Sunshade Solution To Global Warming?
By Anne Pawsey
A sunshade in space, dust in the atmosphere or gas guzzling bacteria: just some of the crazy ideas which are being considered in the quest to prevent global warming.
With it looking increasingly unlikely that the US and China will ever sign up to a global effort to reduce greenhouse gasses, and bickering between special interest groups paralysing the efforts of the rest of the world some more unusual solutions are being considered.
One of the more outlandish ideas is to build a giant sunshade in space to reflect light and heat away from the planet. It has been proposed by Professor Robert Angel of the University of Arizona a leading expert on optics.
It consists of six mirrors mounted on a spider’s web of cables 2000km across placed 1.5 million kilometres from the earth at a stable point in the gravitational field. The entire project would cost a mere 1% of the earth’s GDP around 3 trillion dollars.
Surprisingly, NASA doesn’t seem to think it’s too far fetched they have asked Professor Angel to flesh out his proposals for further consideration. The Null might launch its own investigation since we proposed a similar idea just last week (read article).
Another suggestion, in a similar vein, is to release dust into the atmosphere to reflect the sun’s rays. Proposed by Paul Crutzen, winner of the Nobel Prize for chemistry, it was inspired by the drop in temperature that occurred after the eruption of Mount Pinatubo. The idea does not have wide spread support partly because some parts of the planet got warmer after the eruption and the effect is not widely understood.
A third idea is to “seed” the sea with iron to encourage plankton growth. The idea is that the plankton would absorb the damaging CO2 from the atmosphere but this plan could go horribly wrong resulting in damaged ecosystems and the release of an even more potent green house gas nitrogen dioxide.
We’ll keep tabs on the progress of these suggestions and keep you bang up-to-date. But in the meantime - what do you think to the suggestions? Let us know below.
More from the Null:
- Spoof - Star letter: global cooling
- News - Norweigans pray for the environment
- Straight - May contain nuts
- News - Shrooms for astronauts
With it looking increasingly unlikely that the US and China will ever sign up to a global effort to reduce greenhouse gasses, and bickering between special interest groups paralysing the efforts of the rest of the world some more unusual solutions are being considered.
One of the more outlandish ideas is to build a giant sunshade in space to reflect light and heat away from the planet. It has been proposed by Professor Robert Angel of the University of Arizona a leading expert on optics.
It consists of six mirrors mounted on a spider’s web of cables 2000km across placed 1.5 million kilometres from the earth at a stable point in the gravitational field. The entire project would cost a mere 1% of the earth’s GDP around 3 trillion dollars. Surprisingly, NASA doesn’t seem to think it’s too far fetched they have asked Professor Angel to flesh out his proposals for further consideration. The Null might launch its own investigation since we proposed a similar idea just last week (read article).
Another suggestion, in a similar vein, is to release dust into the atmosphere to reflect the sun’s rays. Proposed by Paul Crutzen, winner of the Nobel Prize for chemistry, it was inspired by the drop in temperature that occurred after the eruption of Mount Pinatubo. The idea does not have wide spread support partly because some parts of the planet got warmer after the eruption and the effect is not widely understood.
A third idea is to “seed” the sea with iron to encourage plankton growth. The idea is that the plankton would absorb the damaging CO2 from the atmosphere but this plan could go horribly wrong resulting in damaged ecosystems and the release of an even more potent green house gas nitrogen dioxide.
We’ll keep tabs on the progress of these suggestions and keep you bang up-to-date. But in the meantime - what do you think to the suggestions? Let us know below.
More from the Null:
- Spoof - Star letter: global cooling
- News - Norweigans pray for the environment
- Straight - May contain nuts
- News - Shrooms for astronauts
Image: Mark Miller
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