Who among us hasn’t wished for sunshine or hoped for rain? For Harper’s Magazine, Wyatt Williams brings us a lyrical look at weather manipulation. Surprisingly, some attempting to alter the weather are doing so in the name of God. Yes, you read that right. Humans have been trying to make it rain since we started walking the earth and, even with the benefit of the latest technology, our results have been questionable at best.
A person encounters a force much larger than themselves, a force that exists on any other day but has now made itself uncommonly present, whether through strength or volume or grace. It isn’t necessary to be a religious person to recognize that this is how we have historically described encounters with God. Believers say they can see God in the golden rays of a sunrise. Skeptics note that there isn’t anything there to believe in, that the physical laws that govern the bending of light go on regardless of faith. Activists might feel the failures of an administration in the temperature. The most literal-minded among us may only claim to see “a nice day.”
Weather modification is among the oldest and least successful human projects. For thousands of years, we have sacrificed children, sung songs and danced, brewed alchemical concoctions, chanted prayers, fired cannons, and made many other futile efforts in the attempt to somehow change the weather a little more to our liking. Stubbornly, the weather persisted, seemingly undisturbed by human action, until the twentieth century.
More picks from Harper’s Magazine
Mere Belief
“One of the pivotal purposes of memoir is to unveil the shades of meaning that exist in what we believe.”
Frog
“A year went by…Actually, maybe seventeen, but I will err on the side of caution because I don’t want to risk even a whiff of amphibian résumé inflation.”
Eating the Whale
“A personal history of meat.”
