| Author/Contributor(s): | Fleming, James |
| Publisher: | Columbia University Press |
| Date: | 01/31/2012 |
| Binding: | Paperback |
| Condition: | NEW |
For more than a century, scientists, soldiers, and charlatans have tried to manipulate weather and climate, and like them, today's climate engineers wildly exaggerate what is possible. Showing what can happen when fixing the sky becomes a dangerous experiment in pseudoscience, James Rodger Fleming traces the tragicomic history of the rainmakers, rain fakers, weather warriors, and climate engineers both full of ideas and full of themselves. Weaving together stories from elite science, cutting-edge technology, and popular culture, he examines issues of health and navigation in the 1830s, drought in the 1890s, aircraft safety in the 1930s, and world conflict since the 1940s. Killer hurricanes, ozone depletion, and global warming fuel the fantasies of today. Based on archival and primary research, Fleming's story speaks to anyone who has a stake in sustaining the planet.