A new movie was released on Oct. 20 called Geostorm. Starring Gerard
Butler, it’s about unprecedented series of natural disasters threatened the planet, the world’s
leaders came together to create an intricate network of satellites to control the global climate and
keep everyone safe. But now, something has gone wrong: the system built to protect Earth is
attacking it, and it becomes a race against the clock to uncover the real threat before a worldwide
geo storm wipes out everything and everyone along with it. It’s a thriller disaster movie.
The question remains though, can a geostorm actually happen? Fortunately, scientists say
it’s not likely. Based on the trailer, the way that the satellites work and are able to control the
weather are unclear. Smithsonian.com tried reaching out to Warner Bros. consulting scientists,
but one were available. The satellites were somehow able to pinpoint exactly what kind of storm
is brewing, and is able to stop the storm before it’s too late.
The idea of humans being able to control the weather isn’t a new one. Efforts to rule the
weather began in the 1800s when a series of droughts dessicated large areas of the United States.
But the idea only was taken seriously during the Cold War era, when people started speculating
about being able to weaponize the weather. The United States was actually even in a weather
race with the Russians, along with the space race.
In 1953, Congress made the Advisory Committee on Weather control. It was a two-year
study of the possibility of weather control to see how much the government should invest in the
research and development.
Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson said “he who controls the weather, controls the
world,” in a 1962 address at Southwest Texas State University.
“The atmosphere is a big connected thing,” says Ken Caldeira,a senior scientist in the
department of Global Ecology at Carnegie Institution for Science. “The idea you’re going to
poke it and create some big perturbation in one location and that’s going to be isolated—it just
[isn’t] how the atmosphere actually works.”
Leave a Reply