You've seen the terrible footage of Los Angeles burning. Jet planes drop red fire retardant like tiny water drops on an inferno. I pray for the families who've lost homes and memories to those flames.
Many see this disaster as a signal to build less, dream smaller, and kneel before Mother Nature. But Rational Optimists see a “bat signal” blazing in the smoke-filled sky, calling for human ingenuity.
What if, instead of watching helplessly as nature wreaks havoc, we could control it? What if we could summon rain like we order an Uber? Direct sunlight at will? Turn our harshest environments into oases?
Meet the geoengineers. The bold innovators working to give humanity its first weather remote control.
Imagine if we could make it rain whenever and wherever we wanted. Press a button, and within hours, clouds gather and release precious water exactly where it’s needed.
Startup Rainmaker is revolutionizing cloud seeding, the technique that makes clouds rain on demand.
China used this cloud-seeding technology to drain the skies to keep them clear during the 2008 Olympics.
Dubai gets just four inches of natural rain a year—about what Seattle gets in two weeks—so it developed what amounts to an atmospheric cattle prod. Drones fire laser-guided electrical pulses into clouds, forcing water droplets to cluster and fall.
LA-based Rainmaker is bringing this tech to America, bigger and better than ever. Forget the old seeding methods of burning thousands of dollars in jet fuel to spray silver iodide into clouds.
Rainmaker's drones are like high-tech rain whisperers, using radar tracking and artificial intelligence (AI) to find the perfect spots in clouds to trigger rainfall. It estimates it can do this for just $20 per hour.
Rainmaker's ambition is massive: make rain as reliable as electricity. Sound far-fetched? Maybe. But what's truly unacceptable is telling our kids to deal with constant water restrictions and the possibility their homes might burn to the ground.
In LA, advanced cloud seeding could stop fires before they start by preemptively dampening areas with precision rainfall.
Did you know Phoenix froze new building permits because it can't guarantee water for future residents? Rainmaker could transform Arizona into a tropical paradise. We could build lakefront properties in its worthless desert.
While climate activists preach sacrifice, Rainmaker's founder Augustus Doricko—fresh from winning a prestigious Thiel Fellowship—is innovating to create abundance. He’s a true Rational Optimist.
We’ve discussed how desalination could transform barren deserts into lush oases. What about the other extreme—helping places where lack of sunshine is the problem?
In Barrow, Alaska, the sun never rises above the horizon for 65 straight days in winter. Two straight months of darkness. No wonder seasonal depression affects millions in far northern locations. How much would someone have to pay you to live there?
Enter Reflect Orbital, a startup building what amounts to a giant dimmer switch for the sun. It’s developing satellites with huge space mirrors that beam daylight to specific locations on Earth. Think of it as “sunlight as a service”—the ability to turn night into day with the flip of a switch.
Orbital mirrors could make frozen Arctic cities vibrant and livable by lighting them up with reflected sunlight. They could also shine light on solar farms so they can pull energy from the sun 24/7.
Last year, Reflect mounted an 8' x 8' mirror on a hot air balloon and used it to power solar panels after sunset. Now, it’s planning to launch a constellation of mirrors into space.
To be clear, this tech is years away from being ready. Unlike Rainmaker, which is iterating on cloud-seeding tech that already works, Reflect is creating a whole new category. It’s pursuing a BHAG (big, hairy, audacious goal). Maybe by 2030, you'll be able to order sunlight to illuminate your nighttime party.
A scrappy South Dakota startup is trying to dim the sun. Make Sunsets is launching balloons into the sky filled with sulfur dioxide, the same stuff volcanoes naturally spew out during big eruptions.
When Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines erupted in 1991, it shot 20 million tons of sulfur into the atmosphere, creating a hazy shield that cooled Earth by 0.5°C for two years. Make Sunsets is basically doing the same thing, with more precision.
Once released, the particles act like tiny mirrors, bouncing some of the sun's energy back into space. You can visit Make Sunsets' website and buy “cooling credits” for $10 each. Every credit purchases a gram of sulfur dioxide, which it loads into balloons and releases into the California sky. A cheap, quick, and reversible geoengineering experiment!
Rain on demand, sunshine on command. Geoengineers are forging a future where we aren’t at the mercy of the weather. A future where no place on Earth is truly uninhabitable. Desert too dry? Open the clouds. Arctic too dark? Honey, crank up the sun.
Critics argue this is “playing God.” But we've been engineering our environment since the first farmer dug an irrigation ditch.
In 1900, Florida was a mosquito-infested swamp, underwater half the year. The land was so worthless, they practically gave it away. Then we built 2,000 miles of canals and levees, installed massive pumping stations, and added air conditioning. That worthless swamp now hosts 22 million people and some of America's most valuable real estate.
150 years ago, the Los Angeles Basin was nothing but tumbleweeds dancing across empty scrubland. Today, it’s a $1 trillion sprawling metropolis.
This miracle was brought to life by engineers who dared to dream big. They built three massive aqueducts—one stretching 444 miles—to bring water from distant mountains. These engineering marvels delivered enough water to transform the Central Valley from a dustbowl into an agricultural empire and the world's entertainment capital.
LA was built by bending the environment to human needs. It’s a blueprint for our future.
We already made a desert bloom with primitive technology. Imagine what’s possible with modern innovations. Cloud seeding and desalinization can transform LA into a fireproof oasis that generates its own water.
Geoengineering isn't some far-off dream. It's already a bull market. Just last month, the tiny city-state Monaco completed the reclamation of 600 acres of land from the sea. The new district features $200 million villas built where fish swam just years ago.
What if we could tame hurricanes? The US government tried this wacky idea in 1962. It sent planes to circle a hurricane's violent eye wall, seeding it with chemicals to freeze it in its tracks. Project Stormfury failed, but the dream lives on.
Norwegian startup OceanTherm is trying a different tack. It’s designing huge pipes to pull cold water from sea beds and cool hurricane-prone seas, sapping storms of their strength. If this works (a big if), how much would Florida pay for a hurricane shield?
Other geoengineers are working to give Earth its own thermostat. Volcanic eruptions often suppress temperatures temporarily because ash blocks sunlight.
Scientists at the University of Washington are testing ways to mimic this. They’re spraying sulfur particles into the stratosphere, creating an invisible sunshield that bounces some of the sun’s rays back into space.
Dubai used to pray for rain. Now, its desalination plant pumps out enough fresh water daily to fill 890 Olympic-sized pools. The next step is controlling temperature.
My pitch to UAE’s leaders: blanket the country in giant outdoor air conditioners and to become Europe's favorite summer destination.
Instead of expats fleeing in July and August, tourists would flood in to enjoy open-air markets and outdoor dining. People would stroll comfortably through tree-lined streets that once baked empty in the summer heat.
It's an alluring possibility for scorching-hot US cities like Phoenix, too. Imagine the value of real estate if you could guarantee San Francisco's perfect 70-degree days year-round. The governor who pulls this off becomes an instant legend.
We're told fighting climate change means giving things up. The geoengineers aren't having it. They’re creating abundance and prosperity while saving the planet in the process.
This is why staying on the cutting edge of innovation matters. Sure, it makes us better investors. But it’s so much more than that. When you know about all the incredible things happening, helplessness turns into empowerment.
More 12th graders now say they find it hard to have hope for the world than at any time since at least 1976, according to a University of Michigan survey:

Source: Monitoring the Future
You are what you read. These kids have been force-fed a diet of doomsday headlines: “The world is burning, and it’s your fault.”
It’s our job to help them break free of the doom spiral. I can't shield my six-year-old daughter from negative headlines. But I can inspire her with stories of entrepreneurs doing incredible things, like using drones to zap rain from clouds.
My kids, and yours, must know the truth: With human ingenuity and innovation, we can solve almost any problem. While others say, “reduce, restrict, retreat,” we say, “innovate, build, expand.” We don't solve problems by using less. We solve them by making abundance through innovation.
We must inspire our kids to dream big! That's why I'm asking you to share these stories.
It’s like the oxygen mask rule on airplanes. Help yourself first (you’ve already done this by being a member of The Rational Optimist Society). Then help others escape the doom spiral.
Go forth and spread the word, Rational Optimists!
See you next Sunday.
PS: Dan Steinhart and I discussed the big DeepSeek news on the Rational Optimist Podcast this week. Listen here.
PPS: Hey, you don’t need to wait until the end of the week for great news. Follow us on Twitter for regular updates.
Writer: Stephen McBride
Editor: Dan Steinhart
Rational Optimist Society: ROS
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