We should beware solutions we can’t easily reverse or fine-tune in the future. The perfect solution would combine powerful output (cool the earth by 1 degree in a few years) with rapid fine tuning (we realize that wasn’t a good idea and want to heat it up again by 0.5 degrees in the next year).
Here are some plausible rapid-response mad science ideas:
Swarm of small solar sails around the Earth, directly controlled like other satellites, which can fold or rotate on edge to let in more sunlight as required. Use them to effectively shorten or dim each day. Powered by sunlight and in unstable orbits so that when each sat fails, it escapes the Earth’s gravity, to avoid creating more space debris in orbit.
Gene-engineer rapidly growing colonies of small (plankton-like) mollusks floating on the ocean surface. Individuals have heavy shells counterbalanced by floating aids (e.g. internal airsacs). After adults spawn, they die and sink; turnover is so rapid that most of them reach the ocean bottom uneaten, sequestering carbon. Keep the engineered plankton eater in reserve.
Seed the upper atmosphere with particulate matter to create a short-lasting global cooling effect similar to a large volcanic eruption.
I think it’s fair to say that the impact on the ocean of such huge numbers of mollusks would be disastrous.
As for simulating a volcanic eruption, it would have an unpredictable effect on plant and animal life, possibly making global warming much worse once the clouds dissipated.
The solar sail idea is interesting but there is a large potential for abuse.
We should beware solutions we can’t easily reverse or fine-tune in the future. The perfect solution would combine powerful output (cool the earth by 1 degree in a few years) with rapid fine tuning (we realize that wasn’t a good idea and want to heat it up again by 0.5 degrees in the next year).
Here are some plausible rapid-response mad science ideas:
Swarm of small solar sails around the Earth, directly controlled like other satellites, which can fold or rotate on edge to let in more sunlight as required. Use them to effectively shorten or dim each day. Powered by sunlight and in unstable orbits so that when each sat fails, it escapes the Earth’s gravity, to avoid creating more space debris in orbit.
Gene-engineer rapidly growing colonies of small (plankton-like) mollusks floating on the ocean surface. Individuals have heavy shells counterbalanced by floating aids (e.g. internal airsacs). After adults spawn, they die and sink; turnover is so rapid that most of them reach the ocean bottom uneaten, sequestering carbon. Keep the engineered plankton eater in reserve.
Seed the upper atmosphere with particulate matter to create a short-lasting global cooling effect similar to a large volcanic eruption.
I think it’s fair to say that the impact on the ocean of such huge numbers of mollusks would be disastrous.
As for simulating a volcanic eruption, it would have an unpredictable effect on plant and animal life, possibly making global warming much worse once the clouds dissipated.
The solar sail idea is interesting but there is a large potential for abuse.