1 00:00:15,410 --> 00:00:25,810 Speaker 1: Pushkin Irving Langmuir stood in the control tower at the 2 00:00:25,850 --> 00:00:31,170 Speaker 1: airport at Schenectady, upstate New York. He was gazing intently 3 00:00:31,290 --> 00:00:37,330 Speaker 1: upwards uberinoculars a little single propeller aeroplane. Langmuir was in 4 00:00:37,370 --> 00:00:42,290 Speaker 1: his mid sixties, gray hair, brown glasses every inch, the 5 00:00:42,370 --> 00:00:47,050 Speaker 1: distinguished scientist. The year was nineteen forty six, a cold 6 00:00:47,090 --> 00:00:51,410 Speaker 1: and crisp November morning, barely above freezing, with an almost 7 00:00:51,450 --> 00:00:57,850 Speaker 1: completely clear blue sky. Almost there were some clouds fifty 8 00:00:57,890 --> 00:01:01,210 Speaker 1: miles away, and that's where the little plane was heading. 9 00:01:02,170 --> 00:01:06,530 Speaker 1: The plane had four seats. Two were occupied in one 10 00:01:06,610 --> 00:01:10,570 Speaker 1: sat the pilot in the other of inglang Muir's assistant, 11 00:01:10,970 --> 00:01:14,330 Speaker 1: a man called Vincent Schaeffer. He had with him a 12 00:01:14,410 --> 00:01:19,130 Speaker 1: cardboard box containing six pounds of crushed dry ice and 13 00:01:19,210 --> 00:01:22,010 Speaker 1: a motorized dispenser he'd rigged up back in the lab. 14 00:01:22,530 --> 00:01:25,450 Speaker 1: The little plane had taken forty minutes to climb to 15 00:01:25,530 --> 00:01:28,890 Speaker 1: ten thousand feet, but the cloud that Vincent Schaefer wanted 16 00:01:28,930 --> 00:01:31,050 Speaker 1: to fly into was higher still. 17 00:01:32,090 --> 00:01:33,690 Speaker 2: Can we get to it? He asked. 18 00:01:34,570 --> 00:01:39,130 Speaker 1: The pilot pushed the plane upwards. At thirteen thousand feet, 19 00:01:39,410 --> 00:01:43,930 Speaker 1: they reached the cloud just a little higher Schaefer looked 20 00:01:43,930 --> 00:01:49,050 Speaker 1: at his thermometer minus seventeen point five degrees fahrenheit twenty 21 00:01:49,130 --> 00:01:53,210 Speaker 1: seven point five degrees celsius. He fired up the dispenser 22 00:01:55,210 --> 00:01:58,410 Speaker 1: out into the cloud. When the first pound of dry ice, 23 00:01:59,010 --> 00:02:04,930 Speaker 1: the second, the third, then the dispenser jammed. Schaefer was 24 00:02:04,970 --> 00:02:08,610 Speaker 1: starting to feel dizzy. That's not surprising at fourteen thousand 25 00:02:08,650 --> 00:02:12,130 Speaker 1: feet in a plane that isn't pressurized. Forget the dispenser. 26 00:02:12,570 --> 00:02:15,610 Speaker 1: Shaeffer opened the plane's window and tipped out the rest 27 00:02:15,650 --> 00:02:23,330 Speaker 1: of the dry ice from the cardboard box. Back in 28 00:02:23,370 --> 00:02:27,210 Speaker 1: the control tower, Irving Langmuir stared at the cloud into 29 00:02:27,210 --> 00:02:29,010 Speaker 1: which the little plane had disappeared. 30 00:02:30,370 --> 00:02:31,130 Speaker 2: Was it changing? 31 00:02:32,170 --> 00:02:32,410 Speaker 3: Yes. 32 00:02:33,410 --> 00:02:36,810 Speaker 1: Within minutes, it began to shift and swirl, and then 33 00:02:37,370 --> 00:02:40,010 Speaker 1: out of the base of the cloud came just what 34 00:02:40,170 --> 00:02:45,170 Speaker 1: Langmuir had hoped to see, snow. There was no mistaking it. 35 00:02:45,730 --> 00:02:49,090 Speaker 1: He didn't even need his binoculars. From fifty miles away. 36 00:02:49,210 --> 00:02:51,970 Speaker 1: You could see the streamers of snow with a naked 37 00:02:51,970 --> 00:02:57,650 Speaker 1: eye before the little plane had even landed. Irving Langmuir 38 00:02:57,890 --> 00:03:00,930 Speaker 1: was on the phone to a journalist. This is history, 39 00:03:01,130 --> 00:03:05,450 Speaker 1: Langmuir said, mankind has finally learned to control the weather. 40 00:03:06,570 --> 00:03:11,290 Speaker 1: Of course we hadn't. We just started to fool around 41 00:03:11,330 --> 00:03:34,530 Speaker 1: with it. I'm Tim Harford and you're listening to cautionary tales. 42 00:03:43,450 --> 00:03:46,970 Speaker 1: In the early nineteen hundreds, General Electric was one of 43 00:03:47,050 --> 00:03:51,010 Speaker 1: America's biggest companies. He'd like to invest in what would 44 00:03:51,010 --> 00:03:56,610 Speaker 1: nowadays call blue Skies research. When the young Irving Langmuir 45 00:03:56,730 --> 00:04:00,450 Speaker 1: left academia to start work at the company's campus since Schenectady, 46 00:04:00,770 --> 00:04:05,050 Speaker 1: he was given the usual welcome speech. Look around the lab, said, 47 00:04:05,130 --> 00:04:08,970 Speaker 1: Langmir's new boss. Work on any problem that interests you. 48 00:04:09,690 --> 00:04:13,970 Speaker 1: Don't bother with finding practical applications. Let me worry about that. 49 00:04:14,050 --> 00:04:19,650 Speaker 1: You just have fun. General Electric employed smart people and 50 00:04:19,730 --> 00:04:23,490 Speaker 1: let them do pretty much anything they liked. And Irving 51 00:04:23,530 --> 00:04:28,210 Speaker 1: Langmuir wasn't just smart, he was brilliant. He became the 52 00:04:28,210 --> 00:04:33,010 Speaker 1: first industrial chemist to win a Nobel Prize for discoveries 53 00:04:33,210 --> 00:04:38,890 Speaker 1: and investigations in surface chemistry. These discoveries did turn out 54 00:04:38,930 --> 00:04:43,810 Speaker 1: to have practical applications. Langmuir's work let General Electric corner 55 00:04:43,890 --> 00:04:48,450 Speaker 1: the market in gas filled incandescent light bulbs, not that 56 00:04:48,570 --> 00:04:54,170 Speaker 1: Langmuir cared much about that. He thirsted for knowledge, pure 57 00:04:54,450 --> 00:04:59,370 Speaker 1: and simple. Langmuir was the living stereotype of the absent 58 00:04:59,450 --> 00:05:03,490 Speaker 1: minded genius, famous for getting so deeply lost in. 59 00:05:03,530 --> 00:05:04,850 Speaker 2: Thought that he could be. 60 00:05:04,890 --> 00:05:08,170 Speaker 1: Oblivious to the world around him. There was the time 61 00:05:08,210 --> 00:05:11,130 Speaker 1: a woman fell down the stairs right in front of him. 62 00:05:11,290 --> 00:05:16,850 Speaker 1: As others rushed to help, Langmuir, in another world, didn't notice. 63 00:05:17,410 --> 00:05:21,130 Speaker 1: He stepped right over her and kept on walking. And 64 00:05:21,210 --> 00:05:23,930 Speaker 1: the time he forgot he was eating breakfast at home, 65 00:05:24,290 --> 00:05:27,130 Speaker 1: not in a restaurant, and left a tip for his 66 00:05:27,210 --> 00:05:30,890 Speaker 1: wife on the kitchen table. And the morning he turned 67 00:05:30,930 --> 00:05:34,570 Speaker 1: up at work without his car, it turned out he'd 68 00:05:34,610 --> 00:05:37,130 Speaker 1: been stuck in traffic, and he had simply left it 69 00:05:37,170 --> 00:05:41,250 Speaker 1: in the middle of the road and walked. 70 00:05:42,090 --> 00:05:42,450 Speaker 2: Now. 71 00:05:42,530 --> 00:05:47,890 Speaker 1: In nineteen forty six, Langmuir had a new obsession the weather. 72 00:05:49,410 --> 00:05:52,170 Speaker 1: During the war, he'd worked with the military to study 73 00:05:52,210 --> 00:05:57,570 Speaker 1: how ice forms on aircraft wings as they fly through clouds. Water, 74 00:05:57,730 --> 00:06:01,090 Speaker 1: of course, turns from liquid to solid when the temperature 75 00:06:01,170 --> 00:06:06,570 Speaker 1: drops below freezing point, except sometimes it doesn't. Clouds can 76 00:06:06,610 --> 00:06:10,330 Speaker 1: be in a state called super cool. The temperature drops 77 00:06:10,330 --> 00:06:14,490 Speaker 1: below freezing, but the tiny water droplets won't crystallize from 78 00:06:14,570 --> 00:06:21,810 Speaker 1: mist into ice unless something disturbs them. Langmuir and his 79 00:06:21,890 --> 00:06:26,850 Speaker 1: assistant Vincent Shaefer, both loved to ski. Their wartime work 80 00:06:26,970 --> 00:06:29,130 Speaker 1: made them look at the clouds above the hills on 81 00:06:29,170 --> 00:06:33,130 Speaker 1: a cold winter day and ask themselves, what if we 82 00:06:33,170 --> 00:06:40,010 Speaker 1: could make those super cooled clouds dispense snow on demand. Remember, 83 00:06:40,450 --> 00:06:43,210 Speaker 1: you could work on anything you liked at General Electric, 84 00:06:44,210 --> 00:06:48,970 Speaker 1: Langmuir and Shaefer decided to work on making snow. Shaefer 85 00:06:49,090 --> 00:06:52,410 Speaker 1: commandeered one of the chest freezers the company made. He 86 00:06:52,490 --> 00:06:55,370 Speaker 1: lined it with black velvet so he could see if 87 00:06:55,490 --> 00:06:59,170 Speaker 1: ice crystals were forming. Then he took a deep breath 88 00:06:59,530 --> 00:07:04,330 Speaker 1: and breathed slowly out into the freezer. His breath hung 89 00:07:04,370 --> 00:07:08,610 Speaker 1: there in a mist. Now he and Langmuir had their 90 00:07:08,770 --> 00:07:12,250 Speaker 1: very own own super cooled cloud right there in the lab. 91 00:07:13,250 --> 00:07:14,250 Speaker 2: What could they add to. 92 00:07:14,210 --> 00:07:19,010 Speaker 1: Their cloud that might make it form ice crystals? They 93 00:07:19,050 --> 00:07:26,410 Speaker 1: tried talcum powder, sulfur, magnesium oxide, no luck. Then one 94 00:07:26,530 --> 00:07:30,290 Speaker 1: summer day, the weather got so hot the freezer started 95 00:07:30,330 --> 00:07:34,290 Speaker 1: to struggle. Schaeffer needed to keep the temperature down, so 96 00:07:34,610 --> 00:07:37,610 Speaker 1: he got some dry ice. He dumped it back in 97 00:07:37,650 --> 00:07:41,810 Speaker 1: the freezer, and all at once, millions of tiny ice 98 00:07:41,850 --> 00:07:46,450 Speaker 1: crystals popped into being and settled on the black velvet lining. 99 00:07:47,250 --> 00:07:48,690 Speaker 2: It looked magical. 100 00:07:49,770 --> 00:07:53,530 Speaker 1: Vint and Schaeffer had made snow in the lab, could 101 00:07:53,570 --> 00:07:56,130 Speaker 1: he and langmure make it snow in the real world. 102 00:07:56,970 --> 00:08:00,730 Speaker 1: They waited impatiently for summer to turn to winter. They 103 00:08:00,770 --> 00:08:04,170 Speaker 1: rented a little four seater prop plane, and at last 104 00:08:04,650 --> 00:08:08,530 Speaker 1: a day arrived that was cold and clear, with distinct 105 00:08:08,650 --> 00:08:13,890 Speaker 1: clouds to aim for. Schennected in New York November the fourteenth, 106 00:08:14,210 --> 00:08:17,970 Speaker 1: scientists of the General Electric Company, flying in an airplane, 107 00:08:18,130 --> 00:08:22,250 Speaker 1: conducted experiments with a cloud and were successful in transforming 108 00:08:22,250 --> 00:08:26,170 Speaker 1: the cloud into snow. That's an announcement from General Electric. 109 00:08:26,410 --> 00:08:29,490 Speaker 1: It had its own in house news bureau to publicize 110 00:08:29,530 --> 00:08:32,370 Speaker 1: all the clever things its researchers did and help the 111 00:08:32,410 --> 00:08:36,690 Speaker 1: company's image. The press release stopped short of claiming that 112 00:08:36,850 --> 00:08:40,930 Speaker 1: mankind could now control the weather. For all his enthusiasm, 113 00:08:41,290 --> 00:08:46,690 Speaker 1: langmure knew they'd only done one experiment. Still, what promise. 114 00:08:46,770 --> 00:08:49,450 Speaker 1: It had shown a single. 115 00:08:49,170 --> 00:08:51,970 Speaker 3: Plane could generate hundreds of millions of tons of snow. 116 00:08:52,570 --> 00:08:54,890 Speaker 3: Thus a supply of moisture could be stored up for 117 00:08:54,930 --> 00:08:58,530 Speaker 3: the spring months to feed irrigation and water power projects. 118 00:08:59,130 --> 00:09:01,970 Speaker 3: Snow might also be produced at mountain resorts for the 119 00:09:01,970 --> 00:09:06,730 Speaker 3: benefit of skiers. The next month, December The little plane 120 00:09:06,770 --> 00:09:10,290 Speaker 3: went up again with a bigger load of ice, on 121 00:09:10,410 --> 00:09:14,170 Speaker 3: a day with more clouds in the sky. This time, 122 00:09:14,330 --> 00:09:19,050 Speaker 3: it didn't snow straight away, but once it started it 123 00:09:19,090 --> 00:09:23,850 Speaker 3: didn't stop. Across the Mont and upstate New York, the 124 00:09:23,970 --> 00:09:29,410 Speaker 3: snowstorm was epic. Dozens of cars crashed, businesses had to 125 00:09:29,410 --> 00:09:34,570 Speaker 3: shut up shop for a week. Langnuur was exultant. He 126 00:09:34,650 --> 00:09:37,610 Speaker 3: called his boss, the head of the research campus. We 127 00:09:37,810 --> 00:09:43,370 Speaker 3: did that, the boss said, don't tell any journalists. The 128 00:09:43,410 --> 00:09:46,730 Speaker 3: company's lawyers had started to think it might be unwise 129 00:09:46,850 --> 00:09:51,290 Speaker 3: for General Electric to go around claiming responsibility for the weather. 130 00:09:52,090 --> 00:09:55,450 Speaker 3: If they really had caused this snowstorm, that might not 131 00:09:55,570 --> 00:09:58,090 Speaker 3: be good for the company's image. With the people who 132 00:09:58,090 --> 00:10:01,450 Speaker 3: had crashed their cars or had to close their businesses, 133 00:10:02,210 --> 00:10:07,170 Speaker 3: they might decide to sue. The boss hatched a plan. 134 00:10:07,890 --> 00:10:12,090 Speaker 3: He called in the USA military. Would they be interested 135 00:10:12,130 --> 00:10:13,930 Speaker 3: in learning to control the weather? 136 00:10:14,810 --> 00:10:18,410 Speaker 1: They would. The boss told Langmuir that he wasn't to 137 00:10:18,490 --> 00:10:22,930 Speaker 1: meddle with clouds himself anymore. He could only advise the military. 138 00:10:23,570 --> 00:10:27,090 Speaker 1: They would conduct the experiments, and with any luck, they 139 00:10:27,130 --> 00:10:31,490 Speaker 1: would get the lawsuits if anything went wrong. Langmuir didn't 140 00:10:31,490 --> 00:10:36,570 Speaker 1: mind that at all. The military, after all, had bigger planes, 141 00:10:37,370 --> 00:10:41,370 Speaker 1: and Langmuir had big ambitions. He was already talking about 142 00:10:41,370 --> 00:10:46,850 Speaker 1: making deserts bloom and learning to control hurricanes. What would 143 00:10:46,890 --> 00:10:50,490 Speaker 1: happen if you dumped dry ice in a hurricane? He'd 144 00:10:50,530 --> 00:10:53,010 Speaker 1: like to find out. You couldn't try that in a 145 00:10:53,050 --> 00:10:57,530 Speaker 1: single engined, four seater prop plane, but you could in 146 00:10:57,570 --> 00:11:02,610 Speaker 1: a bomber. Langmuir and Shaefer theorized that the dry ice 147 00:11:02,690 --> 00:11:06,610 Speaker 1: might weaken a hurricane, but perhaps they shouldn't experiment on 148 00:11:06,610 --> 00:11:10,930 Speaker 1: one that would soon make landfall, just in case they 149 00:11:10,970 --> 00:11:13,770 Speaker 1: needed a storm that was heading away from anywhere it 150 00:11:13,770 --> 00:11:18,650 Speaker 1: could cause harm. In October nineteen forty seven, they got 151 00:11:18,650 --> 00:11:23,770 Speaker 1: their chance. Hurricane King had formed in the Caribbean. It 152 00:11:23,810 --> 00:11:27,410 Speaker 1: had clipped the western edge of Cuba and curved over 153 00:11:27,490 --> 00:11:32,250 Speaker 1: southern Florida, dumping vast amounts of rain. Now it was 154 00:11:32,370 --> 00:11:36,930 Speaker 1: drifting out into the Atlantic, further and further away from land. 155 00:11:37,770 --> 00:11:42,770 Speaker 1: It was an ideal test. From a military base near Tampa, 156 00:11:43,170 --> 00:11:47,450 Speaker 1: three bomber planes took off and flew towards the hurricane. 157 00:11:47,530 --> 00:11:50,890 Speaker 1: They were carrying one hundred and eighty pounds of dry ice, 158 00:11:51,530 --> 00:11:56,570 Speaker 1: a raft of scientific instruments to gather data and Vincent Schaeffer. 159 00:11:57,890 --> 00:12:01,090 Speaker 1: They found the storm three hundred and fifty miles out 160 00:12:01,130 --> 00:12:03,650 Speaker 1: to sea. They dumped the dry ice in it and 161 00:12:03,810 --> 00:12:07,890 Speaker 1: flew around for a while, taking photos and making observations. 162 00:12:07,930 --> 00:12:12,690 Speaker 1: Nothing too dramatic seemed to happen. They headed back to base. 163 00:12:14,010 --> 00:12:17,250 Speaker 1: As soon as they'd turned their backs on Hurricane King. 164 00:12:18,130 --> 00:12:26,890 Speaker 1: It did something nobody had expected. Cautionary tales will be 165 00:12:26,970 --> 00:12:44,170 Speaker 1: back in a moment. In her book Under a White Sky, 166 00:12:44,650 --> 00:12:48,770 Speaker 1: the author Elizabeth Colbert describes her encounters with people who 167 00:12:48,810 --> 00:12:53,210 Speaker 1: work on geo engineering ideas to fix climate change, not 168 00:12:53,370 --> 00:12:57,050 Speaker 1: just by reducing our emissions, but by intervening in the 169 00:12:57,050 --> 00:13:02,610 Speaker 1: climate in some other way. Those ideas are controversial. The 170 00:13:02,690 --> 00:13:06,330 Speaker 1: phrase under a white sky comes from a field of 171 00:13:06,370 --> 00:13:12,250 Speaker 1: geoengineering called solar radiuation management, shielding the earth from sunshine 172 00:13:12,530 --> 00:13:15,810 Speaker 1: to keep it cooler, like closing the blinds on your 173 00:13:15,850 --> 00:13:19,530 Speaker 1: window on a summer's day. You could do that by 174 00:13:19,570 --> 00:13:24,930 Speaker 1: shooting reflective particles into the stratosphere. One possible side effect 175 00:13:25,730 --> 00:13:30,130 Speaker 1: is turning the sky white. Colbert talks with an academic 176 00:13:30,210 --> 00:13:33,770 Speaker 1: who researches this idea. He gets hate mail, he tells her, 177 00:13:34,290 --> 00:13:38,170 Speaker 1: even death threats. She also talks to a physicist who 178 00:13:38,290 --> 00:13:43,930 Speaker 1: founded the field of negative emissions, basically sucking carbon dioxide 179 00:13:43,970 --> 00:13:47,130 Speaker 1: out of the atmosphere. He came up with the idea 180 00:13:47,250 --> 00:13:50,930 Speaker 1: after asking a friend over a beer, why is nobody 181 00:13:50,970 --> 00:13:56,290 Speaker 1: doing these really crazy big things anymore. Colbert visits a 182 00:13:56,370 --> 00:14:00,130 Speaker 1: startup in Iceland that's putting the idea of negative emissions 183 00:14:00,250 --> 00:14:04,850 Speaker 1: into practice. Picture an air conditioning unit stark on a 184 00:14:04,890 --> 00:14:09,330 Speaker 1: shipping container. It sucks in air, uses a chemical process 185 00:14:09,370 --> 00:14:13,610 Speaker 1: to extract the carbon dioxide and inject it underground, where 186 00:14:13,730 --> 00:14:17,370 Speaker 1: it turns to rock. The graduate students who founded the 187 00:14:17,410 --> 00:14:23,530 Speaker 1: startup tell Colbert they faced a lot of opposition. People said, guys, 188 00:14:24,330 --> 00:14:29,170 Speaker 1: you shouldn't be doing that. Those people weren't particularly worried 189 00:14:29,210 --> 00:14:32,970 Speaker 1: that the Icelandic shipping containers would damage the planet directly. 190 00:14:33,850 --> 00:14:38,050 Speaker 1: They were worried the shipping containers would foster complacency. We 191 00:14:38,130 --> 00:14:41,770 Speaker 1: don't yet know how well these ideas will work. And 192 00:14:41,890 --> 00:14:44,970 Speaker 1: if the general public gets the impression that scientists are 193 00:14:45,010 --> 00:14:47,690 Speaker 1: going to figure out how to fixed climate change, they 194 00:14:47,770 --> 00:14:51,450 Speaker 1: might think, great, we don't need to worry about reducing emissions. 195 00:14:52,650 --> 00:15:01,130 Speaker 1: But the idea of geoengineering wasn't always so controversial. In 196 00:15:01,170 --> 00:15:05,170 Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties, scientists in the Soviet Union had a 197 00:15:05,170 --> 00:15:09,410 Speaker 1: problem they wanted to solve. For northern latitudes are a 198 00:15:09,450 --> 00:15:13,210 Speaker 1: gigantic ice box. The icy breath of the Arctic is 199 00:15:13,290 --> 00:15:17,290 Speaker 1: felt for thousands of kilometers around. It causes the permafrost 200 00:15:17,330 --> 00:15:21,650 Speaker 1: over vast expanses of Soviet lands, the silent tundra, and 201 00:15:21,690 --> 00:15:26,690 Speaker 1: the unexpected cold blasts which are feared by Ukrainian horticulturalists. 202 00:15:27,650 --> 00:15:31,850 Speaker 1: I'm quoting from a book called man Versus Climate, published 203 00:15:31,850 --> 00:15:36,530 Speaker 1: in Moscow in nineteen sixty one. Co author was Nikolai Rusin, 204 00:15:36,930 --> 00:15:42,770 Speaker 1: an outstanding climatologist with over fifty scientific publications. The other 205 00:15:43,370 --> 00:15:47,410 Speaker 1: Leah Flitt, a journalist with good experience in the field 206 00:15:47,450 --> 00:15:51,690 Speaker 1: of popularization of science. The book's publisher was so keen 207 00:15:51,770 --> 00:15:55,450 Speaker 1: to popularize this particular science that they put out an 208 00:15:55,530 --> 00:15:59,810 Speaker 1: English translation. The reader may ask, what senses there in 209 00:15:59,850 --> 00:16:03,010 Speaker 1: attempting to change the climate. Would it not be better 210 00:16:03,050 --> 00:16:05,250 Speaker 1: to leave this to nature and wait and see? 211 00:16:05,610 --> 00:16:08,810 Speaker 2: Of course not. The arcticgeis is a great disadvantage. 212 00:16:09,850 --> 00:16:13,210 Speaker 1: So what did Flit and Rousin think we could do 213 00:16:13,370 --> 00:16:18,330 Speaker 1: about the Arctic ice? They outline several ideas being discussed 214 00:16:18,330 --> 00:16:23,090 Speaker 1: by Soviet climatologists, you might scatter ash or peat dust 215 00:16:23,490 --> 00:16:26,570 Speaker 1: that would make the ice less reflective. It would absorb 216 00:16:26,730 --> 00:16:31,570 Speaker 1: more heat and start to melt. Scientists estimate that eighty 217 00:16:31,730 --> 00:16:35,170 Speaker 1: to one hundred kilograms of dust or ash per hectare 218 00:16:35,250 --> 00:16:40,090 Speaker 1: of ice ought to do the job. Alternatively, you might 219 00:16:40,170 --> 00:16:44,850 Speaker 1: use potassium to create a high altitude dust ring, similar 220 00:16:44,850 --> 00:16:48,930 Speaker 1: to that in circling Saturn at the right angle. A 221 00:16:49,050 --> 00:16:52,410 Speaker 1: ring around the planet would direct more sunshine onto the 222 00:16:52,450 --> 00:16:54,130 Speaker 1: northern latitudes. 223 00:16:53,930 --> 00:16:54,770 Speaker 2: And warm them up. 224 00:16:55,530 --> 00:17:00,690 Speaker 1: It would admittedly make the equator cooler too. That that 225 00:17:00,730 --> 00:17:04,210 Speaker 1: shouldn't cause any problems we couldn't solve. As Flit and 226 00:17:04,290 --> 00:17:09,010 Speaker 1: Rusin explained, the Africans would require warm dwellings and entirely 227 00:17:09,130 --> 00:17:14,810 Speaker 1: different clothes, shoes, etc. Flit and Rucin describe another proposal 228 00:17:15,410 --> 00:17:19,730 Speaker 1: for a fifty five mile dam across the Bearing Strait 229 00:17:20,010 --> 00:17:24,890 Speaker 1: between Siberia and Alaska. Such a dam would change the 230 00:17:24,930 --> 00:17:29,970 Speaker 1: direction of warming ocean currents the central heating pipelines of 231 00:17:29,970 --> 00:17:34,650 Speaker 1: our planet, point those pipelines towards the far North, and 232 00:17:34,850 --> 00:17:38,090 Speaker 1: in just three or four years, the Arctic would be 233 00:17:38,610 --> 00:17:43,810 Speaker 1: completely free from ice. Building a dam to Alaska would 234 00:17:43,850 --> 00:17:49,010 Speaker 1: need America's cooperation. Wouldn't that be unthinkable at the height 235 00:17:49,050 --> 00:17:53,610 Speaker 1: of the Cold War Not, according to then presidential candidate 236 00:17:53,970 --> 00:17:58,410 Speaker 1: John F. Kennedy. The idea of the dam, said Kennedy, 237 00:17:58,650 --> 00:18:05,050 Speaker 1: was certainly worth exploring. Flit and Rucin waxed lyrical about 238 00:18:05,050 --> 00:18:09,370 Speaker 1: the benefits. No more frost in Moscow orchards blew in 239 00:18:09,410 --> 00:18:14,610 Speaker 1: Alaska and northern Canada. All this is splendid, But is 240 00:18:14,650 --> 00:18:16,650 Speaker 1: it really possible technically? 241 00:18:16,850 --> 00:18:17,130 Speaker 2: Yes. 242 00:18:18,290 --> 00:18:21,210 Speaker 1: Nowadays we often see in the news that Arctic ice 243 00:18:21,290 --> 00:18:25,330 Speaker 1: is melting and perma frost is disappearing, and we tend 244 00:18:25,370 --> 00:18:29,450 Speaker 1: not to think of that news as splendid. We worry now, 245 00:18:29,490 --> 00:18:33,730 Speaker 1: not about the cold but global warming. You might assume 246 00:18:33,810 --> 00:18:37,930 Speaker 1: that Leah Flitt and Nikolai Rusin hadn't heard of global warming. 247 00:18:38,730 --> 00:18:39,330 Speaker 2: You'd be wrong. 248 00:18:40,410 --> 00:18:44,170 Speaker 1: The book mentions the greenhouse effect, although the term is 249 00:18:44,210 --> 00:18:46,930 Speaker 1: new enough that the translator puts it in scare quotes. 250 00:18:47,730 --> 00:18:51,370 Speaker 1: Flit and Rousin site figures on carbon dioxide emissions that 251 00:18:51,410 --> 00:18:55,690 Speaker 1: suggest that the mean temperature of the Earth's atmosphere will 252 00:18:55,810 --> 00:18:59,290 Speaker 1: rise four to five degrees in less than fifty years. 253 00:19:00,570 --> 00:19:05,010 Speaker 1: Four to five degrees centigrade in fifty years. That's nearly 254 00:19:05,090 --> 00:19:11,450 Speaker 1: ten degrees fahrenheit. Thankfully it hasn't happen that fast, not yet. 255 00:19:12,330 --> 00:19:15,930 Speaker 1: But what fascinates me is the lesson the author's draw. 256 00:19:17,090 --> 00:19:20,450 Speaker 1: The prospect of global warming doesn't scare them as it 257 00:19:20,530 --> 00:19:21,290 Speaker 1: scares us. 258 00:19:22,050 --> 00:19:23,090 Speaker 2: Quite the opposite. 259 00:19:23,330 --> 00:19:27,290 Speaker 1: They see it as encouraging evidence that man can modify 260 00:19:27,650 --> 00:19:32,450 Speaker 1: and hence control the climate. If we can affect temperature 261 00:19:32,570 --> 00:19:35,970 Speaker 1: so much as a mere byproduct of our everyday routines, 262 00:19:36,730 --> 00:19:39,690 Speaker 1: just imagine what we might achieve if we actively put. 263 00:19:39,530 --> 00:19:40,370 Speaker 2: Our minds to it. 264 00:19:41,570 --> 00:19:46,090 Speaker 1: Presently available power, resources and technological possibilities permit us to 265 00:19:46,250 --> 00:19:49,490 Speaker 1: remake the climate of entire regions. 266 00:19:49,010 --> 00:19:49,610 Speaker 2: Of the world. 267 00:19:50,850 --> 00:19:53,810 Speaker 1: Just as today we plan the construction of new cities, 268 00:19:54,050 --> 00:19:56,890 Speaker 1: so in the future we shall have to plan improvements 269 00:19:56,930 --> 00:20:01,050 Speaker 1: in the climate the things people used to believe. It's 270 00:20:01,050 --> 00:20:04,730 Speaker 1: easy to mock them, but it also makes me uncomfortable, 271 00:20:05,130 --> 00:20:08,730 Speaker 1: because we don't generally mock people for a sincerely held 272 00:20:08,770 --> 00:20:12,770 Speaker 1: belief in the capacity of human ingenuity to make life better, 273 00:20:13,290 --> 00:20:17,050 Speaker 1: especially not people who've proved their scientific chops, like Nikolai 274 00:20:17,090 --> 00:20:21,170 Speaker 1: Rusin with his fifty publications or Irving Langmuir with his 275 00:20:21,290 --> 00:20:27,010 Speaker 1: Nobel prize. The authors of Man versus Climate share Langmuir's 276 00:20:27,050 --> 00:20:31,130 Speaker 1: fascination with clouds, and not just with how to make 277 00:20:31,170 --> 00:20:36,530 Speaker 1: them snow, but also how to make them disappear. Many 278 00:20:36,610 --> 00:20:39,930 Speaker 1: regions of the Soviet Union are deprived of sunlight for 279 00:20:40,050 --> 00:20:45,530 Speaker 1: several months. By destroying such cloud cover, man could substantially 280 00:20:45,570 --> 00:20:47,330 Speaker 1: improve climatic conditions. 281 00:20:47,770 --> 00:20:49,370 Speaker 2: Crops would ripen more quickly. 282 00:20:50,250 --> 00:20:53,290 Speaker 1: When you eat man versus climate, there's no tone of 283 00:20:53,410 --> 00:20:57,490 Speaker 1: self awareness, no sense of I know this sounds crazy, 284 00:20:57,530 --> 00:21:02,130 Speaker 1: but hear me out. Instead, there's just a sense of calm, 285 00:21:02,530 --> 00:21:08,450 Speaker 1: measured optimism. Clouds, fog, thunderstorms, and hailstorms cannot be controlled 286 00:21:08,450 --> 00:21:12,410 Speaker 1: in the same way, say hand or engine driven machinery, 287 00:21:12,450 --> 00:21:15,530 Speaker 1: and yet man will eventually learn how to control, or 288 00:21:15,650 --> 00:21:20,410 Speaker 1: rather influence them in the desired manner. Man will eventually 289 00:21:20,570 --> 00:21:24,530 Speaker 1: learn to influence the weather and plan improvements in the climate. 290 00:21:25,570 --> 00:21:29,130 Speaker 1: Nobody now thinks we can do any of that. Why 291 00:21:29,170 --> 00:21:32,890 Speaker 1: did we lose that sense of ambition, that touching faith 292 00:21:32,970 --> 00:21:37,410 Speaker 1: in the power of human ingenuity, or as the physicists 293 00:21:37,410 --> 00:21:40,970 Speaker 1: who came up with negative emissions puts it, why is 294 00:21:41,090 --> 00:21:48,450 Speaker 1: nobody doing these really crazy big things anymore? The day 295 00:21:48,490 --> 00:21:52,090 Speaker 1: after he had dumped dry ice on Hurricane King in 296 00:21:52,130 --> 00:21:56,250 Speaker 1: a US Air Force bomber Vincent Schafer flew home from 297 00:21:56,330 --> 00:21:59,490 Speaker 1: Florida to New York. He had planned to use the 298 00:21:59,570 --> 00:22:02,570 Speaker 1: time on the plane to write up his notes, but 299 00:22:02,690 --> 00:22:07,370 Speaker 1: in the sky high above Georgia, Vincent Shaffer's plane began 300 00:22:07,450 --> 00:22:13,770 Speaker 1: to jutterer, and soon it was lurching violently. This was 301 00:22:13,810 --> 00:22:18,410 Speaker 1: the worst turbulence Schaefer had ever experienced, and he couldn't 302 00:22:18,410 --> 00:22:21,330 Speaker 1: write a word. He put down his pen and his 303 00:22:21,410 --> 00:22:27,130 Speaker 1: notebook and clung the arm rests of his seat. Later 304 00:22:27,770 --> 00:22:31,930 Speaker 1: he found out what had been flying through Hurricane King. 305 00:22:33,170 --> 00:22:35,890 Speaker 1: What was it doing in Georgia It should have been 306 00:22:36,010 --> 00:22:39,050 Speaker 1: hundreds of miles away, heading further out into the Atlantic. 307 00:22:40,170 --> 00:22:43,410 Speaker 1: The storm had done something completely. 308 00:22:43,050 --> 00:22:43,810 Speaker 2: Out of the blue. 309 00:22:44,650 --> 00:22:48,810 Speaker 1: It had abruptly turned back towards land, and far from weakening, 310 00:22:49,090 --> 00:22:53,810 Speaker 1: it had picked up strength again. Hurricane King battered the 311 00:22:53,890 --> 00:22:57,330 Speaker 1: coastline around Savannah with one hundred mile an hour winds. 312 00:22:57,850 --> 00:23:02,770 Speaker 1: It caused twelve foot storm surges. A falling tree killed 313 00:23:02,770 --> 00:23:06,890 Speaker 1: a man. The storm destroyed crops and damaged hundreds of buildings, 314 00:23:07,090 --> 00:23:12,530 Speaker 1: damage that cost millions of dollars to repair. Irving Langmuir 315 00:23:13,330 --> 00:23:14,410 Speaker 1: was thrilled. 316 00:23:14,890 --> 00:23:15,450 Speaker 2: We did that. 317 00:23:16,690 --> 00:23:20,450 Speaker 1: The lawyers at ge were having conniptions again, but the 318 00:23:20,570 --> 00:23:26,170 Speaker 1: dry ice had redirected the storm accidentally. Langmuir was sure 319 00:23:26,210 --> 00:23:29,290 Speaker 1: of it, and he was also sure that meant they 320 00:23:29,290 --> 00:23:33,530 Speaker 1: could learn to do it deliberately, to direct storms exactly 321 00:23:33,570 --> 00:23:37,850 Speaker 1: where they wanted them to go. Langmuir gave an interview 322 00:23:38,090 --> 00:23:40,210 Speaker 1: to Fortune magazine. 323 00:23:40,370 --> 00:23:40,930 Speaker 2: There is a. 324 00:23:40,810 --> 00:23:44,770 Speaker 1: Reasonable probability, he told them that in one or two years, 325 00:23:45,250 --> 00:23:49,250 Speaker 1: man will be able to abolish most damage effects from hurricanes. 326 00:23:50,530 --> 00:24:12,690 Speaker 1: Of course we didn't cautionary tales will return. At General 327 00:24:12,770 --> 00:24:19,170 Speaker 1: Electric's research campus Irving, Langmuir acquired another assistant, Bernard Vonnegut, 328 00:24:19,930 --> 00:24:23,130 Speaker 1: brother of the novelist Kurt, who also worked for a 329 00:24:23,130 --> 00:24:27,170 Speaker 1: while in the company's news bureau. Their time in Schonnectady 330 00:24:27,410 --> 00:24:32,330 Speaker 1: is described in Ginger Strand's book The Brothers Vonnegut. Like 331 00:24:32,410 --> 00:24:36,770 Speaker 1: all the smart scientists General Electric employed, Bernard was told 332 00:24:37,210 --> 00:24:40,330 Speaker 1: look around the lab and work on anything that takes 333 00:24:40,370 --> 00:24:46,170 Speaker 1: your interest. Bernard was interested in Vincent Schaeffer's freezer, lined 334 00:24:46,210 --> 00:24:50,410 Speaker 1: with black velvet and containing a super cooled cloud of breath. 335 00:24:52,050 --> 00:24:55,890 Speaker 1: Schaefer had discovered that pellets of dry ice made the 336 00:24:55,930 --> 00:25:01,810 Speaker 1: cloud in the freezer form. Snow, what else might Bernard thought? 337 00:25:01,850 --> 00:25:05,170 Speaker 1: A rapid expansion of compressed air might do the trick. 338 00:25:06,010 --> 00:25:08,570 Speaker 1: He went to a toy store and bought a children's 339 00:25:08,570 --> 00:25:12,210 Speaker 1: pop gun for seventy five cents. He lowered it into 340 00:25:12,210 --> 00:25:17,490 Speaker 1: the freezer, pulled the trigger, and it worked. Millions of 341 00:25:17,530 --> 00:25:21,770 Speaker 1: ice crystals popped into being something else made snow in 342 00:25:21,810 --> 00:25:22,570 Speaker 1: the freezer too. 343 00:25:23,450 --> 00:25:24,650 Speaker 2: Silver iodied. 344 00:25:25,730 --> 00:25:30,010 Speaker 1: One sub zero winter night, as Bernard drove home from work, 345 00:25:30,570 --> 00:25:32,930 Speaker 1: it occurred to him that the moisture in the air 346 00:25:33,370 --> 00:25:38,810 Speaker 1: must be super cooled. What would silver iodide do to that? 347 00:25:39,690 --> 00:25:43,250 Speaker 1: He got home, stuffed some newspaper and silver iodied into 348 00:25:43,290 --> 00:25:47,690 Speaker 1: an oil burner and carried it around. Before long, he 349 00:25:47,770 --> 00:25:50,890 Speaker 1: got a call from his next door neighbor, a colleague 350 00:25:50,930 --> 00:25:51,410 Speaker 1: from work. 351 00:25:52,050 --> 00:25:53,010 Speaker 3: Are you falling around? 352 00:25:53,410 --> 00:25:57,130 Speaker 2: Said the neighbor. Why, it's a lovely clear evening. 353 00:25:58,130 --> 00:25:59,450 Speaker 3: I can't see your house. 354 00:26:00,410 --> 00:26:05,290 Speaker 1: Yeah, that was me, replied Bernard. I made the fog. 355 00:26:06,730 --> 00:26:11,250 Speaker 1: In summer nineteen forty nine, Irving Langmuir, Vincent Shaefer, and 356 00:26:11,250 --> 00:26:15,010 Speaker 1: Bernard Vonnegut set up camp in New Mexico with their 357 00:26:15,050 --> 00:26:20,210 Speaker 1: team from the military. Langmuir had dreamed of making Desert's bloom. 358 00:26:20,770 --> 00:26:23,970 Speaker 1: He wanted to see if dry ice could conjure rain 359 00:26:24,250 --> 00:26:28,650 Speaker 1: from an arid sky. Bernard had brought along a silver 360 00:26:28,770 --> 00:26:32,010 Speaker 1: iod eyed smoke generator had made in the lab. He 361 00:26:32,090 --> 00:26:35,690 Speaker 1: told Langmuir he was going to set it going. Langmuir 362 00:26:35,770 --> 00:26:38,130 Speaker 1: didn't seem to hear him. He was lost in thought. 363 00:26:38,130 --> 00:26:38,410 Speaker 2: Again. 364 00:26:39,570 --> 00:26:43,650 Speaker 1: At six am, Bernard got up and started the smoke generator. 365 00:26:44,570 --> 00:26:47,370 Speaker 1: He sent up balloons to check which way the wind 366 00:26:47,530 --> 00:26:52,050 Speaker 1: was carrying the silver iod eyed smoke towards the mountains. 367 00:26:53,330 --> 00:26:57,530 Speaker 1: By lunchtime, clouds were building near the mountains, and was 368 00:26:57,570 --> 00:27:01,930 Speaker 1: that thunder It was nearly time for Vincent Shafer to 369 00:27:01,970 --> 00:27:05,010 Speaker 1: take off with dry Ice in a B seventeen bomber, 370 00:27:05,290 --> 00:27:10,530 Speaker 1: so Bernard turned the smoke machine off. When Shaeffer got 371 00:27:10,530 --> 00:27:14,490 Speaker 1: to the clouds, he was surprised to find they were 372 00:27:14,650 --> 00:27:22,410 Speaker 1: already raining. It rained, and it rained. That night, Bernard 373 00:27:22,530 --> 00:27:25,610 Speaker 1: again told Langmuir that he had been running the silver 374 00:27:25,690 --> 00:27:31,290 Speaker 1: iodide generator. This time Langmuir heard and he was stunned. 375 00:27:32,130 --> 00:27:37,890 Speaker 1: This was even better than dry ice. Bernard Vonnegut had 376 00:27:37,930 --> 00:27:48,730 Speaker 1: made a thunderstorm. Why do we no longer aspire to 377 00:27:48,890 --> 00:27:54,290 Speaker 1: influence the weather? There's an obvious answer, Despite what Irving 378 00:27:54,370 --> 00:27:59,090 Speaker 1: Langmuir thought, We've learned we can't. But that's not quite right, 379 00:27:59,690 --> 00:28:03,050 Speaker 1: because people still do seed clouds to day with dry 380 00:28:03,130 --> 00:28:06,730 Speaker 1: ice and silver iod eyed and there's no scientific consensus 381 00:28:06,770 --> 00:28:10,890 Speaker 1: on whether or not those people are wasting time. Some 382 00:28:10,970 --> 00:28:14,930 Speaker 1: say cloud seeding doesn't work, others insist that it does 383 00:28:15,330 --> 00:28:19,570 Speaker 1: to some extent in some conditions. I think that lack 384 00:28:19,610 --> 00:28:23,410 Speaker 1: of agreement after three quarters of a century tells us 385 00:28:23,530 --> 00:28:27,090 Speaker 1: there's a deeper problem. This sort of thing is hard 386 00:28:27,130 --> 00:28:31,050 Speaker 1: to test. You can't run controlled experiments on the weather 387 00:28:31,490 --> 00:28:35,450 Speaker 1: or the climate. Every time Irving Langmure picked up the 388 00:28:35,490 --> 00:28:39,010 Speaker 1: phone to a journalist, the US Weather Bureau grew more 389 00:28:39,090 --> 00:28:44,210 Speaker 1: and more exasperated. Their post bag bulged with angry letters. 390 00:28:44,730 --> 00:28:47,850 Speaker 1: Why are you merely trying to predict the weather? Why 391 00:28:47,850 --> 00:28:51,610 Speaker 1: don't you do something about it? The Weather Bureau tried 392 00:28:51,610 --> 00:28:54,610 Speaker 1: to make Langmure see that he couldn't make claims on 393 00:28:54,610 --> 00:28:58,890 Speaker 1: one off events. Would that thunderstorm in New Mexico really 394 00:28:58,930 --> 00:29:02,890 Speaker 1: not have happened without Bernard Vonnegut's silver iod eyde. What 395 00:29:02,970 --> 00:29:06,650 Speaker 1: about that huge New York snowstorm? Who could say for sure, 396 00:29:07,490 --> 00:29:13,210 Speaker 1: not the Weather Bureau. As for Hurricane King, nobody had 397 00:29:13,210 --> 00:29:16,690 Speaker 1: predicted that sharp turn back to land, but that didn't 398 00:29:16,730 --> 00:29:20,970 Speaker 1: mean Vincent Schaefer had caused it where the historians combed 399 00:29:21,010 --> 00:29:24,410 Speaker 1: through the records and found that something similar had happened 400 00:29:24,450 --> 00:29:28,370 Speaker 1: once before, in nineteen oh six. To find out if 401 00:29:28,450 --> 00:29:32,570 Speaker 1: dry ice really could affect hurricanes, we'd need hundreds of 402 00:29:32,610 --> 00:29:37,770 Speaker 1: storms to experiment on. But hurricanes are unique and thankfully 403 00:29:37,810 --> 00:29:40,970 Speaker 1: not common enough to provide a big enough sample size 404 00:29:40,970 --> 00:29:46,810 Speaker 1: for experiments. Statistical analysis, said the Weather Bureau was the 405 00:29:46,850 --> 00:29:51,890 Speaker 1: only way to prove an effect. Ginger Strand describes how 406 00:29:52,050 --> 00:29:56,410 Speaker 1: Langmuir took up the challenge. He devised an experiment. He'd 407 00:29:56,490 --> 00:30:00,610 Speaker 1: run Bernard's silver iodide smoke generator on some days but 408 00:30:00,770 --> 00:30:05,210 Speaker 1: not others, on a regular weekly pattern. Would the rainfall 409 00:30:05,410 --> 00:30:10,050 Speaker 1: also change on a regular weekly pattern. It did, but 410 00:30:10,090 --> 00:30:13,330 Speaker 1: the Weather Bureau combed through their records and pointed out 411 00:30:13,410 --> 00:30:17,210 Speaker 1: similar weekly patterns that had happened before. It might just 412 00:30:17,330 --> 00:30:22,890 Speaker 1: be another coincidence. Irving Langmuir came up with new ideas 413 00:30:22,930 --> 00:30:26,330 Speaker 1: to get statistical proof that he could make rain, but 414 00:30:26,410 --> 00:30:28,610 Speaker 1: he discovered another problem. 415 00:30:28,770 --> 00:30:31,770 Speaker 2: His penchant for publicity had inspired others. 416 00:30:32,970 --> 00:30:37,130 Speaker 1: Freelance rain makers were popping up everywhere, employed by farmers 417 00:30:37,210 --> 00:30:41,610 Speaker 1: to water their fields or municipal governments to fill their reservoirs. 418 00:30:42,450 --> 00:30:45,770 Speaker 1: Langmuir couldn't know if his own experiments were being affected 419 00:30:45,810 --> 00:30:49,530 Speaker 1: by the people he had inspired, and these burgeoning attempts 420 00:30:49,570 --> 00:30:53,850 Speaker 1: to change the weather led to lawsuits, just as General 421 00:30:53,890 --> 00:30:58,770 Speaker 1: Electrics lawyers and foreseene. After New York City employed a 422 00:30:58,890 --> 00:31:02,650 Speaker 1: rain maker, a huge storm caused a flood upstate. 423 00:31:03,370 --> 00:31:04,890 Speaker 2: The city faced over. 424 00:31:04,650 --> 00:31:11,530 Speaker 1: A hundred claims for damages. In the early nineteen fifties, 425 00:31:12,090 --> 00:31:16,410 Speaker 1: General Electric decided to pull the plug on Irving Langmuir's 426 00:31:16,450 --> 00:31:21,770 Speaker 1: weather research. It was too much hassle. Langmuir retired from 427 00:31:21,770 --> 00:31:24,450 Speaker 1: the company and went to work as a consultant for 428 00:31:24,490 --> 00:31:29,130 Speaker 1: the army. They persevered for years trying to turn weather 429 00:31:29,610 --> 00:31:35,530 Speaker 1: into a weapon. In nineteen fifty seven, Langmuir died, still 430 00:31:35,610 --> 00:31:39,650 Speaker 1: convinced that human mastery of the weather was just around 431 00:31:39,690 --> 00:31:50,450 Speaker 1: the corner. In nineteen sixty three, Bernard Vonnegut's brother Kurt 432 00:31:50,970 --> 00:31:55,890 Speaker 1: published a novel called Cat's Cradle. It features an absent 433 00:31:56,010 --> 00:31:59,850 Speaker 1: minded genius of a scientist, a man who gets so 434 00:32:00,050 --> 00:32:03,290 Speaker 1: lost in thought he abandons his car in a traffic 435 00:32:03,370 --> 00:32:07,210 Speaker 1: jam and leaves tips for his wife on the breakfast table. 436 00:32:08,250 --> 00:32:12,090 Speaker 1: In the novel, someone asks the scientist if it's conceivable 437 00:32:12,130 --> 00:32:14,450 Speaker 1: for there to be a kind of ice crystal that 438 00:32:14,530 --> 00:32:19,090 Speaker 1: would turn water solid at room temperature. The scientist discovers 439 00:32:19,130 --> 00:32:24,130 Speaker 1: that such a crystal could exist in theory, then he 440 00:32:24,250 --> 00:32:28,850 Speaker 1: makes it in the lab. When a crystal of ice 441 00:32:29,010 --> 00:32:33,810 Speaker 1: nine is accidentally dropped in the sea, it turns all 442 00:32:34,050 --> 00:32:39,210 Speaker 1: the planet's water solid, which wipes out life on Earth. 443 00:32:41,490 --> 00:32:46,610 Speaker 1: Kurt Vonagut later explained why Irving Langmure had inspired his 444 00:32:46,690 --> 00:32:53,250 Speaker 1: fictional genius. Langmuir, he said, was absolutely indifferent to the 445 00:32:53,370 --> 00:32:56,010 Speaker 1: uses that might be made of the truths he dug 446 00:32:56,010 --> 00:32:59,050 Speaker 1: out of the rock and handed out to whomever was around. 447 00:32:59,690 --> 00:33:02,330 Speaker 1: Any truth he found was beautiful in its own right, 448 00:33:02,890 --> 00:33:05,530 Speaker 1: and he didn't give a damn who got it next. 449 00:33:07,010 --> 00:33:10,890 Speaker 1: The moral of Kurt Vonigut's novel is that some scientific 450 00:33:10,930 --> 00:33:15,610 Speaker 1: knowledge shouldn't be pursued. And I think that's a big 451 00:33:15,650 --> 00:33:18,690 Speaker 1: part of the answer to the question why is nobody 452 00:33:18,730 --> 00:33:22,890 Speaker 1: doing these crazy, big things anymore? It ONTs seemed like 453 00:33:23,050 --> 00:33:25,890 Speaker 1: part of our human destiny to learn to control the 454 00:33:25,930 --> 00:33:30,250 Speaker 1: weather and remake the climate. As the decades went by, 455 00:33:31,050 --> 00:33:35,410 Speaker 1: more people began to think, if we try, we're bound 456 00:33:35,410 --> 00:33:40,170 Speaker 1: to screw things up. The sense that some knowledge shouldn't 457 00:33:40,170 --> 00:33:43,850 Speaker 1: be pursued, explains the hate mail for the academic who 458 00:33:43,850 --> 00:33:49,010 Speaker 1: studies solar radiation management. These ideas are hard to test, 459 00:33:49,650 --> 00:33:52,450 Speaker 1: so we can't be sure of the risks unless someone 460 00:33:52,490 --> 00:33:56,130 Speaker 1: does it for real, and the more academics debate the theory, 461 00:33:56,770 --> 00:33:59,650 Speaker 1: the more tempted someone will be to give it a go. 462 00:34:00,650 --> 00:34:06,010 Speaker 1: But attitudes to geoengineering are starting to change again. The 463 00:34:06,050 --> 00:34:10,410 Speaker 1: idea of negative emissions has already become heart of the mainstream. 464 00:34:11,050 --> 00:34:14,170 Speaker 1: When the graduate students in Iceland set up their shipping 465 00:34:14,170 --> 00:34:18,970 Speaker 1: containers to suck carbon out of the atmosphere, people said, guys, 466 00:34:19,650 --> 00:34:23,050 Speaker 1: you shouldn't be doing that. The critics thought it was 467 00:34:23,130 --> 00:34:27,970 Speaker 1: knowledge that shouldn't be pursued. Now we rely on that 468 00:34:28,090 --> 00:34:33,290 Speaker 1: knowledge being found. When climate experts say there's still hope 469 00:34:33,330 --> 00:34:37,090 Speaker 1: to avoid runaway warming, they're assuming we can make negative 470 00:34:37,090 --> 00:34:40,170 Speaker 1: emissions technology work on a big enough scale at a 471 00:34:40,210 --> 00:34:45,490 Speaker 1: low enough cost. That's still far from certain. And what 472 00:34:45,570 --> 00:34:51,250 Speaker 1: about the more outlandish schemes like reflective particles in the stratosphere? 473 00:34:51,810 --> 00:34:56,690 Speaker 1: Will they become mainstream too? Researchers in Germany recently asked 474 00:34:56,850 --> 00:35:02,490 Speaker 1: climate engineering experts how other scientists saw their field compared 475 00:35:02,530 --> 00:35:05,610 Speaker 1: to just a few years ago. They said others had 476 00:35:05,610 --> 00:35:10,450 Speaker 1: become much more open to their research. But that's not 477 00:35:10,570 --> 00:35:16,130 Speaker 1: because the other scientists find geoengineering schemes any less disastrously 478 00:35:16,250 --> 00:35:19,690 Speaker 1: risky than they did before. It's because they know we've 479 00:35:19,730 --> 00:35:23,250 Speaker 1: wasted our best chance to stop climate change by acting 480 00:35:23,330 --> 00:35:27,770 Speaker 1: more quickly on reducing emissions. So much future warming is 481 00:35:27,810 --> 00:35:32,290 Speaker 1: now locked in the temptation to try some ambitiously large 482 00:35:32,330 --> 00:35:38,330 Speaker 1: scale geoengineering projects might become irresistible. Perhaps it now makes 483 00:35:38,370 --> 00:35:41,130 Speaker 1: sense to pursue the knowledge in the hope that we 484 00:35:41,130 --> 00:35:45,530 Speaker 1: can minimize the risks. It's poignant to look back on 485 00:35:45,570 --> 00:35:50,130 Speaker 1: the nineteen forties and nineteen fifties, when scientists like Irving 486 00:35:50,210 --> 00:35:55,850 Speaker 1: Langmuir and Nikolai Rusin dreamed of remaking the climate. They 487 00:35:55,890 --> 00:35:59,850 Speaker 1: had a touching faith in human ingenuity. But we now 488 00:35:59,890 --> 00:36:03,610 Speaker 1: know that it's a far more complex challenge than Langmuir 489 00:36:03,770 --> 00:36:08,730 Speaker 1: or Rusin imagined. And yet we've left it so late 490 00:36:09,570 --> 00:36:13,290 Speaker 1: that all that remains are a set of bad options. 491 00:36:14,290 --> 00:36:18,090 Speaker 1: So if we try to remake the climate, we'll have 492 00:36:18,210 --> 00:36:36,330 Speaker 1: a different motive. It won't be aspiration but desperation. I 493 00:36:36,490 --> 00:36:40,530 Speaker 1: very much enjoyed Ginger Strand's book The Brothers Vonnegut while 494 00:36:40,570 --> 00:36:44,290 Speaker 1: researching this episode. For a full list of our sources, 495 00:36:44,370 --> 00:36:59,290 Speaker 1: please see the show notes at Timharford dot com. Cautionary 496 00:36:59,290 --> 00:37:02,610 Speaker 1: Tales is written by me Tim Harford with Andrew Wright. 497 00:37:03,130 --> 00:37:06,530 Speaker 1: It's produced by Alice Fines with support from Edith Huslow. 498 00:37:07,170 --> 00:37:10,050 Speaker 1: The sound design and original music is the work of 499 00:37:10,170 --> 00:37:15,290 Speaker 1: Pascal Wise. Julia Barton edited the scripts. It features the 500 00:37:15,370 --> 00:37:19,410 Speaker 1: voice talents of Ben Crowe, Melanie Gutshridge, Jemma Saunders and 501 00:37:19,530 --> 00:37:23,210 Speaker 1: Rufus Wright. The show wouldn't have been possible without the 502 00:37:23,250 --> 00:37:28,090 Speaker 1: work of Jacob Weisberg, Ryan Dilly, Greta Cohne, let Al Millard, 503 00:37:28,490 --> 00:37:36,090 Speaker 1: John Schnaz, Carlie mcgliori and Eric Sandler. Cautionary Tales is 504 00:37:36,130 --> 00:37:39,850 Speaker 1: a production of Pushkin Industries. It was recorded in Wardare 505 00:37:39,930 --> 00:37:43,250 Speaker 1: Studios in London by Tom Berry. If you like the show, 506 00:37:43,450 --> 00:37:46,570 Speaker 1: please remember to share, grate and review go on you 507 00:37:46,730 --> 00:37:48,970 Speaker 1: know it helps us and if you want to hear 508 00:37:49,010 --> 00:37:52,610 Speaker 1: the show, add free sign up for Pushkin Plus on 509 00:37:52,650 --> 00:37:56,690 Speaker 1: the show page in Apple Podcasts or at Pushkin dot fm, 510 00:37:56,970 --> 00:38:11,370 Speaker 1: slash Plus