Russian scientists warned of possible climate disruption from such megaprojects. Borisov admitted that the large-scale climatic and ecological effects of his Bering Strait dam could not be fully predicted, nor could they be confined within the borders of any one national state; rather, they would directly involve the national interests of the Soviet Union, Canada, Denmark, and the United States and indirectly affect many countries in other areas that might experience climate change caused by the project. With such a dam in place, the middlelatitude winters would be milder due to the warming of Arctic and polar air masses. He thought areas such as the Sahara would be much better watered and would perhaps turn into steppe land or savannah. Direct benefits of an ice-free Arctic Ocean would include new, more-direct shipping routes between East Asia and Europe, while, by his overly optimistic calculations, sea-level rise would be modest, even with the melting of the Greenland ice cap. Yet such climatic changes elsewhere were of little concern to the Soviets.
Larisa R. Rakipova noted that a substantial Arctic warming could cool the winters in Africa by 5°C (9°F), “leading to a complete disruption of the living conditions for people, animals, and plants,”36 and Oleg A. Drozdov warned that the warming of the Arctic would lead to a total breakdown of moisture exchange between the oceans and continents with excess rain in the Far East and great aridity in Europe. The resulting drastic changes in the soils, vegetation, water regime, and other natural conditions would have widespread negative ecological, economic, and social consequences (25). As in the fictional case described earlier in The Evacuation of England, Rusin and Flit also wondered what might happen if the Americans implemented one of their projects and turned the Gulf Stream toward the shores of America: “In Europe the temperature would drop sharply and glaciers would begin to advance rapidly” (22). In his book The Gulf Stream (1973), T. F. Gaskell pointed out, “This is why such natural phenomena as the Gulf Stream have political implications.”37 Geoengineers should realize that the same is true of a wide range of natural phenomena.
In addition to sea ice, the Soviets were also battling the “curse of the Siberians”—permafrost as thick as 1,600 feet in places. One suggestion to remove it involved applying soot to the snowfields to absorb more sunlight; or perhaps cheaper materials such as ash or peat could do the job. Reminding their readers that “everyone knows what permafrost is,” Rusin and Flit recounted its horrors: “A newly constructed house unexpectedly begins to shift, a Russian stove suddenly begins to sink into the ground, deeply driven piles spring from the ground,” and when it melts and refreezes, the trees of the mysterious “drunken forests” lean akilter, like a Siberian full of vodka.38 In the twenty-first century, permafrost has reemerged not as a local curse but as something to be saved, in part to preserve the migration patterns of the reindeer and caribou, and as a global environmental issue because of its high methane gas content. In 1962 Rusin and Flit opined, “Much has been learned, but it has been impossible to completely eliminate permafrost” (27).
Rehydrating and Powering Africa
The completion of the Suez Canal in 1869 under the direction of the French diplomat Ferdinand de Lesseps led to a number of mega-engineering proposals for rehydrating Africa. One was proposed by an eccentric British adventurer and entrepreneur, Donald Mackenzie, who proposed flooding the Sahara Desert in Algeria with water from the Mediterranean Sea to improve transportation, benefit commerce, and spread Christianity. The Daily Telegraph reported:
Instead of a pathless wilderness across which once in the year a line of camels carry merchandise, the envious but admiring ears of M. de Lesseps are destined to hear the fleets of merchantmen sailing over the conquered Sahara. Liverpool will only be fourteen days from the Upper Niger, and while a magnificent new market will be opened for British and other goods, the regeneration of Africa will be advanced as if centuries had suddenly rolled over.39
A colleague wrote to Mackenzie that the project “would recommend itself to every Christian mind, spreading a net of Christianity over Africa” (274). The French, not to be outdone, appointed geographer François Elie Roudaire to lead a commission that suggested that the French Academy of Sciences explore the idea.40 This discussion raised the possibility that an inland sea might enhance rainfall and thus agricultural production in the Sahara, but also might adversely affect the climate of Europe.
Jules Verne’s novel L’Invasion de la mer (1905) was based on the premise that French engineers returned to Africa to complete Roudaire’s project. The book raised a number of environmental, cultural, and political concerns, including the possibility of warfare triggered by macro-engineering projects.41 Verne’s idea was revived in whole cloth in 1911 by a French scientist named Etchegoyen, who again proposed to convert large portions of the Sahara into an inland sea by digging a 50-mile canal on the north coast of Africa. He touted the ease of construction and the massive benefits: more fertile soil and cropland, a cooler local climate, and a great new colony for France along the “Sea of Sahara.” Critics warned that the massive redistribution of water, up to half the volume of the Mediterranean Sea, might tip the Earth’s axis, adversely affect regional precipitation patterns, or even trigger an ice age in northern Europe.42
In the 1930s, the German architect Herman Sörgel’s “Atlantropa Project” promoted the idea of lowering the level of the Mediterranean Sea and developing more than 3 million acres of new territory (an area as large as France) for European settlement. According to Sörgel, the construction of gigantic dams at Gibraltar and the Dardanelles to drain much of the Mediterranean and generate massive amounts of power “would assure Europe a utopian future of expanded territory; abundant, clean, and cheap energy; and the revival of its global economic and political might.” Sörgel tried to sell his ideas first to the Nazis and then, during the cold war, to Western governments as a hedge against Soviet expansionism in Africa.
But lowering the Mediterranean Sea was only part of Sörgel’s vision. He also wanted to irrigate much of Africa by building a massive system of dams and artificial lakes. Damming the Congo River, Africa’s mightiest and the secondmost-voluminous river in the world, near its outlet at Brazzaville, Congo, would create a huge new lake that Sörgel dubbed the “Congo Sea,” basically covering the entire surface area of that nation. A chain of events, including the drowning of natives, wildlife, and ecosystems, would then occur. By his calculations, the Ubangi River would reverse its course, flowing northwest into the Chari River and finally into the greatly enlarged “Chad Sea.” These two new seas would cover about 10 percent of the continent, and the northern outlet could be dubbed the “Second Nile,” flowing north across the Sahara to create an irrigated settlement corridor in Algeria similar to that in Egypt. Sörgel’s plan also included a giant hydroelectric plant at Stanley Falls, with sufficient surplus electric power to illuminate and industrialize much of the continent (figure 7.2).43
American and Soviet hydrological engineers, too, dreamed of such macro-scale projects. In the 1950s and 1960s, the North American Water and Power Alliance proposed to channel 100 million acre-feet of water per year from Alaska and Canada for use in the southwestern United States and Mexico. Soviet engineers dreamed of creating a massive new “Siberian Sea” east of the Ural Mountains by damming the Ob, Yenisei, and Angara rivers, for irrigation of crops and climate modulation. As recently as 1997, Robert Johnson, a retired geoscientist at the University of Minnesota, commandeered the front page of EOS: Transactions of the American Geophysical Union, to warn that the Mediterranean Sea was being starved of fresh water because human activities have diverted the outflow of rivers, mainly the Nile. He called for a dam across the Strait of Gibraltar to block the outflow of salt water into the Atlantic Ocean, paradoxically making the Mediterranean even saltier than at present. All of this was for a good cause, however, since his computer models indicated that the mega-dam would stave off a little ice age in northern Europe while preserving the holy grail of climate change, preventing the West Antarctic ice sheet f
rom collapsing, and raising the worldwide sea level by 20 feet. It seems that all current geoengineering schemes should be able to do this, at least.44
7.2 Herman Sörgel’s plan for transforming Africa and the Mediterranean. (RUSIN AND FLIT, MAN VERSUS CLIMATE)
Space Mirrors and Dust
In July 1945, a classified U.S. Army Air Force memorandum on the subject of German liquid rocket development included speculations on “future possibilities,” including ideas on intercontinental ballistic missiles, Earth-orbiting satellites, space station platforms, and interplanetary travel. Significantly, a section of the memo titled “Weather Control” cited a 1923 proposal by Herman Oberth to launch large mirrors, a mile or so in diameter, into orbit to be used to concentrate the Sun’s energy on the Earth’s surface “at will,” and in this way influence the weather.45 Time further popularized Oberth’s idea in 1954, describing the space mirror as made of “shiny metal foil reinforced with wire” and spinning slowly around a space station as its hub.46 The space mirror would be positioned in such a way as to illuminate the Earth’s nighttime hemisphere. It would bathe cold countries in reflected sunlight, making them productive and habitable. Areas with excess rainfall could be heated and dried with the mirrors. Conversely, rainfall might be generated in an arid region by concentrating the Sun’s rays on the nearest lakes to evaporate water and form clouds. Then the rain clouds could be directed toward arid regions by thermal currents and pressure gradients generated by “proper manipulation of the mirrors.”
The army report speculated that these mirrors could be used by “the world group of nations” against a country that became aggressive or obnoxious to persuade it “to be more friendly and reasonable by the concentration of intensive heat on their country,”47 but did not discuss other possible hostile applications of these death rays. Time was considerably more blunt in its account: “If war should start on the earth below, the ‘aggressor’ ... could be handily incinerated by making the mirror concave to concentrate its beam.”48 Time also reported that the Nazis gave serious consideration to a space mirror for military purposes during World War II.
Other radiative effects on climate were also being considered. Beginning in 1913, William Jackson Humphreys explored the idea that volcanic dust might control the climate.49 Two decades later, astronomer Harlow Shapley and his associates realized that space is filled with interstellar dust that might be influencing their calculations by obscuring distant stars. Astronomers Fred Hoyle and R. A. Lyttleton further speculated that space dust may affect the solar constant and thus cause climatic change.50
Early in the space age, Leningrad mathematician Mikhail Aleksandrovich Gorodskiy proposed creating an artificial dust ring passing over both poles.51 Shaped like a flat washer with its lower boundary at an altitude of 750 miles and its upper boundary at 6,000 miles, the Saturn-like ring would be made of metallic potassium particles that were highly reflective, lightweight, and relatively inexpensive. Gorodskiy wanted the ring turned full face to the Sun in summer and oriented on edge in the winter, but his back-of-the-envelope calculations provided no details on the coherence or lifetime of the ring or how to shift its orientation. He imagined, however, that the ring would increase shortwave radiation between 55° and 90°N to values up to 50 percent greater than those at the equator! Permafrost would disappear, polar ice would melt, the cities of Siberia would flourish, and the entire planet would warm considerably (figure 7.3).
7.3 Mikhail Aleksandrovich Gorodskiy’s plan for launching a Saturn-like ring of reflective particles into Earth orbit to warm the Arctic. (RUSIN AND FLIT, MAN VERSUS CLIMATE)
Another Soviet engineer, Valentin Cherenkov, proposed a much smaller orbiting cloud, formed from only 1 ton of opaque particles, that would direct the Sun’s rays earthward (63–65). He estimated that the cloud would yield 1,300 billion kilowatts of power, the equivalent of about 500,000 large conventional power stations. This amount of energy could heat the Arctic and provide sky illumination of more than 500 lux, basically eliminating the long polar night. It would also eliminate the differences among the seasons and between the climate at the poles and that at the equator. Counterproposals existed at the time to cool the planet by positioning a sunshade over the equator between 30°N and 30°S—this about forty-five years before the current batch of proposals to manage solar radiation (chapter 8).
Bombs Away
The scientists and cold warriors who meddled with the Earth’s atmosphere and near-space environment believed that “they could control everything,” even radiation and nuclear fallout.52 They had supporters in high places, such as Senate majority leader Lyndon B. Johnson, chair of the Preparedness Subcommittee. The launch of Sputnik 1 in October 1957 diverted the world’s attention from the scientific concerns of the ongoing International Geophysical Year and heightened American apprehensions of a “missile gap” and possible national security threats from space. The launch of Sputnik 2 in November further fueled these fears. Johnson warned in early 1958 that the Russian Sputniks were not “play toys” and proclaimed that the very future of the United States depended on its first seizing ownership of space and controlling it for military purposes.
The testimony of the scientists is this: Control of space means control of the world, far more certainly, far more totally than any control that has ever or could ever be achieved by weapons, or by troops of occupation. From space, the masters of infinity would have the power to control the earth’s weather, to cause drought and flood, to change the tides and raise the levels of the sea, to divert the Gulf Stream and change temperate climates to frigid.... If, out in space, there is the ultimate position—from which total control of the earth may be exercised—then our national goal and the goal of all free men must be to win and hold that position.53
Later that month, the United States launched its first satellite, Explorer 1, with a modified Redstone military missile, the Juno 1.
In August 1958, during the extensive series of bomb tests known as Operation Hardtack, the military tested its antiballistic missile and communication disruption capabilities with two high-altitude shots named Teak and Orange. In each test, an army Redstone rocket launched a 3.8-megaton hydrogen bomb warhead. Teak detonated at 48 miles altitude in the mesosphere, and Orange at 27 miles in the stratosphere. Each blast illuminated the night sky as if it were daylight, with the added excitement that due to a malfunction of the missile guidance system, the Teak shot occurred directly over Johnston Island, in the North Pacific, instead of at the planned spot 48 miles downrange. Apparently, the experimenters had no qualms about destroying either themselves or any sensitive or protective layers of the atmosphere.
In Operation Argus, conducted in August and September 1958, just six months after the discovery of the Van Allen radiation belts by the satellites Explorer 1 and 3, the U.S. military and the Atomic Energy Commission decided that they should try to destroy or disrupt what had just been discovered. They did this with the full cooperation of astronomer James Van Allen.54 A specially equipped naval convoy launched and detonated three 1.7-kiloton atomic bombs at altitudes ranging from 125 to 335 miles above the South Atlantic Ocean to “seed” the exosphere with electrons. The participants hyped it as the “greatest scientific experiment of all time” and claimed it was a test of a geophysical theory proposed by Nicholas C. Christophilos of Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory.55 In scale it was indeed impressive, involving nine ships and 4,500 people, with “nuclear observations” taken by the overflying satellite Explorer 4, a barrage of high-altitude fivestage Jason sounding rockets, airplane flights, and ground stations—but there was very little science, apparently. Test results and other documentation remained classified for the next twenty-five years. The military purpose was most likely to see if and how nuclear explosions disrupted communication channels. Since an atmospheric test-ban treaty was then under negotiation, the military was quick to point out that this test was not in the atmosphere but “above it.”
Other nuclear tests in near spa
ce ensued, such as the much larger Starfish explosion of July 1962 above Johnston Island, which disrupted the Van Allen belts and created an artificial magnetic belt and an “aurora tropicalis” visible as far away as New Zealand, Jamaica, and Brazil. Three Soviet high-altitude explosions that year had similar effects. A New Yorker cartoon depicted a serious-looking technocrat questioning a colleague in a high-tech laboratory setting: “But how do you know destroying the inner Van Allen belt will create havoc until you try it?”56 It was quite a year for near-space fireworks, with the British, Danes, and Australians issuing formal protests, led by the astronomical community. During the tests, some hotels in the Pacific apparently offered “rainbow” bomb parties on their roofs so guests could watch the light shows.
One of the more bizarre items that crossed Harry Wexler’s desk at the U.S. Weather Bureau in 1961 was a technical report simply called “Weather Modification,” by M. B. Rodin and D. C. Hess at Argonne National Laboratory. The authors made the reasonable suggestion that applying heat directly to a rain cloud, or to a moist air mass with rain potential, might alter the natural precipitation in a given geographical region by increasing the buoyancy of the cloud or air parcel. This was James Espy’s century-old convective theory. The modern twist: they favored using large, hovering nuclear reactors “wherever safety criteria can be met” to deliver the huge amounts of heat required (figure 7.4).57 Such nuclear-powered aircraft were never built.
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