IN THE WAKE of media hysteria over the greenhouse effect, popular books
about the weather have boomed. From this flurry has emerged the enjoyable and
absorbing work of David Laskin. In Braving the Elements, he claims that the
study of weather has always fallen between science and religion, and that
these two approaches are still blurred even in modern concepts such as James
Lovelock鈥檚 Gaia.
Laskin gives an interesting account of how weather and climate have shaped
human history, citing as an example the Medieval Warm Period with its much
milder northern hemisphere. His narrative makes it clear how religion and
weather have become historically intertwined, and that science and religion
have wrangled over the weather ever since America鈥檚 colonial period ended and
Puritan preachers began to open their minds to the physical sciences. So,
while people remained convinced that God ruled nature, divine will was no
longer a satisfactory explanation for weather phenomena.
The religious approach to atmospheric phenomena was not seriously
challenged until 1752, when Benjamin Franklin showed 鈥渢he sameness of the
Electric matter with that of Lightning鈥�. Those were exciting times for weather
observers. Their records are often the only existing source of historical
data, vital to the development of long-range forecasting.
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Laskin鈥檚 views on the much-hyped greenhouse effect are refreshingly
different. In his opinion, the public concern that has been stirred up is a
monster that has taken on a life of its own. Only 25 years ago, he points out,
the media were obsessed with global cooling.
And he questions the absolute faith that people have in science. Despite
the progress being made in meteorology there are still plenty of freak events
to give the divine intervention lobby a boost: showers of straw, ball
lightning and the Bermuda Triangle. Paul Simons鈥檚 fun, easy-to-read collection
of short reports on hundreds of bizarre weather phenomena, Weird Weather:
Having once created my own crop circle, I was pleased to find Simons
critical of the mystic claims of cereologists and discussing genuine vortex
phenomena and mini tornadoes which he says can make some circular features in
corn fields.