FIXING the weather is an old science fiction standby. Today, some believe we can fix our atmosphere’s ills by geoengineering the climate. Science historian James Rodger Fleming is having none of it. For him, the story is full of charlatans, fantasists and climate fascists. Even bona fide scientists don’t win his respect. He happily fingers “pathological” Nobel laureates and “disingenuous” Royal Society reports. Whether the would-be weather-makers are covering ice caps with soot or adding sulphur to the stratosphere, he views them with the “deepest suspicion”.
But does any of it work? Is China really chasing rainbows when it forks…
