Thanks to Paleo-Future I know now that back in the 1950's Collier's were predicting that 'mankind' (the United States) would eventually have complete control over weather. The 50s of course were the dawn of the space age, and many such optimistic predictions for scientific and technological advancement were being bandied about. Collier's ran a series of articles about space flight, Man Will Conquer Space Soon!, written by experts in the field and illustrated with stunning works by such artists as Chesley Bonestell and Fred Freeman. Some of these space-age fantasies did change to reality, driven into being by the Space Race and the Cold War.

Sadly, despite the fact Paleo-Future can provide plenty of evidence to demonstrate it was something of a hot topic back in the day, complete control over the weather wasn't one of these developments that became reality. I wish it had. Instead we've simply fucked the weather up with global warming and exacerbated its effects by building on flood plains.

My dear dad, Luddite to the end, always used to gloomily pronounce that we'd ruined the weather by sending up rockets. Maybe he had a point after all.