Had fun this evening with David & Erik. Talked about a lot of things, but some it was climate change stuff. My favorite: Space Bubbles
A couple other interesting possibilities that I should look into later: alkalizing the oceans (limestone?)
But back to space bubbles: the idea is to block some solar energy in space. This would only reduce the heat input to earth (this is an emergency mitigation, not a solution to environmental issues). Other approaches to this include adding Sulfer Dioxide to the upper atmosphere, or other approaches to increasing Albedo (the amount of solar energy reflected back into space).
We know Sulfer Dioxide works as a way of cooling earth because it’s happened often in the past. Volcalono emit this has, and we’ve seen the cooling effect. Also: it has other effects (rapid warming in some cases, potential significant weather changes, more colorful sunsets).
Once you add it to the atmosphere it’d be hard to get out. The unintended consequences could be pretty serious.
The space bubbles alternative is appealing for a couple reasons but primarily because it’s reversible (even tuneable). The site goes into the mechanics a bit – basically a raft of small (1 meter?) bubbles parked at Lagrange point 3 – between the earth & sun. Make the bubbles in space for efficient manufacturing. Add a self-destruct mechanism so you could pop bubbles if needed. Block less than 2% of the solar energy & you could buy a fair amount of time to address the underlying issues in a better way.
Likely to happen? Probably not. A lot like the Space Elevator ( something else Eric and David and I have talked about in the past) it’s an interesting approach, but unless there is a lot more political will or economic incentive it feels like a pipe dream.
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