The challenges of climate change can be addressed in different ways. Economists, for example, propose using financial tools to change the behavior of economic agents and influence their incentives. Natural scientists and geoengineers are planning various initiatives to repair the earth, such as CO2 extraction from the air, building different machinery, lit clouds, and artificial volcanos. These concepts would have seemed unreal a year ago, but now they are already becoming a reality.

In her lecture, Olga Bichkova will talk about how people have consciously attempted to influence the climate throughout history, how rainmakers are connected to this, and what are the ethical and societal consequences of such attempts to tame the Earth.

Olga Bichkova is the dean of the faculty of Sociology at the European University of Saint Petersburg and the director of the Science and Technology Center (STS). She is a doctor of philosophy, a candidate in social sciences, and a docent.