‘Scientists’ concoct another stupid idea to block the Sun
There have been quite a few increasingly ridiculous schemes proposed to ‘fight climate change’ recently, but last week, the website gizmodo carried what may be one of the most ridiculous yet.
The article details a suggestion by none other than the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an institution you would think would be composed of level-headed individuals, but sadly it seems not.
It is not a long article, so I reproduce it in full.
It states:
A team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology believe that we can mitigate the worst of climate change with… space bubbles. They’ve outlined a strategy in which a huge raft of bubbles, carefully positioned between Earth and the Sun, would deflect sunlight (and thus heat) to stop further global warming.
“Geoengineering might be our final and only option. Yet, most geoengineering proposals are earth-bound, which poses tremendous risks to our living ecosystem,” a web page dedicated to the solution reads. “If we deflect 1.8 percent of incident solar radiation before it hits our planet, we could fully reverse today’s global warming.”
The bubble array would be made of inflatable shields of thin silicon or another suitable material, according to the team. Thebubble cluster would be placed in outer space at a Lagrange Point, where the Sun’s and Earth’s gravitational pulls create a stable orbit. The researchers also said that if the plan becomes a reality in the future, the completed array would be roughly the size of Brazil.
They admitted that one of the main concerns with their proposal would be the logistics of fabricating a large film, transporting it into space, and then unfolding it to form the bubble raft. They suggested fabricating the spheres in outer space to minimize shipping costs.
“[The] bubbles can be intentionally destroyed by breaking their surface equilibrium, this would make the solar geoengineering solution fully reversible and significantly reduce space debris,” the MIT researchers wrote in a statement.
They also pointed to the difficulties of maintaining the integrity of the bubble shield. “Effective replenishment rate will be studied to ensure the shield maintains its size, together with strategies to guarantee a smooth end-of-life transition.”
This isn’t the first space-based solution proposed to block the Sun in some way. In 2017, a study suggested an Earth-sized shield to stop solar flares from messing with our communication systems.
But why go to such extremes (which surely have unforeseen risks and consequences)? The MIT researchers described the proposed space bubbles as something to supplement other climate change mitigation efforts, but it is still a speculative plan, and other solutions currently exist.
If the political will, funding, and technology is available for these high-tech solutions, the same should be possible for much more reasonable solutions, like putting a stop new oil and gas drilling projects.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we only have a a jarring three-year deadline to curb our emissions and stop climate disaster. Our current fossil fuel infrastructure is enough to push us over that edge, and we can prevent that by keeping the oil in the ground and working to decarbonize our systems.
People in the U.S. are already suffering the consequences of years of emissions. Some of the largest water reservoirs on the West Coast and in the Southwest are drying up. Several states are experiencing a dangerous heatwave right now, and cities all over the country are implementing water restrictions due to widespread drought.
We don’t exactly have the time to tinker around in space, hope that it works, and then continue to pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
See what I mean about the level of stupidity we face?
Reducing the amount of sunlight reaching Earth would mean the world would be darker, which would put more strain on electricity generating plants, as lighting would need to be used more.
But hang on a sec.
Alarmists are increasingly claiming the Sun has little or no influence on our climate, so why is this even being discussed?
The second effect of reducing the amount of sunlight reaching us, according to their logic, would have little or no effect on temperatures, but what it would do is reduce the amount of photosynthesis.
Reduced photosynthesis means less plant & crop growth, which means less food will be produced.
Less food means fewer people can be fed, which leads to increased deaths from malnutrition and starvation.
You have to wonder if this is the real aim, and nothing to do with the climate at all.
See more here: gizmodo.com
Header image: MIT Senseable City
About the author: Andy Rowlands is a university graduate in space science and British Principia Scientific International researcher, writer and editor who co-edited the new climate science book, ‘The Sky Dragon Slayers: Victory Lap‘
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MattH
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I found the following interesting concerning the eccentricity of the Milankovitch cycles
‘Is the Timing a Coincidence?
Due to variations in the eccentricity of the Earth’s orbit, the dates when the Earth reaches its perihelion or aphelion are not fixed. In 1246, the December Solstice was on the same day as the Earth reached its perihelion. Since then, the perihelion and aphelion dates have drifted by a day every 58 years. In the short-term, the dates can vary up to two days from one year to another.
Mathematicians and astronomers estimate that in 6430, over 4000 years from now, the perihelion will coincide with the March equinox.’
There you go readers. You can die happy now.
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Moffimmmm
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Curiously, aphelium is on independence day this year. The forth of July @ 7.10A.M. G.M.T.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Matt,
Great Job!!! Real SCIENTISTS study history. Because history is what was and not what one predicts. Hence, we will have to wait until 6430 to SEE what is then.
I started by reading your comment, I have now read what Andy wrote: “People in the U.S. are already suffering the consequences of years of emissions. Some of the largest water reservoirs on the West Coast and in the Southwest are drying up. Several states are experiencing a dangerous heatwave right now, and cities all over the country are implementing water restrictions due to widespread drought.” Specifically: “People in the U.S. are already suffering the consequences of years of emissions.” As if he, Andy, knows what has caused this drought.
I now have read further and SEE he was putting words into the mouth’s of the stupid people of MIT instead of actually quoting what they had written. I had initially questioned what these emissions were but now believe they are the emissions of carbon dioxide as humans burn fossil fuels.
However, Andy seems not to understand certain fundamental of SCIENCE as I have called attention to unquestionable data that proves the theory of the greenhouse effect of atmospheric carbon dioxide is ABSOLUTELY WRONG.
(http://principia-scientific.org/new-scientific-law-greenhouse-effect/) and (https://principia-scientific.com/solar-radiation-sufficient-no-greenhouse-effect-certain-atmospheric-gases/)
Have a good day, Jerry
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MattH
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Hi Jerry.
Andy Rowlands does not say stoopid things. He is illuminating the unfortunate waffling of others.
I am slowly learning of the natural causes of climate change. Milankovitch cycles, direct and indirect effects of solar cycles, volcanism.
Then learning the clearly definable deceptions around climate. Ocean acidification. Total solar variance etc.
Once these issues are clearly understood the CO2 debate becomes semi redundant other than the importance of atmospheric CO2 for life sustaining abundance and bounty.
I will read your referenced article again over the weekend as you always learn more with a second or third reading.
Regards. Matt
Oh, I saw something this morning I have never seen before. Pre sunrise there was a round shadow covering half of the left side of the moons crescent. I presume it was the shadow of the planet Venus between our moon and the sun.
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Andy Rowlands
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Thanks Matt, I appreciate that 🙂
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MattH
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Hi Andy. When speaking honestly gives somebody support or pays a minor compliment or correcting a ‘wronged’ that can provide one of life’s simple pleasures.
Regards Matt
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Whokoo
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Poor syntax Matt. You should be banned.
Andy Rowlands
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It can indeed, thanks Matt 🙂
Jerry Krause
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Hi Matt and Andy,
Matt, you just wrote: “Once these issues are clearly understood the CO2 debate becomes semi redundant.” Proving you and Andy seeming do not yet understand that wrong SCIENTIFIC IDEAS can be PROVEN to be ABSOLUTELY WRONG by simple reproducible observations (measurements). There is no debate about the fact that the earth does not standstill, so we must consider the influence of the centrifugal effect upon the motions of the atmosphere and the seas, as both the atmosphere and the seas are fluids and not rigid solids.
Einstein is said to have stated: “The only source of knowledge is experience.” Do you two expect me to forget the knowledge of my five decades of scientific experiences so I will agree with what you two state about SCIENCE???
Have a good day, Jerry
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Andy Rowlands
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Jerry, if you’d care to read it again, you will see I was quoting the gizmodo article word for word. I am fully aware the ‘greenhouse effect’ is utter nonsense, and I have made that clear in other articles PSI has published of mine.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Andy,
What data have you cited which proves the GHE theory is absolutely wrong? You and many others here at PSI have only made arguments as you debate this theory. SCIENCE is totally based upon what one SEES; not upon what one reasons and argues.
Read the ‘Value of Science’.(https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/1575/1/Science.pdf)
Have a good day, Jerry
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Herb Rose
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Hi Jerry,
You SEE the sun rise in the east and set in the west therefore the sun is moving in the sky. You keep repeating the same inane comments like you were citing gospel.
Herb
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Whokoo
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Yes Herb.
Revelations 366. 1. The parable they omitted from the bible.
Andy Rowlands
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I’ve just had a massive row with my father so I can’t be arsed to argue with you as well, but how about the ice core record showing temperature changes first? That alone proves AGW is a lie.
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Bud Bromley
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Andy, this is getting to the ‘slap me and wake me up from this nightmare’ stage. What could possibly go wrong? Uh, extinction of all life on Earth in the next ice ball planet Earth ice age.
Would this project or similar artificial clouds project qualify as attempted suicide or attempted murder? After all, we supposedly elected the politicians who funded this study and those politicians and bureaucrats would demand that “we” pay for it if they approve it.
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Andy Rowlands
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Yes indeed Bud, the whole thing is beyond sanity now.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Andy,
I suggested you read:the ‘Value of Science’, a public address that Richard Feynman delivered at the 1955 autumn meeting of the National Academy of Sciences. (https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/1575/1/Science.pdf)
This address was also published at the end of Feynman’s New York Times Best Seller “What Do You Care What Other People Think?” along with a preface to why he composed and delivered this address.
Andy and now, Bud, I ask have either of you read it? And if you have, did you ask what might have stimulated Feynman’s thought about a decade after the end of WWII and the nuclear bomb’s Feynman helped design. That worked the first three times they were tested.
I will give either of you or both or others to read his address again, if you read it long ago in the 50s, to possibly respond with a comment. In a few day I will review some scientific history which had preceded 1955.
Have a good day, Jerry.
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val
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With more than 40 volcanoes erupting on Earth, and more to come,, I would think that enough particulates are being put in the atmosphere already. Secondly, ‘global warming’ isn’t happening. We’re in a cooling period similar to the one in the 1860’s. CO2 isn’t a problem either, any more than ‘overpopulation’ is a problem.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi MattH,
I address this to you because you generally seem to understand what I write. You know I claim to be a SCIENTIST which as a PROFESSION did not exist 500 years ago. Yesterday a long time friend, a science teacher, however for years we had not had a conversation for maybe a decade. Because he knew that way back I was questioning the GHE, I told him I had finally seen unquestionable data that absolutely proved this generally accepted theory to be absolutely wrong.
Niels Bohr, without looking him up on the internet, do you know much about him? He asked to have a meeting with Rickard Feynman, a young physicist, working at Los Alamos on a project to design (invent) a nuclear bomb before Bohr was to talk with the experienced scientists with much more experience than Feynman had. Feynman could not understand this request. Eventually Bohr’s son explained this: “The last time he , Bohr was there, Bohr said to his son, “Remember the name of that little fellow in back over there? He’s the only guy who’s not afraid of me, and will say when I’ve got a crazy idea.” (“Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!”)
Finally, I asked my friend: Have you read ‘Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences’ and his answer was NO. Which was my answer until near the end of my career as a science teacher and an experimentalist. However, as I stress the importance of what Galileo wrote, he ended up being a hypocrite. For when he claimed that the orbits of the planets about the sun were perfect circles he ignored the careful astronomical measurements of Tycho Brahe and the mathematical analysis of Johannes Kepler. I point to this historical FACT because we should learn from unquestionable historical FACTS.
And a historical fact of SCIENCE is; “No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right, a single experiment can prove me wrong.”
Have a good day, Jerry
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