Inquiry: James Rodger Fleming: FIXING THE SKY: THE CHECKERED HISTORY OF WEATHER AND CLIMATE CONTROL.

Horatio Nelson once wrote: “I cannot command winds and weather”. But for hundreds of years, people have been trying to do exactly that: to make it rain; chase away storms and change the climate of our planet. Even today, certain geo-engineers are proposing vast schemes to alter our climate to stave off global warming. But as historian of science and technology, JAMES RODGER FLEMING, shows us, all these ideas about changing our weather are rooted in “hubris and tragedy”. Many of these climate altering schemes, new and old, are also quite bizarrely funny and farcical. Tune in tonight as we talk about shooting hail with crossbows; using cannons to bring rain and throwing vast amounts of chemicals into the ocean to change its color to prevent the planet from heating up. Professor Fleming’s vastly entertaining and important history of science is FIXING THE SKY: THE CHECKERED HISTORY OF WEATHER AND CLIMATE CONTROL.