Professor of Science, Technology, and Society James Fleming will testify on Capitol Hill Thursday, Nov. 5. Addressing the House Committee on Science and Technology, he will discuss the history of weather and climate control and its governance.

At the hearing titled Geoengineering: Assessing the Implications of Large-Scale Climate Intervention, Fleming will present his oral remarks and take questions from members of Congress who serve on the committee. The goal is for the committee to receive an introduction to geoengineering and establish an understanding of its associated challenges, according to invitations from the committee. Other presenters are Ken Calderia of Stanford University, John Shepherd of the Royal Society of London, Alan Robock of Rutgers University, and Lee Lane of the American Enterprise Institute.

On Oct. 30 at an MIT symposium, Engineering a Cooler Earth: Can We Do It? Should We Try? Fleming gave a talk titled Historical Perspectives on 'Fixing the Sky.' CNN.com quoted Fleming in an article about the event: "It's the inadvertent, 'engineering through pollution' argument, and I don't really agree with it," Fleming said. "I'm a historian of science, and I believe humans have been intervening on purpose for much longer than people will admit. So one of the lessons of climate engineering, I think, is that some climate engineers insist they're the first generation to purpose [sic] this deliberate manipulation. ... I think history says otherwise."

Fleming's research interests involve the history of the geophysical sciences, especially meteorology and climate change. In 2003 he was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science "for pioneering studies on the history of meteorology and climate change and for the advancement of historical work within meteorological societies." He held the Charles A. Lindberg Chair in Aerospace History at the National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution in 2005-06 and the AAAS Roger Revelle Fellowship in Global Stewardship at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in 2006-07.

Fleming's books include Fixing the Sky: The Checkered History of Weather and Climate Control (Columbia University Press, 2010), The Callendar Effect (American Meteorological Society, 2007), Historical Perspectives on Climate Change (Oxford University Press, 1998), and Meteorology in America, 1800-1870 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990).