Mark Twain was the first geoengineer
Alan Robock ☮
In these days with so much troubling news in the air, I thought some humor would help.
It turns out that Mark Twain was the first geoengineer, as explained in his book American Claimant, written in 1891. After beginning the book with this hilarious explanation about weather,
“No weather will be found in this book. This is an attempt to pull a book through without weather. It being the first attempt of the kind in fictitious literature, it may prove a failure, but it seemed worth the while of some dare-devil person to try it, and the author was in just the mood. Many a reader who wanted to read a tale through was not able to do it because of delays on account of the weather. Nothing breaks up an author’s progress like having to stop every few pages to fuss-up the weather. Thus it is plain that persistent intrusions of weather are bad for both reader and author. Of course weather is necessary to a narrative of human experience. That is conceded. But it ought to be put where it will not be in the way; where it will not interrupt the flow of the narrative. And it ought to be the ablest weather that can be had, not ignorant, poor-quality, amateur weather. Weather is a literary specialty, and no untrained hand can turn out a good article of it. The present author can do only a few trifling ordinary kinds of weather, and he cannot do those very good. So it has seemed wisest to borrow such weather as is necessary for the book from qualified and recognized experts—giving credit, of course. This weather will be found over in the back part of the book, out of the way. See Appendix. The reader is requested to turn over and help himself from time to time as he goes along.”
he ends the book with geoengineering. Speaking is Colonel Sellers to his partner, describing his money-making scheme:
“This grand new idea of mine—the sublimest I have ever conceived, will save me whole, I am sure. I am leaving for San Francisco this moment, to test it, by the help of the great Lick telescope. Like all of my more notable discoveries and inventions, it is based upon hard, practical scientific laws; all other bases are unsound and hence untrustworthy. In brief, then, I have conceived the stupendous idea of reorganizing the climates of the earth according to the desire of the populations interested. That is to say, I will furnish climates to order, for cash or negotiable paper, taking the old climates in part payment, of course, at a fair discount, where they are in condition to be repaired at small cost and let out for hire to poor and remote communities not able to afford a good climate and not caring for an expensive one for mere display. My studies have convinced me that the regulation of climates and the breeding of new varieties at will from the old stock is a feasible thing. Indeed I am convinced that it has been done before; done in prehistoric times by now forgotten and unrecorded civilizations. Everywhere I find hoary evidences of artificial manipulation of climates in bygone times. Take the glacial period. Was that produced by accident? Not at all; it was done for money. I have a thousand proofs of it, and will someday reveal them.
“I will confide to you an outline of my idea. It is to utilize the spots on the sun—get control of them, you understand, and apply the stupendous energies which they wield to beneficent purposes in the reorganizing of our climates. At present they merely make trouble and do harm in the evoking of cyclones and other kinds of electric storms; but once under humane and intelligent control this will cease and they will become a boon to man. I have my plan all mapped out, whereby I hope and expect to acquire complete and perfect control of the sun-spots, also details of the method whereby I shall employ the same commercially; but I will not venture to go into particulars before the patents shall have been issued. I shall hope and expect to sell shop-rights to the minor countries at a reasonable figure and supply a good business article of climate to the great empires at special rates, together with fancy brands for coronations, battles and other great and particular occasions. There are billions of money in this enterprise, no expensive plant is required, and I shall begin to realize in a few days—in a few weeks at furthest.
“I would like you to provide a proper outfit and start north as soon as I telegraph you, be it night or be it day. I wish you to take up all the country stretching away from the north pole on all sides for many degrees south, and buy Greenland and Iceland at the best figure you can get now while they are cheap. It is my intention to move one of the tropics up there and transfer the frigid zone to the equator. I will have the entire Arctic Circle in the market as a summer resort next year, and will use the surplusage of the old climate, over and above what can be utilized on the equator, to reduce the temperature of opposition resorts. But I have said enough to give you an idea of the prodigious nature of my scheme and the feasible and enormously profitable character of it.”
This is followed by the weather appendix, with quotes from various other authors of the time.
Alan
Alan Robock, Distinguished Professor
Department of Environmental Sciences Phone: +1-848-932-5751
Rutgers University E-mail: rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu
14 College Farm Road http://people.envsci.rutgers.edu/robock
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8551 ☮ https://twitter.com/AlanRobock
olivier boucher
À: "geoengineering" <Geoengi...@googlegroups.com>
Envoyé: Jeudi 5 Mai 2022 22:07:28
Objet: [geo] Mark Twain was the first geoengineer
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Alan Robock ☮
First I want to apologize to Jim Fleming. He pointed out to me that he discusses the same passages of American Claimant is his wonderful 2010 book Fixing the Sky (which all of you must have read already, and if not, you need to read) on pp. 27-30. So although I had forgotten that I read it (I'm old), it must have still been stuck in my brain somewhere. Nevertheless, I did really rediscover it by reading the book, and it is still worth reminding us all of it.
Second, the part about geoengineering is in the main text of American Claimant, at the end. And for the first part, I tried Google Translate? How did they do?
Aucune météo ne sera trouvée dans ce livre. Il s'agit d'une tentative de tirer un livre sans temps. Il s'agit de la première tentative du genre dans la littérature fictive, cela peut s'avérer un échec, mais cela a semblé valoir la peine pour un casse-cou de l'essayer, et l'auteur était juste d'humeur. Beaucoup de lecteurs qui voulaient lire un conte jusqu'au bout n'ont pas pu le faire en raison de retards dus au temps. Rien ne brise les progrès d'un auteur comme devoir s'arrêter toutes les quelques pages pour perturber la météo. Ainsi, il est clair que les intrusions persistantes du temps sont mauvaises à la fois pour le lecteur et pour l'auteur. Bien sûr, le temps est nécessaire à un récit de l'expérience humaine. Cela est concédé. Mais il doit être placé là où il ne gênera pas; où il n'interrompra pas le flux du récit. Et ce devrait être la meilleure météo qui soit, et non une météo amateur ignorante et de mauvaise qualité. La météo est une spécialité littéraire, et aucune main inexpérimentée ne peut en faire un bon article. Le présent auteur ne peut faire que quelques insignifiants genres ordinaires de temps, et il ne peut pas faire ceux qui sont très bons. Il a donc semblé plus sage d'emprunter la météo nécessaire à l'ouvrage à des experts qualifiés et reconnus, bien entendu. Cette météo se trouvera dans la partie arrière du livre, à l'écart. Voir l'annexe. Le lecteur est prié de se retourner et de se servir de temps en temps au fur et à mesure de son cheminement.
Alan
Jim Fleming
Best regards,
Jim
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/geoengineering/6a160cbc-2cea-2494-3778-a95f6975043c%40envsci.rutgers.edu.--James R. Fleming
Charles A. Dana Professor of Science, Technology, and Society, Emeritus, Colby CollegeEmail: jfle...@colby.eduSeries Editor, Palgrave Studies in the History of Science and Technology, https://www.palgrave.com/us/series/14581
"Everything is unprecedented if you don't study history."
SALTER Stephen
Jim
Tilting the earth’s axis back to the angle it should have been if properly constructed would save a great deal of energy for heating and air-conditioning but anything proposed by a gun club sounds rather energy intensive. A better way would be to set up a standing wave pattern called a seich in a sea region running north and south with a period of 24 hours. The Adriatic looks promising. We would need a reflecting wall at one end and a line of energy-absorbing and recycling wave-makers at the other. With deep water and no wave breaking the system is quite efficient. It would take quite a while but this would give time for people to decide on the best angle. Once you get it going it takes little extra energy to overcome losses.
Stephen
From: geoengi...@googlegroups.com <geoengi...@googlegroups.com>
On Behalf Of Jim Fleming
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To: Alan Robock <rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu>
Cc: olivier boucher <olivier...@ipsl.fr>; geoengineering <Geoengi...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [geo] Mark Twain was the first geoengineer
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Jim Fleming
Jim Fleming
Paradise Lost
Biblical themes permeate the Western canon, and some of them speak either
directly or indirectly to the human role in weather and climate control. In Paradise
Lost (1667), John Milton alludes to a divinely instituted shift in the Earth’s
axis (and thus its climate) as a consequence of the original ancestors’ lapse from
grace. According to Milton, while Eden was the ultimate temperate clime,
watered with gentle mists, God, in anger and for punishment, rearranged the
Earth and its surroundings to generate excessive heat, cold, and storms: “the Creator,
calling forth by name His mightie Angels, gave them several charge.”3 The
Sun was to move and shine so as to affect the Earth “with cold and heat scarce
tolerable” (10.653–654); the planets were to align in sextile, square, opposition,
and trine “thir influence malignant . . . to showre” (10.662); the winds were to
blow from the four corners to “confound Sea, Aire, and Shoar” (10.665–666);
and the thunder was to roll “with terror through the dark Aereal Hall” (10.667).
The biggest change, however, resulted from tipping the axis of the Earth: “Some
say he bid his Angels turne ascanse the Poles of Earth twice ten degrees and
more from the Sun’s Axle; they with labor push’d oblique the Centric Globe . . .
to bring in change of Seasons to each Clime; else had the Spring perpetual
smil’d on Earth with vernant Flours, equal in Days and Nights” (10.668–671,
677–680).
This led to massive changes in weather and climate on sea and land: “sidereal
blast, Vapour, and Mist, and Exhalation hot, Corrupt and Pestilent” (10.693–
695). Northern winds (Boreas, Kaikias, and Skeiron) burst “their brazen Dungeon,
armd with ice and snow and haile, and stormie gust and flaw” (10.697–
698), and other winds (Notus, Eurus, and the Tempest-Winds) in their season
rent the woods, destroyed crops, churned the seas, and rushed forth noisily with
black thunderous clouds, serving the bidding of the storm god Aeolus. But the
angels had one last task: evicting “our lingring Parents” (12.638) from Eden. In
this, too, Milton evokes climatic change when the blazing sword of God, “fierce
as a Comet; which with torrid heat, and vapour as the Libyan Air adust, began to
parch that temperate Clime” (12.634–636). Looking back at Paradise, “som natural
tears they drop’d, but wip’d them soon; the World was all before them, where
to choose thir place of rest, and Providence thir guide: They, hand in hand, with
wandring steps and slow, through Eden took their solitarie way” (12.645–649).
So you see, the wages of sin are . . . climate change.