the blazing sword of God, “fierce as a Comet; which with torrid heat, and vapour as the Libyan Air adust, began to parch that temperate Clime” (12.634–636). Looking back at Paradise, “som natural tears they drop’d, but wip’d them soon; the World was all before them, where to choose thir place of rest, and Providence thir guide: They, hand in hand, with wandring steps and slow, through Eden took their solitarie way” (12.645–649). So you see, the wages of sin are ... climate change.
When Dante Alighieri visited hell with Virgil in the spring of 1300, he witnessed the consequences of sin. They had left a world with “air serene” and entered “into a climate ever vex’d with storms ... where no light shines.”4 Before them, confined to the third circle, were the gluttons experiencing unique meteorological torments of eternal cold and heavy rain, hail, and snow (6.6–11), while in the seventh circle were those who had done violence to God, naked souls weeping miserably, supine, sitting, wandering, muttering, under a steady rain of “dilated flakes of fire” (14.18–27) (figure 1.2). Today we might add a new caption to Gustave Doré’s illustration: Sulfurous rains fall on a wretched humanity following artificial volcano experiment gone awry; two geoengineers look on.
1.2 Inferno: “The violent, tortured in the Rain of Fire,” in Dante’s version of hell. (ILLUSTRATION BY GUSTAVE DORÉ, FOR INFERNO 14.37–39, 1861)
The heavens and “heaven” have never been strictly demarcated; in fact, they have been closely intertwined, especially when it comes to something at once as nebulous and portentous as atmospheric phenomena. Synergistic rather than conflicting interactions between the numinous and the immanent appear to be more the norm than the exception throughout history. Humans attempting to intervene in the “realm of the gods,” whether through ceremonies or technologies, inevitably find themselves engaged in a complex dance with both novel and traditional steps, where stumbling and falling from grace, or at least stepping on toes, is more likely than perfect execution.
The Mandan Rainmakers
The nineteenth-century American painter George Catlin juxtaposed traditional rainmaking and Western technology in his account of the manners and customs of North American Indians. When the Mandan, who lived along the Upper Missouri River, were facing a prolonged dry spell that threatened to destroy their corn crop, the medicine men assembled in the council house, with all their mystery apparatus about them, “with an abundance of wild sage, and other aromatic herbs, with a fire prepared to burn them, that their savory odors might be sent forth to the Great Spirit.”5 On the roof of the council house were a dozen young men who took turns trying to make it rain. Each youth spent a day on the roof while the medicine doctors burned incense below and importuned the Great Spirit with songs and prayers:
Wah-kee (the shield) was the first who ascended the wigwam at sunrise; and he stood all day, and looked foolish, as he was counting over and over his string of mystery-beads—the whole village were assembled around him, and praying for his success. Not a cloud appeared—the day was calm and hot; and at the setting of the sun, he descended from the lodge and went home—“his medicine was not good,” nor can he ever be a medicine-man. (1:153)
On successive days, Om-pah (the elk) and War-rah-pa (the beaver) also failed to bring rain and were disgraced.
On the fourth morning, Wak-a-dah-ha-hee (hair of the white buffalo) took the stage, clad in his finest garb and with a shield decorated with red lightning bolts to attract the clouds and a sinewy bow with a single arrow to pierce them. Claiming greater magic than his predecessors, he addressed the assembled tribe and commanded the sky and the spirits of darkness and light to send rain. The medicine men in the lodge at his feet continued their chants.
Around noon, the steamboat Yellow Stone, on its first trip up the river, neared the village and fired a twenty-gun salute, which echoed throughout the valley. The Mandans, at first supposing it to be thunder, although no cloud was seen in the sky, applauded Wak-a-dah-ha-hee, who took credit for the success. Women swooned at his feet, his friends rejoiced, and his enemies scowled as the youth prepared to reap the substantial rewards due a successful rainmaker. However, the focus quickly shifted to the “thunder-boat” as it neared the village, and the hopeful rainmaker was no longer the center of attention. Later in the day, as the excitement of the boat’s visit began to ebb, black clouds began to build on the horizon. Wak-a-dah-ha-hee was still on duty. In an instant, his shield was on his arm and his bow drawn. He commanded the cloud to come nearer, “that he might draw down its contents upon the heads and the corn-fields of the Mandans!” (1:156). Finally, with the black clouds lowering, he fired an arrow into the sky, exclaiming to the assembled throng, “My friends, it is done! Wak-a-dah-ha-hee’s arrow has entered that black cloud, and the Mandans will be wet with the water of the skies!” (1:156–157). The ensuing deluge, which continued until midnight, saved the corn crop while proving the power and the efficacy of his medicine. It identified him as a man of great and powerful influence and entitled him to a life of honor and homage.
Catlin draws two lessons from this story. First, “when the Mandans undertake to make it rain, they never fail to succeed, for their ceremonies never stop until rain begins to fall” (1:157). Second, the Mandan rainmaker, once successful, never tries it again. His medicine is undoubted. During future droughts, he defers to younger braves seeking to prove themselves. Unlike Western, technological rainmaking, in Mandan culture the rain chooses the rainmaker.
Leavers and Takers
In his imaginative book Ishmael (1992), Daniel Quinn draws a basic distinction between two major streams in human culture: the Takers (the heirs of the agricultural revolution) and the Leavers (or traditional societies). As he tells it, ten thousand years ago, the Takers exempted themselves from the evolutionary process. They saw the world as having been made for them and belonging to them, so they sought to manipulate and control it. Since then, they have systematically expanded their own food resources and their population at the expense of other species. Their quest for control seemingly knows no bounds. It extends from the control of pests, both micro- and macroscopic (from bacteria to browsing deer), to the attempted control of the sky. Guided by the tacit but ubiquitous voice of Mother Culture, the assumed nurturer of Taker human societies and lifestyles, they have come to see themselves as special and superior beings who possess the knowledge of good and evil. This allows them to decide, in god-like fashion, who shall live and who shall die. The world for them is a human life-support system, a machine designed to produce and sustain human life. When the elements or other species defy him, man declares war on nature and sees it as his destiny to conquer and rule it with complete control:
We’ll turn the rain on and off.... We’ll turn the oceans into farms [or carbon sinks]. We’ll control the weather [and climate]—no more hurricanes, no more tornadoes, no more droughts, no more untimely frosts. We’ll make the clouds release their water over the land instead of dumping it uselessly into the oceans. All the life process of this planet will be where they belong—where the gods meant them to be—in our hands. And we’ll manipulate them the way a programmer manipulates a computer.6
Technology seems to provide the leverage to make all this possible, but, according to Quinn, Taker culture is fatally flawed in that it lacks historical perspective and the wisdom of how to live. The Takers, who act as though the world belongs to them, are the enemy
of the world and are on an evolutionarily recent, unsustainable, and potentially world-shattering detour.
The older cultures, the Leavers, far from being savage, primitive, or degenerative, constitute the main stream of human evolution and trace their roots back at least 3 million years. They respect the right to life and food of all other creatures and live as members, not rulers, of the community of all life. They live close to nature in relative abundance, free from worry, in the hands of the gods, enhancing biological and cultural diversity and ecological sustainability. The Leavers, who act as though they belong to the world, allow the creatures around them a chance to fulfill their potential. In this sense, they share an evolutionary destiny.
Quinn’s basic quest is to reform Taker culture by making people aware of what has been lost. He argues that people need something positive to work for, rather than something negative to work against. They need an inspiring vision more than a vision of doom, more than to be scolded, more than to be made to feel stupid and guilty:
There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with people. Given a story to enact that puts them in accord with the world, they will live in accord with the world. But given a story to enact that puts them at odds with the world, as yours does, they will live at odds with the world. Given a story to enact, in which they are the lords of the world, they will act as the lords of the world. And, given a story to enact in which the world is a foe to be conquered they will conquer it like a foe, and one day, inevitably, their foe will lie bleeding to death at their feet, as the world is now. (84)
This is the voice of Ishmael, an articulate, Bible-reading, telepathic gorilla whom Quinn uses as a transcendent messenger to humanity. Ishmael’s students, in effect each reader of the book, must have “an earnest desire to save the world,” must “apply in person,” and must be willing to enact a life-affirming story that puts them in accord with the world. Ishmael reminds us that stopping pollution or cutting down on carbon emissions is not in itself an inspiring goal, but thinking of ourselves and the world in a new way is. By seeking to have a minimal impact on the planet, environmentalists align themselves with the values of Leaver culture. The climate engineers, however, in the name of stopping climate change, are the consummate Takers.
Science Fiction
Ultimate control of the weather and climate embodies both our wildest fantasies and our greatest fears. Fantasy often informs reality (and vice versa). NASA managers know this well, as do Trekkies. The best science fiction authors typically build from the current state of a field to construct futuristic scenarios that reveal and explore the human condition. Scientists as well often venture into flights of fancy. Although not widely documented, the fantasy–reality axis is a prominent aspect of the history of the geosciences. The chief distinction is that the fiction writers provide a moral core and compass.
An occasional whimsical story of rainmaking in the nineteenth century has given way to such a flood of science fiction that accounts of weather and climate control alone could fill a volume. The plot of the science fiction film Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961) revolves around a heroic and unilateral engineering response to a global environmental emergency. When a swarm of meteors pierces the Van Allen radiation belt and sets it on fire, the Earth is threatened by imminent “global warming” and possible mass extinctions. With the Arctic ice cap disintegrating and Africa on fire, with world temperatures rising quickly and the end of civilization nigh, the commander of a new state-of-the-art atomic submarine (with Cadillac tail fins) proposes to extinguish the fires by launching a nuclear missile into space to cut off the burning radiation belt from the Earth. When United Nations scientists reject the plan as too risky, the commander takes unilateral action against the will of what he deems to be overcautious government representatives and elected officials. Thwarting various attempts to stop him, by saboteurs, a giant octopus, and a religious fanatic who believes it is God’s will that the world end, the submarine commander fires the missile and saves the world, proving that he was right all along. The television series also featured many episodes with geophysical threats and geoengineering responses.
Other thrillers and spoofs of thrillers in recent eras had plot lines involving weather or climate control. In Our Man Flint (1965), super-duper secret agent Derek Flint foils an evil cabal of utopian mad scientists who are planning to take over the world through weather control. At the end of the movie The Andromeda Strain (1971), cloud seeding over the Pacific Ocean results in the alien “strain” being washed into the salt water, presumably killing it. The Nitrogen Fix (1980), by Hal Clement, depicts catastrophic global chemical and environmental changes in the not-too-distant future triggered by both extractive industry and misguided genetic engineering aimed at increasing the number and quality of nitrogen compounds. The resulting chemical reactions deplete the Earth’s atmosphere of oxygen, deposit toxic and explosive compounds on the surface, and acidify the oceans. Anaerobic bacteria are the only life-forms that flourish, while humans survive only with breathing apparatus and, since most metals corrode in this harsh environment, develop a material culture based on ceramic technology. Jack Williamson’s Terraforming Earth (2001) is based on the premise that after a devastating asteroid impact, beneficent robots will tend the human remnant, slowly terraform the Earth, and eventually reintroduce colonies of cloned humans on the planet, while Kim Stanley Robinson looks to the utopian project of terraforming the planet Mars in the not-too-distant future in his trilogy Red Mars (1993), Green Mars (1994), and Blue Mars (1996). In The Case for Mars (1996), Robert Zubrin argues that terraforming Mars for human habitation would be a relatively simple and straightforward process. Not to overlook the comedic genre, in the Red Green Show episode “Rain Man” (season 15, episode 297), title character Red Green sets up a homemade cloud-seeding cannon at Possum Lodge to shoot chemicals into the clouds and alleviate a drought—with hilarious unintended consequences.
In what follows, rather than overwhelming the reader with the seemingly endless themes of modern or postmodern, post-1960s science fiction, I have chosen to present some older literature that most people have not read or probably have not read recently. This literature, which is dated in many ways, yet quite relevant and enjoyable in others, strikes many of the thematic and moral chords that echo through past, recent, and current concerns about weather and climate control. I am not claiming—indeed, I think it is insupportable to claim—that science fantasy eventually finds its way into science fact. Instead, generations of readers, long before the atomic age or the space age, discovered in science fiction a more subtle kind of wish fulfillment that sets the tone but not the parameters for what might be expected in the future. The main theme here is control, but the literary genres are varied. Although some of it is tragic, much is what we might call “hard path” science fiction (with apologies to Amory Lovins), involving massive and heroic efforts to terraform a planet or geoengineer its basic physical or biophysical systems. Such literature usually emphasizes words such as “mastery” or “domination.” That is, it plays out the Baconian program involving fantasies of control. The comedic genre is well represented too, with stories that are both silly and funny. The overall effect is that no single style dominates imaginative work on weather and climate control, and some, akin to Woody Allen’s movie Melinda and Melinda (2004), explicitly combine both tragedy and comedy.
Jules Verne and the Baltimore Gun Club
Jules Verne, the renowned French author of “scientific fiction,” wrote a notable book in 1865, De la terre à la lune, known in English after 1873 as From the Earth to the Moon. In the story, when the members of the elite Baltimore Gun Club, bemoaning the end of the Civil War, find themselves lacking any urgent assignments, their president, Impey Barbicane, proposes that they build a cannon large enough to launch a projectile to the Moon. But when Barbicane’s adversary places a huge wager that the project will fail and a daring volunteer elevates the mission to a “manned” flight, one man’s dream turns into an intern
ational space race.
In a sequel, Sans Dessus Dessous, published in 1889 and appearing simultaneously in English as The Purchase of the North Pole, Verne revisits the possibilities of big guns, but this time with a distinct skepticism for the wonders of technology. For 2 cents an acre, a group of American investors acquires rights to the vast, incredibly lucrative but seemingly inaccessible coal and mineral deposits under the North Pole. To mine the region, they propose to melt the polar ice. Initially, the project captures the public imagination, as the backers promise that their scheme will improve the climate everywhere. They find it relatively easy to convince the public of the idea that the tilt of the Earth’s axis should be eliminated (shades of John Milton). This would remove the contrasts between summer and winter, reduce the extreme stresses of heat and cold, improve health, calm the power of storms, and make the Earth a terrestrial heaven, where every day is mild and springlike. But public opinion shifts when it is revealed that the investors—members of the Baltimore Gun Club, the very same group who shot the projectile to the Moon—intend to shoot the Earth off its axis by building and firing the world’s largest cannon. Initial public enthusiasm gives way to fears that if these retired Civil War artillerymen (modern-day Titans) have their way and build a kind of Archimedean lever, the tidal waves generated by the explo-sion will kill millions of people. In secrecy and haste, the protagonists proceed with their plan, building the huge cannon in the side of Mount Kilimanjaro (figure 1.3). The scheme fails only when an error in calculation renders the massive shot ineffective. Verne concludes, “The world’s inhabitants could thus sleep in peace. To modify the conditions of the Earth’s movement is beyond the power of man.”7 Or is it? Perhaps he spoke too soon.
Fixing the Sky Page 4