Could a Giant Parasol in Outer Space Help Solve the Climate Crisis?
www.nytimes.com
Interest in sun shields, once a fringe idea, has grown. Now, a team of scientists says it could launch a prototype within a few years.
  •  Diplomjodler   ( @Diplomjodler@feddit.de ) English
    1•8 months ago

    Space research costs peanuts compared to a lot of stuff we do on earth. If we didn’t do space research, there’s zero chance, the money saved would be spent on worthy causes. So can we stop the “we should use the money for… instead of doing space stuff”? It’s just dumb.

    •  silence7   ( @silence7@slrpnk.net ) OPEnglish
      2•8 months ago

      The problem isn’t research; it’s that actually building the thing is a multi-trillion dollar expense, unlikely to succeed, and even if it did succeed, it would have major problems:

      • It does nothing about ocean acidification, so everything in the ocean with hard body parts dies
      • You need to maintain it for several hundred thousand years. Humans don’t have a track record of doing that for things on earth, let alone in space
      • It leaves us with a reduced pole-to-equator temperature gradient, resulting in significant changes to weather and rainfall patterns