Colin McINnes writes at Spiked:
Although it’s an idea now prominent in the media, the idea of geoengineering is nothing new. For example, during the American War of Independence, Benjamin Franklin reportedly proposed changing the course of the Gulf Stream to inflict a new ice age on Britain. Later, with the turn-of-the-century optimism, noted US engineer Carroll Riker published rather detailed plans in 1912 for a 200-mile jetty at Newfoundland. Riker again proposed to manipulate the Gulf Stream, but this time to improve the climate of Arctic Europe. And of course, the inventive Dutch have been busy macro-engineering their environment for centuries, to the extent that some 26 per cent of the land mass of the modern Netherlands lies below sea level.