An increasing number of scientists believe that the climate crisis has progressed so far that technological interventions may be the only hope to avert ever-intensifying catastrophes. Concepts such as cloud brightening, injecting sulphur into the atmosphere, and deploying tiny mirrors in space—all aimed at reducing sunlight reaching Earth—are being promoted by entrepreneurs and governments. Geoengineering, they argue, is now inevitable.
Ever since the God of the Old Testament granted humanity dominion over Earth, ideas of remaking the world to better suit us have been a dominant thread in human thinking. For centuries, we have toyed with grand ambitions to alter climate and environment, many of which now seem doomed or absurd. With new ideas brewing, it is worth looking back at past initiatives to geoengineer our planet.
1. Atlantropa: Damming the Mediterranean
In the 1930s, German engineer Herman Sörgel proposed building a dam across the Strait of Gibraltar to lower the Mediterranean Sea by 200 metres. This would create vast new fertile lebensraum worked by African labourers, alleviating a cause of Europe's wars, and supply Europe and Africa with limitless hydroelectricity. The vision swept many along, with leading engineers designing the great dam. A few quibbled about the impact on Venice's canals, but Sörgel promised "special measures." Astonishingly, the Atlantropa plan survived World War II and limped on until the 1960s.
2. Soviet Plans to Modify Nature
Russians have always felt short-changed when it comes to climate. As US climatologist P.E. Lydolph put it: "In general, the country lacks heat." Soviet engineer P.M. Borisov proposed raising Earth's temperature by a couple of degrees by building a dam across the Bering Strait to melt the Arctic ice cap. Other Soviet scientists countered that the same effect could be achieved by cutting a hole in the Thompson-Wyville Ridge, requiring excavation of 3,000 sq km of sea floor at depths over a kilometre. This followed the 1948 "great Stalin plan for the transformation of nature," which explored massive engineering feats. Such ideas were still discussed seriously decades after Stalin's death, though economists protested at the expense.
3. Bombing to Save the Planet
The discovery of atomic power introduced a powerful age of techno-optimism. Harry Wexler, who led the US Weather Bureau's scientific services division from the 1940s to 1962, believed 10 carefully placed hydrogen bombs could destroy the Arctic ice cap, ushering in unprecedented warmth. The Russians thought nuclear weapons ideal for redirecting rivers; they detonated three devices to divert northward-flowing rivers but found they only cleared 700 metres of canal, and the unanticipated radiation made it impossible to proceed.
4. Making a Second Moon
Few geoengineering attempts have left the drawing board, but in the 1990s Project Znamya actually achieved its objective of creating a "second moon," though at a smaller scale than hoped. The idea was to reflect sunlight onto Russia's Arctic regions using reflective foldable satellites, extending daylight hours for additional warmth and energy savings. The initial batch provided a 5 km patch of light. When a second batch got stuck in the MIR space station and Russia's declining economy made the economics challenging, the project was abandoned.
5. New Australian Mountains
Laurie Hogan felt Australia had been short-changed regarding mountains; its only significant ones hug the east coast, creating a narrow green strip and vast arid outback. In 1979, he published Man Made Mountain, arguing for a second mountain range along Western Australia's border: 2,000 km long, 4 km high, and 10 km wide. Forty-nine great cities on a rectangular grid and 180,000 fish farms would ornament its slopes. When the book failed to rally the nation, Hogan set up the 'Engineered Australia Plan party' for the 1983 federal election. Analysis revealed it would require moving many times more rock than humanity has moved in its entire history. Both book and party sank without trace.
These five ideas are just the tip of the geoengineering iceberg. Over history, serious efforts have been made to increase rainfall, control hurricanes, and use weather to win wars, all to no avail. There is no end to humanity's monstrous egotism, it seems. Now we face a choice: whether to geoengineer or reconcile ourselves to life in a hostile new climate.
