Re-engineering our space program towards space manufacturing, mineral extraction, and building permanent residences in space sufficient enough to support the people that would be needed to build and maintain space-based infrastructure like a reflector would be an undertaking I’m not sure humanity currently has the drive for.
Science and futurism YouTuber Isaac Arthur is going to love this. Giant aluminum reflectors are a huge part of future space infrastructure and he is happy to point this out quite often.
I believe they’re trying to chemically blocking the sun (using sulfur dioxide) rather than physically blocking it.
It is obvious we’re not gonna fix this by changing our habits, so I’m all for a technological solution. It will have unforeseen consequences and we will deal with those, too. Humankind is nothing but adaptable.
American arrogance at its best.
The EU is also thinking about the same exact measures:
This is human hubris just like how the Holocene extinction is human hubris, we don’t need to pin things on any single national entity.
I think it’s a combination of hubris and desperation. Hubris because it could still go very wrong and serve us a frozen extinction instead of a boiling one. Desperation because those who acknowledge what’s happening know that something probably needs to be done to not only stop but reverse this but the corporations might be more likely to burn it all down protecting their interests than cooperate.
The “easy” solutions will likely lead to war and might not even help anything at this point. The promising technologies still need to be scaled up (also in a way that makes sure we don’t overshoot the cooling targets or remove so much CO2 that plants die out).
The more I think of it, the more I like this desperate idea. If it does work too well, we can always just send more rockets to move whatever it is out of the way. Which we should have built and ready to go shortly after the blocker is deployed. Preferably sitting in orbit to minimize the chances of it screwing up if desperately needed.
Hmm sunlight is also a carbon reducer since it drives photosynthesis. But desperate times…
taxing the rich properly would (blasphem alert) help redistribute wealth among workers and decrease inflation, and also make the world colder, since we dont have to work as much. but i guess we would be stripped from our daily dose of uv light soon. yea who needs vitamin b3 anyway ?
Wasnt this the start of Highlander 2?
You must be confused. The first Highlander movie was followed up with Highlander 3. There was no Highlander 2.
We will do literally anything to avoid changing our ways huh
Next month:
Europe considers sacrificing babies to Satan
I was reading about how carbon capture from the air is going to be a trillion dollar industry. Just SMH. It’s so much easier to not emit than it is to recapture. But since we’ll never get China and India off of coal, I guess we have to do something.
Not emitting is not that easy. We are in a transition period at the moment. Electric vehicles are here but we don’t have all the infrastructure needed to support them. Let alone the fact that battery tech is not developing as fast as we need it to.
Right now liquid fuels still have the advantage of greater energy density. If we could move to hydrogen fuels that would be cool, and we could repurpose existing petroleum facilities.
But who knows which way the tech is going to go. The only sure thing is that we are in for a wild ride one way or the other.
The vast majority of pollution is from agriculture. Are you gonna quit eating meat anytime soon?
I did, and so should everyone else that claims to want to do something about the climate catastrophe.
Artificially grown meat is quickly becoming more and more viable, it’s not like it will be impossible forever to have a steak.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yqi0FabHHs&t=1467s
Great the solar roadways of climate change fixes.
The UN Environmental Program’s recent report into SRM concludes that it is not currently a realistic or wise plan.
“UNEP concurs with the panel that, at present, large-scale, or operational deployment of SRM technologies is not necessary, viable, prudent or sufficiently safe, given the limited scientific understanding and uncertainty about the potential impacts and unintended consequences,” says UNEP’s Chief Scientist Andrea Hinwood.
“The review concludes that SRM cannot replace reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”
Nonetheless, the body doesn’t rule out the method altogether, with the report concluding that their assessment of the technique “may change should climate action remain insufficient”.
