A Brief History of Climate Folly

What to do about the climate? If emissions reduction is too hard and too slow, maybe science can engineer a solution?

It turns out this line of thinking is as old as humanity. From shamanism to cloud-seeding to Cold-War plans to nuke the Arctic ice cap, humans have been trying – or claiming – to influence the weather for millennia.

In this entertaining overview of history’s grandest and silliest attempts at climate change, Tim and Emma Flannery address a very serious question: can we do better in the Anthropocene?

After all, our lives depend on it.

Tim Flannery is a paleontologist, an explorer, a conservationist and a leading writer on climate change. His books include the award-winning international bestseller The Weather Makers, and Here on Earth, Atmosphere of Hope and Europe: The First 100 Million Years, as well as his previous collaboration with his daughter, Emma Flannery, Big Meg.

Emma Flannery is a scientist and writer. She has explored caves, forests and oceans across most of the globe’s continents in search of elusive fossils, animals and plants. Her research and writing on geology, chemistry and paleontology has been published in scientific journals, children’s books and a number of museum-based adult education tours.

‘The Flannerys communicate the science with the fidelity of seasoned palaeontologists without losing the breathless wonder of a seven-year-old talking about sharks at the dinner table…A fascinating read.’ Saturday Paper on Big Meg