In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in settlement-era U.S. as well as in parts of the Canadian and Australian territories, homesteaders were encouraged to believe that plowing arid lands would increase rainfall. For a peek into the history of this example of pseudoscience impacting public policy, read my recently-published article in the International Review of Environmental History. This article reveals via historic newspaper articles and other primary (and secondary) sources how people on two continents were taken in by faulty expertise, climate disinformation and an aggressive effort to convince vulnerable prospective homesteaders to settle areas with rainfall that was too variable to support agriculture using the methods available at the time.
