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"...being predictive, being right about the future, is not the point of any given story or novel. The point is about exploring as wide a range of possibilities as possible."
- Peter Watts
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| Weather Control | ||
| Regulating weather and climate for human comfort. |
This is a very early description of this idea.
| Modern science has very recently placed powerful tools in human hands to aid us in our struggle against the elements, against the harsh season, against that winter whose rigors we once had to endure with resignation, huddled and sheltered at home by the fireside. Today, observatories no longer merely record atmospheric variations passively; equipped to combat these unpredictable changes, they take action and correct nature's imbalances as much as possible.
When fierce north winds blast us with the cold of the polar ice caps, our electric currents direct stronger counter-currents against the northern air currents, enveloping them in a nucleus of artificial cyclones and carrying them to warm up over the Saharas of Africa or Asia, which they fertilize with torrential rains. In this way, the various Saharas of Africa, Asia, and Oceania were reclaimed for agriculture; in this way, the sands of Nubia and the scorching Arabias were fertilized. Similarly, when the summer sun overheats our plains and painfully boils the blood and brains of poor humans, peasants or city dwellers, artificial currents establish a refreshing atmospheric circulation between us and the icy seas.
 (Capturing rainfall - from Le Vingetieme Siecle - La Vie electrique) The whims of the atmosphere, however harmful or disastrous they may sometimes be, are no longer suffered by humankind as an inescapable fate against which no struggle is possible. Humans are no longer humble insects, timid, frightened, and defenseless before the unleashing of Nature's brutal forces, bowing their heads under the yoke and sadly enduring both the regular horror of endless winters and the tempestuous upheavals and cyclones. |
| Technovelgy from Le Vingtième Siècle: La Vie Électrique,
by Albert Robida. Published by Corbeil in 1892 Additional resources -
|
Compare to global climate control from A Journey In Other Worlds (1894) by John Jacob Astor IV.
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