Warming Is Getting Worse. So They Just Tested a Way to Deflect the Sun.
Warming Is Getting Worse. So They Just Tested a Way to Deflect the Sun.
A trial in California is testing a machine designed to reflect sunlight back into space. “All my colleagues hope that we never use these things,” one researcher said.
It's rather alarming that this is being done without public modeling to make sure that they're not creating losers from the change in rainfall distribution patterns and such.
That's a pretty good article considering it's the NYT, who proudly accepts direct fossil fuel blood money on the regular and even produces pro-fossil advertorial content. I wonder if anyone posting on this thread will have actually read it? It's not advocating for the tech at all. Almost everything in there is people saying it's a terrible, dangerous idea.
The reality is, this tech is going to happen. There will be countries that deploy it to try and produce cooling effects for themselves. China is ALREADY doing similar things. Better to do the research on it than pretend it doesn't exist and wait for magical space faeries are going to come down and sing a song that sparks a global moment of kumbaya. Especially since the most likely outcome of research on the tech is going to be the conclusion that it is not a viable mitigation strategy at any useful scale. Because of course it is. Even though we know it's possible to modify atmospheric reflectivity to create cooling effects, it's obviously a maddening act of hubris to think it ever could go smoothly.
Is a radical idea that has insufficient study to give us confidence that it will work as intended. Research is necessary.
Certainly the major effort behind this as a solution is the fossil fuels industry as it smacks of a tech solution that deflects from the fact that we aren’t focused on rapidly reducing greenhouse emissions. There is a lot of these and the underlying problem is that CO2 pollution is continuing unabated. Greenwashing until emissions reduce.
If it turns out sun shielding can be used to create winners and losers, it will quickly be done on purpose. We humans are unwise in the presence of weaponry.
"Build more shit, that'll help!"
Maybe try building less for. achange and see what happens. Turn down production 20% for a couple months will ya?
Anything but solutions
I'd rather we all reduce our client emissions. Still seems prudent to look into alternatives even if they're crazy.