Blocking out the sun?

[Stinsy]

IMO this is a monumentally stupid thing to even consider. I’m genuinely bewildered that we seem to be doing it!

[Mart]

I think there's a similar idea, but more complex, of launching a sunshade/reflector into space, so as to reduce the amount of sunshine/heat reaching the Earth. In that case I think the idea is to have the shade travel across the oceans, not land.

[Stinsy]

I think there's a similar idea, but more complex, of launching a sunshade/reflector into space, so as to reduce the amount of sunshine/heat reaching the Earth. In that case I think the idea is to have the shade travel across the oceans, not land.

There was a cold-war era plan to do the opposite. The Russians were going to launch a huge reflector to bring more light to Siberia...

I'm as bought into climate change and the need to take action as anyone. But this "block out the sun" plan is stupid beyond words!

[Richard77]

At least block it out with a few million solar panels and power the planet with it!

Make sure the cable back to Earth is thick enough though and decent quality copper!

[Moxi]

Znamaya (spelling ?) was the Russian orbiting mirror, I remember seeing it on the news when I was younger.



Regards the article for modifying the solar gain we receive, its been tinkered with before, painting the polar caps black being but one mad idea etc

The problem is it doesnt address the cause of the problem it tries to address the impact, shade the earth and allow more CO2 into the atmosphere, its not a solution its a sticking plaster - madness and folly

Moxi

[AE-NMidlands]

and nobody ever questions the carbon footprint of the rockets and all the rest of the obsessively good engineering to make space stuff work...

[MikeNovack]

The problem is it doesnt address the cause of the problem it tries to address the impact, shade the earth and allow more CO2 into the atmosphere, its not a solution its a sticking plaster - madness and folly

Moxi

This sort of thing merits discussion, and is why I am suggesting a section of the forum focused on questions like these. By and large this forum is all about our practice, what WE are doing to bring our lives more into balance with Nature.

But besides practice there is theory, questions about environmental ethics, etc. For example, questions like what ARE the "root causes" and why are WE doing what we are doing in spite of the fact that likely not to affect the outcome. And WHY do we see crazy proposals like this one.

[AGT]

The problem is it doesnt address the cause of the problem it tries to address the impact, shade the earth and allow more CO2 into the atmosphere, its not a solution its a sticking plaster - madness and folly

Moxi

This sort of thing merits discussion, and is why I am suggesting a section of the forum focused on questions like these. By and large this forum is all about our practice, what WE are doing to bring our lives more into balance with Nature.

But besides practice there is theory, questions about environmental ethics, etc. For example, questions like what ARE the "root causes" and why are WE doing what we are doing in spite of the fact that likely not to affect the outcome. And WHY do we see crazy proposals like this one.

I would rather not give it any thought at all, who comes up with these daft ideas, who sits in and office with this project in front of them and signs it off as a good idea! Who gets funding!!

Worlds bonkers

[MikeNovack]

I would rather not give it any thought at all, who comes up with these daft ideas, who sits in and office with this project in front of them and signs it off as a good idea! Who gets funding!!

Worlds bonkers

I wasn't meaning discussing daft proposals in specific! But yes, maybe the reasons why we are seeing daft proposals of this sort. In other words, what are the people making such daft proposals seeing about our situation that makes such desperate ideas make ANY sense.

On BOTH sides (people who make absurd techie proposals vs those who do not) there are people who believe a crash is inevitable. Take me for instance. I do not believe there is any sustainable solution for 10 billion humans on the planet (MAYBE for 2 billion?). Fusion will not arrive to supply unlimited energy (always 20 years in the future). To make things worse, the collapse of the Antarctic ice sheets will cause the loss of all land under 3 m elevation within 100 years or so (that collapse now underway, cannot be stopped no matter what we do). The attempts of millions of humans trying to move to habitable terrain will lead to slaughter.

Those beliefs do NOT mean I am not responsible to do what I can to live more sustainably. That it will not prevent the crash does not relieve me of that responsibility. There are still moral issues on a sinking ship.

[Moxi]

Rightly or wrongly I suspect this is financed by the folk with a vested interest in keeping things as they are, be they government, ff companies etc etc, in terms of Joe Public there will be a mix of those in agreement to keep things as they are, those against and a large proportion of folk with total indifference.

I recall not so long ago it was suggested that a gas - I forget which- could be injected into the upper stratosphere to assist in correcting the ozone layer that was damaged, there was a subtle side effect that the sky would no longer be blue but a yellowish grey ? Seems there’s no end of great ideas to address the effects of past decisions rather than addressing the source problem.

In terms of fixing it properly I can’t see enough countries invested in taking the right action and even if there was we just exchange climate warming for another global problem for example global population - for most people it’s too big to grapple with and they understandably choose to get on with their more immediate problems in life.

For me I don’t have confidence in governments doing the right thing until it’s late in the day and many capital cities are flooded or burning then when the issue is all too real they will do something and there will probably be a population crash around the same time to concentrate peoples energies.

In the mean time I will try to limit my impact at a personal scale for my children as that’s something that I can influence.

A bit defeatist maybe or am I just a realist? Not sure and not overly concerned about the label I am happy to just be trying.

Just spent two hours shooting rats around the chicken run so I had some head space to let my mind wonder so apologies for the diatribe.

Moxi