Climate Changers

In August 2008, shortly before the opening ceremony of the Olympics, the Beijing sky was thick with smog. To the Communist Party bigwigs, this was an unacceptable backdrop for China’s big debut on the international stage. So, the Beijing Weather Modification Office was called in to clear the air. More in this series: The Diplomatic Deadlock The Adaptation Advantage Pole Position The Ocean Edge Climate Consensus With planes and modified anti-aircraft guns, technicians fired canisters of silver iodide into the clouds, releasing ice-like crystals. The water vapor condensed, and it rained all around the city. By the time the foreign visitors arrived, the Beijing skies had turned to a picture-perfect blue. Human beings have long dreamed of controlling the weather. In the 1840s, James Pollard Espy, the U.S. federal government’s first meteorologist, proposed setting fire to the Appalachian mountains to stimulate rainfall. In the 1960s and 1970s,