Can a Giant Sunshade Save the Planet?

[IDemo]

Nov. 16, 2006 — Some weird science is getting serious looks by leading climate experts who say it would be folly not to prepare emergency measures to try to stop global warming in its tracks. This is going on despite the well known risk of unintended consequences whenever humans meddle with nature.

The scientists' worry is that global temperatures are now rising steadily and the process may get beyond any hope of being stopped by cutting greenhouse gas emissions alone.

"These 'geo-engineering' ideas are something any serious scientist approaches with extreme caution," NASA earth studies expert James Hansen told ABC News.

"But we're at the hairy edge," he said. "We've only got about 10 years to turn the carbon emissions around, and so you're finding more scientists thinking about these things."

Some astonishing ideas are popping up — like a monster sunshade for planet Earth.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/GlobalWarming/story?id=2655729&page=1

[SmokingJacket]

1. this is the kind of "out-there" thinking we have to do...

though I'm sure some of these would cause more problems than they solve.

[Fovea]

2. Shades of Larry Niven's 'Ringworld'

Sorry about the pun.
The crucial question is what happens when we cut the input energy from the sun back, in high greenhouse gas levels.
Also, how much light can we cut before we affect photosynthesis?

Remember, we are already blocking out more sun with dust and particulates.

Jeez I hope we have other plans to try first, you know, like conservation.

[IDemo]

3. I'm thinking solar panels on the 'outside', microwaved to earth collectors

Place scrolling ad banners to help pay for the monstrosity..

[GreenPartyVoter]

4. Scolling ad banners over the face of the earth? ugh

[phantom power]

8. Heh. "A new life awaits you in the offworld colonies..."

If only there were any offworld colonies.

[phantom power]

5. Solar panels are barely affordable on the ground...

forget what happens when you also have to pay for shipping them up earth's gravity well.

I love the idea of terraforming the earth as much as any science fiction fan, but back here in the real world any scheme involving putting things in orbit must contend with this inconvenient problem:

$5000/lb to LEO.

Of course, if these guys are ever successful, that could change:
www.liftport.com

But that's not happening for at least 20 years. I don't think we'll be living in the same biosphere 20 years from now.

[IDemo]

7. Yes, I'm aware of that. I'm not suggesting the solar shade concept is realistic

but the space elevator idea makes me squint one eye a bit, too.

[phantom power]

9. Liftport is nothing if not supremely ambitious...

I'm rooting for them, but we'll just have to wait and see if and when they clear the various technical hurdles between them and success.

[Fovea]

11. Niven of course postulates material fabrication in situ

with materials garnered from the asteroid belt. silica gel panels with nickle mirrors for heat energy also from belt available materials.

[IDemo]

6. Or, just keep building Hummers and coal plants (cross post)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2731654

[zbdent]

10. Oh, great ... there's the next

Halliburton money pit ...

[YankeyMCC]

12. I just hate the attitude this approach reflects

It's just a continuation of the 'continual expansion' economics that's killing us in the first place. And it's about looking for an external solution instead of trying to mature as a society and change the destructive behavior.

Maybe I'm being to optimistic in thinking it's not to late or impossible for us to change it just seems to me that once we start looking towards these kinds of solutions we're doomed.

The solution isn't about managing the ecology (or the planet I guess in this case) but in managing ourselves.

[NNadir]

13. In a word, "no."

[hunter]

14. All we need is Bruce Willis and a few super-secret Air Force shuttles...

No Problem!

The U.S.A. (and an odd Russian or two) will save the world.

[Nihil]

15. Gee ... old Oscar gets around doesn't he?

It really bugs me when time & money is being blatantly wasted
(i.e., siphoned off into "friendly" pockets) like this.

The money lost is a shame but the time lost is a tragedy.
Not only does this Mickey Mouse "planning" waste time directly,
it provides encouragement for the "skeptics" and the ignorant.

Sometimes I wonder whether this distraction is all deliberate ...
keeping the stasis until we reach the point when even the dumbest
republican understands the problem ... by which time, the "every man
for himself" instinct cuts in and people accept inhuman and horribly
callous actions (e.g., the murder of millions and the manslaughter
of billions) just to provide a slender chance that *they* will live.

A repeating meme on the E/E board is "but what are we to do about the
6 billion inhabitants of the planet". I suspect that some senior
"planners" fully understand the numbers and expect (plan) that there
will be genocide on such a scale as to make the Holocaust look tame.
All it will take is an escalation of the emergency and the ignorant
majority will accept it in the same way that people accepted all of
the various "Final Solutions" throughout history ...

[hunter]

16. I suspect some "senior planners" think their lifeboats will be safe.

They would be mistaken.



On 11 July 1789 King Louis, acting under the influence of the conservative nobles of his privy council, as well as his wife, Marie Antoinette, and brother, the Comte d'Artois, banished the reformist minister Necker and completely reconstructed the ministry. Much of Paris, presuming this to be the start of a royal coup, moved into open rebellion. Some of the military joined the mob; others remained neutral.

On 14 July 1789, after hours of combat, the insurgents seized the Bastille prison, killing the governor, Marquis Bernard de Launay, and several of his guards. Although the Parisians released only seven prisoners (four forgers, two lunatics, and a sexual offender), the Bastille served as a potent symbol of everything hated under the ancien régime. Returning to the Hôtel de Ville (city hall), the mob accused the prévôt des marchands (roughly, mayor) Jacques de Flesselles of treachery; his assassination took place en route to an ostensible trial at the Palais Royal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution