Should humans control the weather?

In 2011, Swedish artists Mats Bigert and Lars Bergström built a machine called the Tornado Diverter and headed to America's Tornado Alley. It was part sculpture, part performance art and part thought experiment. Behind it was an ambitious goal: stop a tornado with 100,000 negative volts generated by the machine, repelling the positive charge of the tornado.

For as long as humans have faced floods, droughts, storms and crop failures, we've searched for ways to predict the weather, and, ultimately, control it. That pursuit has taken many forms. Moscow has experimented with cloud seeding to redirect snow away from city streets. In 2008, Chinese Mainland fired rockets into clouds to deter rain on the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games. Italian vineyards deploy anti-hail cannons to protect their harvests. Around the world, communities are grappling with the same challenge: adapt to nature or attempt to reshape it.

That question sits at the center of The Weather War, a documentary available through ProQuest One Global Studies & International Relations and Academic Video Online. The film follows Bigert and Bergström on their journey through the American tornado belt while exploring the larger story of humanity's centuries-long effort to understand and control the atmosphere.

One Question Leads To Many More

The weather-control question isn't just academically interesting. It opens the door to some of the most challenging debates in science, politics and society.

A student watching The Weather War might initially wonder whether humans can alter the course of a storm. And that question leads to more questions, well beyond a single discipline. History, politics, ethics, environmental science and culture all enter the conversation.

Should governments modify weather systems if doing so benefits one community while potentially affecting another? What responsibilities accompany these technologies? How have attitudes toward weather control changed over time? And as climate change brings more extreme weather events, will interventions that once seemed extraordinary become increasingly common?

Finding Connections Across Disciplines

The value of academic research lies in following questions wherever they lead, and it relies on an information environment that spans time, perspectives and disciplines.

An environmental science student may investigate climate models and forecasting systems. A business student might examine the economic impact of extreme weather on supply chains, insurance markets and agricultural production. A performing arts student can explore how storms, seasons and atmospheric forces have inspired composers, playwrights and choreographers for centuries. An anthropology student may study how communities across cultures have interpreted weather through ritual, belief and tradition.

Each path contributes to a deeper understanding of the same phenomenon. The farther students explore, the more they discover that weather has always been intertwined with multiple disciplines. This kind of contextual learning strengthens critical thinking, encourages research tenacity and helps students develop the investigative habits they’ll carry into future academic and professional work.

Exploration In A Platform Designed For Academic Success

That experience depends not only on access to a wide range of sources, but on an environment that helps students move among them with purpose. ProQuest enables students and researchers to follow their curiosity across disciplines without losing the thread of their original question. A documentary such as The Weather War can be connected to 600 years of primary sources, news, scholarly articles, dissertations and other academic materials. Purpose-built interfaces help students search across those sources, evaluate what they find and pursue the most relevant connections.

Historical news reports on weather-control experiments, scholarly research on their scientific feasibility and primary sources documenting the political debate can extend the story told in The Weather War. Viewed together, those sources allow students to compare claims, trace how thinking has changed and reach their own well-supported conclusions.

Academic AI Helps Users Overcome Common Workflow Hurdles

For novice researchers especially, following a question across disciplines can be daunting. They may find promising sources but struggle to see how the pieces fit together or where to go next. Academic AI can help them make those connections, clarify the path forward and keep their research moving.

A variety of ProQuest One solutions include the AI-powered ProQuest Research Assistant. Described by Rob Tench, writing for Library Journal, as “exceptionally helpful for the insights and research guidance it provides,”* the Assistant helps students and researchers maintain momentum. It supports stronger search skills, while its “Chat With the Document” feature allows users to quickly grasp the essential details of what they’re reading. A recent study of nearly half a million users and more than 2 million interactions with the feature found that users engaged more deeply with scholarly content. They were 31% more likely to read the full text and 40% more likely to cite, save or download the document.

The Thrill Of The Hunt

The most interesting academic questions branch into new disciplines, challenge assumptions and reveal connections that were invisible at the start. A student who begins by asking whether humans can control the weather may ultimately find themselves exploring history, politics, ethics, economics or the arts. One compelling question can spark a lifelong love of learning.

Libraries can give that curiosity room to grow, helping students begin, explore and deepen the journey.

Explore AI-powered world-class content across disciplines.