Nuking the moon, putting mirrors in space and blowing up the Polar ice caps are just some of history's hairbrained schemes to control the weather, an obsession man has had since the dawn of time.

As a major heatwave tears through Europe, millions of people are frantically trying to stay cool, or praying for some relief. Their desperation is not new.

For thousands of years, human civilisations have been obsessed with trying to control the weather, to stave off drought and famine, in order to survive.

There are ancient tales of great kings who could part the oceans, and deities who would bring down the rain if they were presented with the right kind of sacrifice.

But it wasn’t until the last century that we suddenly had the technology to actually do these kinds of things, or at least attempt to do them.

Some of these wild ideas - to bring water to the desert, drain the Mediterranean Sea to make farmlands, simply make Russia a warmer place to live - have involved blowing up the Polar ice caps, putting mirrors in space, and nuking the moon.

They sound dangerous and unlikely, but some of them have come true.

And now, many people are at work on brand new gigantic geo-engineering solutions to counteract the effects of the warming planet.

Palaeontologist and explorer, Tim Flannery, has been tracking the progress of some of these schemes.

A Brief History of Climate Folly, written with Emma Flannery, is published by Text Publishing.

This episode of Conversations was produced by Meggie Morris. Executive Producer is Nicola Harrison.

It explores weird science, crazy science, Elon Musk, China, Trump, feats of engineering, space exploration, the human ego, wild weather events, magic, supernatural, religion, God, divinity, human sacrifice, famine, starvation, migration, global warming, climate change, European heatwave, Paris heatwave, fossil fuel, deforestation, COP, climate change policy, sea levels, floods, Summer, water, gas, electricity, solar power, politics, renewables.

To binge even more great episodes of the Conversations podcast with Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski go the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. There you’ll find hundreds of the best thought-provoking interviews with authors, writers, artists, politicians, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

Nuking the moon and mirrors in space—man's wildest attempts to control the weather

Conversations

Nuking the moon and mirrors in space—man's wildest attempts to control the weather