Hi Alan, It would be a nice fit to our "le temps des écrivains" section of our three-monthly meteorological journal. See an example here: [ https://lameteorologie.fr/issues/2017/98/meteo_2017_98_52 | https://lameteorologie.fr/issues/2017/98/meteo_2017_98_52 ] The section reproduces selected writings on the weather. I checked and there is a French translation of the American Claimant, unfortunately the foreword and annex were not translated at the time. All the best, Olivier
De: "Alan Robock" <rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu> À: "geoengineering" <Geoengineering@googlegroups.com> Envoyé: Jeudi 5 Mai 2022 22:07:28 Objet: [geo] Mark Twain was the first geoengineer Dear All, 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: [ mailto:rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu | rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu ] 14 College Farm Road [ http://people.envsci.rutgers.edu/robock | http://people.envsci.rutgers.edu/robock ] New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8551 ☮ [ https://twitter.com/AlanRobock | https://twitter.com/AlanRobock ] -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [ mailto:geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com | geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com ] . 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