![]() But in any case, anxieties about global warming aside, most of us would not want to change it even if we could. When he hears of possible technological fixes for climate change – the idea that giant parasols could be sent into space to shield us from the sun, or that the ocean be sown with iron to promote the growth of plankton which would then soak up the atmospheric carbon dioxide – he sees only hubris, which is exactly what got us into the current crisis in the first place. Will we ever be able to defeat the weather? Richard Mabey, our greatest nature writer, thinks not. As for the wind, it could be kept down by the sowing of lentil seeds in one's vegetable beds – lentils, of course, being famously flatulent. Firing a gun, he said, would disperse thunderstorms, and hanging the black-brown pelt of a seal at the garden gate would keep dark clouds away. ![]() ![]() Hill's tips were based on the ancient principles of sympathetic magic: the idea that like counters like. ![]() I n 1577, Thomas Hill wrote a popular manual called The Gardener's Labyrinth, in which, among other things, he gave his readers advice about how to turn the weather in their favour. ![]()
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