Scottish scientists have come up with an intriguing new idea to combat global warming – blasting the surface of asteroids to create giant clouds of dust which would act as sunscreen for the planet.
Researchers at the University of Strathclyde believe a suitably sized asteroid could be moved into a position close to earth before a giant cloud of dust is blasted off its surface.
And because an asteroid creates a gravitational pull, the dust is held in position rather than being gradually dispersed across space.
Russell Bewick, one of the research team at the University of Strathclyde told Live Science: ‘People sometimes get the idea of giant screens blocking the entire sun.
‘This is not the case … as [the device] is constantly between the sun and the earth, it acts merely as a very light shade or filter.’
‘I would like to make it clear that I would never suggest geoengineering in place of reducing our carbon emissions.”
‘We can buy time to find a lasting solution to combat Earth’s climate change. The dust cloud is not a permanent cure, but it could offset the effects of climate change for a given time to allow slow-acting measures like carbon capture to take effect.’
An earlier proposal to shade Earth from the sun involved placing giant mirrors in space.
However this is seen as impractical due to the massive cost of building the giant mirrors and blasting them into orbit or constructing them in outer-space.
Another idea involved using blankets of dust to blot out the sun in the same way clouds do on earth.
However while this would be considerably cheaper than placing mirrors in space it is believed the dust would be dispersed due to the gravitational pull of the sun, moon and other planets.
So the Scottish team came up with the novel idea of using an asteroid’s own gravitational pull to effectively anchor the cloud of dust and stop it drifting away.
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Mr Bewick said: ‘A very large asteroid is a potential threat to Earth, and therefore great care and testing would be required in the implementation of this scenario.
On our current trajectory geo engineering is going to be a must. The final picture, however, may be overdoing it just a little. Unfortunately the consequence of a milder option may be catastrophic also, we may even realize this before we do it but have no option.
I can’t really see this working – would be far quicker and more cost effective to collect boulders from the Moon, than finding and somehow nudging a million tonne asteroid into orbit. Still, would be pretty to turn Earth into a mini-Saturn, but GPS goes bye-bye!
Would be years of lag in the system, and attempts to influence and control might lead to oscillations increasing in intensity in an effort to stabilise without knowing resonant frequencies. (Ship stabilisers – timing is everything!)
Once you have humans trying to control something critical by committee, all sorts of bad things happen – think flying a jumbo jet by counting votes from the passengers.
So far, Earth’s inhabitants are doing a terrible job of managing their population, pollution burden and resource usage.
Apart from drastically reducing CO2 production and implementing a massive atmospheric CO2 sequestration programme, albedo modification on the Earth’s surface with afforestation seems a good tactic.
A little mylar reflective film – the stuff of survival blankets – can go a long way. Glaciers can be wrapped, deserts can be covered, and the volume control is immediate.
Cities and building roofs can be painted white, and that could also be done reasonably quickly, and reduce air-conditioning costs drastically in hot climates.
Parabolic solar collectors can work in reverse, radiating waste heat out to space at night. I have tested it and it works, but would it work well enough to be useful?
Google the Zodiacal Light. or read ‘The Cosmic Winter” by Victor Clube, and W.M. Napier. A compelling case can be Made that the dust from comets breaking up in the inner solar system and obscuring sunlight during the late Pleistocene-early Holocene may have been the trigger for for the Younger Dryas cooling. All it would take is another big comet to make an appearance in the inner solar system for it to happen again. Do we really want to try making it happen artificially?
Also see Paleolithic extinctions and the Taurid Complex by W.M. Napier
..and if we screw up the shape of that ring…we could get a really cool meteor shower!
I think I’ve already seen that movie
Or we could build more solar panels and windmills. Oh, wait a second, that would make the greenies happy. Yeah, better we fly out past the moon, crush an asteroid and fling its remains between the Earth and the Sun. Or drill into the Earth until we set up several Pinatubo-sized volcano’s. Or just all move to Mars. Or…
Any such solution is totally idiotic because it misses the overarching issue: climate change, dastardly though it is, is merely a consequence of a much greater and more intractable issue: overpopulation, and overconsumption.
We cannot techno engineer our way out of our fundamentally unsustainable numbers, extraction, and pollution. That would require a complete rethinking of our economy, politics, cultures, and values.
In other words, we would have to become a different species. That isn’t going to happen within evolutionary timescales, and we are already fucked, long before any such superior intelligence can emerge.
So fasten your seatbelts, and enjoy the ride.
A Modest Proposal
As an observer, I’ve come to see our problem and I have a very modest idea which could save our bacon (predicted to be in short supply worldwide in 2013).
That would be to advance our efforts to send Man into space.
Here’s how it could work. We’d hire the very best of the capitalist model privatizers for space travel like SpaceX and Virgin Intergalactic and have them form a joint venture with the owners of Kazahkstan’s Cosmodrome. Add some Chinese engineering into the mix along with a dash of European Space Agency verve and let’s create a modern day Star Wars fleet.
Launch date: Soon
Destination: Alpha Centauri and the nebulous beyond
Passenger list: The leadership of the GOP, the oil & gas industry, corporate media and the climate denial corps leadership. Say, 500 to 5,000 passengers on an all expense paid one way voyage with all their impedimenta.
As soon as they’re gone, we can start to solve our problems here on Earth.
The rate of ocean acidification means we cannot mess around with geo-engineering in lieu of CO2 emission reductions, right?
@ Otter17 : We may need both. Not ideal perhaps but how it may have to be.
Right, emission reductions to ameliorate the warming and acidification, but geo engineering to keep the heat down as CO2 dissipates in the atmosphere and prevent Earth’s positive feedbacks.