What could possibly go wrong? Of course, the scientists will get lots and lots of government funding, and live pretty good lives with it
These researchers want to launch dust from the moon to help cool Earth
Imagine a world where global warming on Earth has meaningfully diminished. Fossil fuels are on the back burner. Affordable renewable energy sources run most of our activities. Oh, and there’s a cannon on the moon shooting lunar dust into space to help partially shield sunlight to Earth.
That’s one eyebrow-raising approach for cooling our planet proposed by a group of astrophysicists in a study published Wednesday in PLOS Climate. The team used computer simulations to model various scenarios where massive quantities of dust (and we mean a lot of dust) in space can reduce the amount of Earthbound sunlight by 1 to 2 percent, or up to about six days of an obscured sun in a year. Their cheapest and most efficient idea is to launch dust from the moon, which would land into orbit between the sun and Earth and create a sunshade.
Yes, the idea sounds like science fiction. Yes, it would require (a lot of) new engineering. Yes, there are more feasible climate mitigation tactics that can be employed now and in the near future. But the researchers view this rigorous physics experiment as a backup option that could aid — not replace — existing strategies to help humankind live on a more comfortable Earth.
Considering that most of their computer simulations have been wrong, from a bit wrong to spectacularly wrong, this won’t go well. But, they’ll piss away lots of your tax dollars for this pie in the sky idiocy.
(New Scientist) Launching a dust cloud from the moon to block sunlight reaching Earth could reduce global warming, but such a strategy may require more than a decade’s worth of research before it can be implemented. The risks involved with such an approach in terms of how it could affect agriculture, ecosystems and water quality in different parts of the world are also unclear.
They can run all the simulations they want, but, they really do not know the effects.
What could possibly go wrong?
It’s 66.7º F at 8:18 AM on February 9th, and I’m s’posed to want to fight
global warmingclimate change?As long as you’re comfortable…
It seems that nuking the moon provides so many answers to problems facing man today. And we already have that technology.
We don’t need to nuke the moon! We already have the example of the ‘year without a summer,’ following the eruption of Mt Tambora in the Dutch East Indies. The eruption put a guesstimated 100 km² of dust into the atmosphere, dropping worldwide temperatures about 1º F.
We can nuke a couple of the largest volcanos on a planned schedule to get the dust needed into the atmosphere. Of course, we’ll want to limit this to those volcanos in [insert slang term for feces here]hole countries, ’cause we don’t want to damage the US too much!
What could possibly go wrong?
At 4:16 PM EST, it’s 75.7º F, 22% humidity, with a breeze of 6.9 MPH. I love me some
global warmingclimate change!