Space Ring
Just when you thought you've heard the bizarre, comes this little gem. A group of scientists have come up with a way of battling global climate change caused by heating up of the planet due to greenhouse gases. Their suggestion would cost somewhere between $6 to $500 trillion dollars, and calls for a dramatic effort to control the planet's climate. Their suggestion is for a space ring to be constructed around the planet, which would reflect just 1.6% of solar radiation, but be enough to overcome the slight rise in global temperatures. The ring could be constructed of small particles shepherded by spacecraft -- or small spacecrafts connected in orbit. The ring would be erected around the equator, providing shade primarily to where the planet is the hottest. If the particle solution is used, the materials could come from mining the Moon. A side effect of the ring would be the nightly illumination. We'd be able to see reflected sunlight, similar to the Moon's, at night from the ring.
As bizarre and scary as this idea is, it does have a basis in science. The planet does endure periods of lower temperature when volcanoes spew material into the atmosphere that reflects sunlight back into space. In fact, some have suggested that smoke from smoke stacks could be laced with metallic particles so that more material could go into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight. This is all great in theory, and makes for interesting speculation -- but you've just got to know, there are really mad scientists in the world -- it's just not stuff of science fiction.
Let's see here folks: we don't know much about the dynamics of the planet. In fact, there are still idiots out there that don't think global warming is happening, or admit that the planet is getting warmer, but don't think humans are the cause. If we can't agree on the basics, you just know that we don't have the whole climate thing well understood as yet. Having ideas of controlling the weather, much less the entire climate is downright scary. What if things went wrong? How would we know things are going wrong? The whole idea of fixing things by further manipulating the natural environment is the wrong approach. Instead of trying to control, we should be trying to coexist -- to live with the natural processes of the planet. Does that strike as such a bizarre idea?
As bizarre and scary as this idea is, it does have a basis in science. The planet does endure periods of lower temperature when volcanoes spew material into the atmosphere that reflects sunlight back into space. In fact, some have suggested that smoke from smoke stacks could be laced with metallic particles so that more material could go into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight. This is all great in theory, and makes for interesting speculation -- but you've just got to know, there are really mad scientists in the world -- it's just not stuff of science fiction.
Let's see here folks: we don't know much about the dynamics of the planet. In fact, there are still idiots out there that don't think global warming is happening, or admit that the planet is getting warmer, but don't think humans are the cause. If we can't agree on the basics, you just know that we don't have the whole climate thing well understood as yet. Having ideas of controlling the weather, much less the entire climate is downright scary. What if things went wrong? How would we know things are going wrong? The whole idea of fixing things by further manipulating the natural environment is the wrong approach. Instead of trying to control, we should be trying to coexist -- to live with the natural processes of the planet. Does that strike as such a bizarre idea?
Well, I like the idea. Would feel like saturn somehow. And in only approximately, wail, 1.639 years or so we will be able to actually DO that...
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