If one of the problems is to much sunlight is being trapped in our atmosphere because the ice that reflects it is melting why not create something to reflect the sunlight?
2007-12-20 07:54:34 · 8 answers · asked by MassiveIntellect 1 in Environment ➔ Global Warming
That's grand thinking, but I feel a bit over the top. Instead of putting something up that we'd have to take down when we reflected too much sunlight away from the earth. Or we'd have to get even more radical and make it so we can change the opacity of the mirrors.
It's far better to use our engineers here on earth to build things like large reservoirs to hold the excess water some people are expecting. Learn to desalinate or to create better desalination plants to desalinate sea water to use for crops and drinking water if it ever went that far.
The one thing I can tell that most of us agree on, is that we do need to create different sources of energy, even if we don't agree on what's causing our climate to change.
(Does anyone remember the Stanley Steamer? If not watch the movie Seabiscuit, they have one in the first 30 minutes of the movie. BTW it's an old style Automobile.)
2007-12-20 08:47:57 · answer #1 · answered by Mikira 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Geoengineering of this sort is nearly always a bad idea. Loading the atmosphere with dust to block sunlight, for example. Suppose you find the planet is cooling down too fast and too far, how do you get the dust back out? Mirrors in orbit could be used as a weapon (e.g., block all the sunlight and prevent agriculture over certain regions) and you would never get nations to agree on putting something like that in orbit.
What these proposals amount to is the equivalent of the method of dealing with diabetes where you eat anything and everything and then load up on insulin as required. While it has the short-term appeal of unrestricted diet, it doesn't work out all that well for diabetics in the long run. As with diabetes, where the best strategy is adopting a careful diet, Dana is correct, it makes the most sense to not to put the CO2 into the atmosphere to begin with.
2007-12-20 16:58:45 · answer #2 · answered by gcnp58 7 · 1⤊ 2⤋
The problem is that light usually reflects off the surface and goes back into space, but because of greenhouse gases the sun rays are being trapped in our atmosphere, thus making it warmer and melting the ice that reflects it. Having something to reflect the light won't fix anything if the rays still can't escape the atmosphere.
2007-12-20 15:59:47 · answer #3 · answered by lepr0kan 5 · 0⤊ 4⤋
Good Idea! Lets have another Ice Age shall we?
Greenhouse effects is HUGE part of why there is Life on the planet today, excessive or not its here and crutial to Earth's life cycle.
2007-12-20 16:03:57 · answer #4 · answered by aylatroy 4 · 3⤊ 0⤋
We could. Wither my making giant mirrors on the ground or by putting dust in the air or by butting large shades in orbit. Any way you look at it though, it would be a big effort. And the political effort would be big too, because lots of people oppose that option. All the green parties oppose it.
2007-12-20 16:00:22 · answer #5 · answered by campbelp2002 7 · 3⤊ 0⤋
you know in futuristic movies everything is chrome colored maybe it's because it's reflecting the sunlight back out!
2007-12-20 16:58:42 · answer #6 · answered by ? 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Some scientists have actually proposed this (I believe the idea is to put a giant mirror into orbit). However, this is an exceedingly expensive proposition. It would cost far more than simply solving the problem by reducing our greenhouse gas emissions.
2007-12-20 15:58:32 · answer #7 · answered by Dana1981 7 · 1⤊ 5⤋
That's pretty much what the ozone layer is for; why not just solve the issues so this layer can repair itself (it can) and move on.
2007-12-20 16:02:38 · answer #8 · answered by Lonnie P 7 · 1⤊ 1⤋