Tag: Environmental issues

Climate Agreements

I have been following the climate debate for decades….it all started with Carter and just kept me interested…..I watched the timeline for clean environment pushed forward year after year until we are at the point where 2050 is the target date for a clean environment.

Not to worry there will be another climate summit to reassess that timeline and it will most likely be pushed yet again.

So what do you think of all this ‘kicking of the climate can’?

Personally I think these agreements benefit only one sector…..

https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/03/25/climate-agreements-suck/

Climate agreements suck. There are no real enforcement provisions. Many signatories cheat. Some don’t rep0rt at all. Moreover, reported data is highly suspect. It’s a worldwide scandal recently exposed by YaleEnvironment360.

Evidence of cheating is found in the atmosphere: Global CO2 is on a rampage, skyrocketing upwards like never before, double-to-triple rates of only one year ago, see: CO2 Bursting into the Atmosphere. This is not supposed to be happening. It is twisting the planet’s climate system into a pretzel that doesn’t know which way to turn next. There are plenty of reasons to believe it is going to get much, much worse. The planet’s climate system is already so far whacked-out that it’s breathing fire.

Meanwhile, greenhouse gas emissions are skyrocketing in the aftermath of the much-touted climate agreement Paris ‘15 when 196 countries agreed to cut to net zero. Oops, wrong, many signatories are “net nothing.”

There is compelling evidence that signatory nations to Paris ’15 don’t give a damn about the agreement or care about Hot House Earth as they cavalierly undercount, when they do report, or they simply refuse to report. As a result, UN climate goals go straight into the trash, worthless.

A little history….the first worldwide climate summit was in 1979….the mandate was “a better understanding of the climate system and the causes of climate variability and change” and “to determine the predictability of climate; and to determine the effect of human activities on climate”.  In practice, the program aims to foster initiatives in climate research which require or benefit from international coordination and which are unlikely to emerge from national efforts alone.

And that agreement has been sliding down the toilet ever since.

So yeah climate agreements suck because it means nothing to the polluters because government will have their backs….until the bitter end.

And that end is not that far away…..but the profits will flow and the planet will eventually burn.

I know a bit dramatic….but what the Hell someone had to say it.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Project 2025

College of Political Knowledge

2024 Election Series

November is just months away….now would be a good time to pay attention!

If Trump is successful in his bid for a second term these are things we can look forward to in the future.

It is a Heritage and GOP blueprint to destroy the planet…..and the MAGA movement and Donald the Orange are embracing the 920 page blueprint.

I would post the link here but that would drive me into a stroke laughing so hard to think anyone would actually care enough to read the document.

We all have an idea what will happen if a conserv is elected….those ideas are valid but here is what will probably be the game plan.

With that in mind I found an article that will inform you before your attention span wanes.

When former President Donald Trump exited the Oval Office in January 2021, he left behind a record of environmental rollbacks unrivaled in modern U.S. history. Over his 1,461 days as commander-in-chief, Trump replaced, eliminated, or otherwise dismantled more than 100 environmental rules — at least — from repealing the Clean Air Act to allowing coal plants to dump toxic wastewater into lakes and rivers to declaring open season on endangered gray wolves.

President Joe Biden then rolled back most of the rollbacks, largely before their full impacts could be felt, which is why some experts say the most significant climate consequence of Trump’s presidency was actually the loss of four years that could have moved the green transition forward.

Had all Trump’s policies gone into effect, the nonpartisan Rhodium Group estimated at the end of 2020, they would have added an additional 1.8 gigatons of CO2-equivalent to the atmosphere by 2035 — more than the annual energy emissions of Germany, Britain, and Canada combined. But even though we never felt the full brunt of them, the medical journal The Lancet estimated that the policies undertaken during his presidency were responsible for 22,000 deaths in 2019 alone due to sharp increases in things like asthma, heart disease, and lung cancer.

Now Trump is once again the presumed Republican nominee and currently leads Biden in general election polls. Were he to win, he has a ready roadmap for building on his dubious environmental legacy: Project 2025, a 920-page document developed by the right wing think tank The Heritage Foundation.

Project 2025 isn’t just a climate plan, or course — it’s a comprehensive proposal, covering everything from immigration to abortion, education, pornography, and child labor. Though billed as a “presidential transition project,” its wishlist includes numerous actions that would require Republican control of both chambers of Congress (admittedly possible, though currently looking like a longshot) to enact. Undaunted, the document sets its sights on the Inflation Reduction Act, Biden’s landmark climate legislation, which — since the U.S. is the world’s second-largest greenhouse gas emitter — is all but necessary to keep the planet off the path to 1.5 degrees Celcius.

Read On!

https://heatmap.news/politics/trump-climate-change-project-2025

Then there is the 4 prong attack on society…..

Called the 2025 Presidential Transition Project—or “Project 2025,” for short—the plan has “four pillars”:

  1. an 887-page policy agenda,
  2. a presidential personnel database of vetted conservatives,
  3. a Presidential Administration Academy to train these people to achieve the Project 2025 policy agenda, and
  4. a 180-day playbook, which is what they hope to achieve in the first 180 days if Trump takes office in January 2025.

Project 2025: The Right’s Dystopian Plan to Dismantle Civil Rights and What It Means for Women

You might want to read this careful for your vote could be helping to destroy the planet and your way of life.

Just a thought

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–30Nov23

They say the way of the future is electric vehicles….they are more environmentally safe than our current means of transportation.

I am sure all the statements are accurate….but the problem as I see it is the cost.  These vehicles are not cheap and after we have ours the battery replacements can be astronomically high….then there is the charging stations….my area at this time there is one I know of and another under contruction….but what is the true cost of owning an electric vehicle.

The electric vehicle story seems to have changed lately from an expectation of rapid adoption and frantic production to a reality of cooling interest and pullbacks in investments. 

General Motors  (GM) – Get Free Report pushed back its EV targets and postponed its coming EV lineup in what it called an effort to ensure profitability; Ford  (F) – Get Free Report postponed $12 billion in EV investments; Hertz is slowing the electrification of its fleets, in part citing weak resale value; and Tesla  (TSLA) – Get Free Report remains engaged in a price war meant to entice skeptical buyers. 

While some data show that EV adoption is on the rise, with EV sales making up a record 7.9% of total industry sales in the third quarter, consumer interest is still flagging.

Polling from S&P Global Mobility found in May that only 67% of respondents are open to buying an EV, a significant reduction from the 86% of respondents that were open to such a purchase in 2021.

While EV adoption might be increasing, the growth in the sector is slowing as consumer concerns over both price and range cool interest. 

It’s no coincidence that Tesla remains so committed to slashing its prices; the biggest pressure point in the transition to EVs, according to S&P, is price. 

“Multiple hurdles need to be cleared to achieve widespread EV adoption,” S&P wrote. “Buyers may want to wait for the next technological advance, or have concerns about charging time and charger availability, but in the end, consumer finances — not engineering — lead the current buying resistance to EVs.”

Part of the gap in the adoption curve additionally involves differences between early adopters and the masses. 

https://www.thestreet.com/electric-vehicles/electric-vehicle-tesla-adoption-curve-cost

While I believe that the electric vehicle movement is an excellent idea I still wonder if we all will be able to afford to buy then operate one of these.

Just a thought.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

2010 All Over Again

This is for those with short memories….

In 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil rig blew up and cause a massive oil leak that dumped about 200 million gallons of oil into the central Gulf of Mexico….it contaminated sea life, beaches and ruined the economy of many Gulf Coast states like Louisiana, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi beaches were spared the bad stuff for our barrier islands protected our beaches for the most part but Florida and Alabama were not so lucky.

In case your memory is not what it once was….here are some facts….

Fact #1: More than 200 million gallons of crude oil was spilled into the Gulf of Mexico during the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill.

Fact #2: Deepwater Horizon was a 9yr old semi-submersible, mobile floating, dynamically positioned drilling rig that could operate in water up to 10,000’ deep.

Fact #3: At 9:45am high pressure methane gas from the well expanded into the drilling riser and rose into the drilling rig, the rig ignited and exploded

Fact #4: Over 16,000 miles of coastline was affected during the spill. The coastlines of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida were all affected.

Fact #5: 5.5 million feet of oil spill containment boom was deployed to help collect the oil.

Fact #6: Over 8,000 animals were reported dead 6 months after the spill.

This spill effected the seafood industry as well….fish were not caught, shrimp were not fished, oysters were dead and crabs were contaminated…all of which is a mainstay of the Gulf Coast industry….so why am I going on about past doings that most have forgotten?

Easy.

Deja vu.

Just when the fishing grounds were on the rebound from the Deepwater fiasco….it is happening again….

A leak from an underwater pipeline released more than 1 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico before the flow was shut off, the Coast Guard estimated. The leak was spotted Thursday, about 19 miles offshore of the Mississippi River Delta southeast of New Orleans, Reuters reports. Main Pass Oil Gathering Co. turned off the 67-mile line the same day. On Friday and Saturday, overflights saw the oil moving to the southwest, away from the Louisiana shore, per WDSU. No injuries or shoreline impacts have been reported.

rews are searching for the source of the leak, which was near Louisiana’s Plaquemines Parish, using underwater remote-operated vehicles. The Coast Guard said three skimming vessels are trying to remove the oil on the surface. The National Response Team was activated, the Environmental Protection Agency said, which mobilizes 15 federal entities to help

While the spill is dwarfed by previous spills, like the Deepwater Horizon crisis that saw 130 million gallons of crude pouring into the Gulf in 2010, it’s nonetheless a grim environmental catastrophe that could have devastating effects on the local environment.

“Ocean wildlife will almost certainly pay a terrible price for this huge pipeline spill, which is less an accident than an entirely predictable consequence of offshore oil operations,” said Kristen Monsell, senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, in a statement.

This does not make national news….no one cares if I am honest  those mental midgets do not have to try a eek out a living from the Gulf.

How long must these crises go on before someone cares enough to put a stop tho this insanity?

Turn The Page!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

 

What About All This “Greenwashing”?

With all the predictions of catastrophic environmental damage being done by corporations a new term has entered into our vocabulary….”Greenwashing”.

But first a definition….

Greenwashing is a term used to describe a false, misleading or untrue action or set of claims made by an organization about the positive impact that a company, product or service has on the environment.

I recall after the Gulf oil spill BP set about giving their logo a more serene look with yellows and greens….but did little to change their disastrous practices.

Researchers have identified the threat greenwashing poses to a “nature positive” world, one where environmental decline halts and biodiversity outcomes improve. The research is published in Nature Ecology & Evolution

“As with the term ‘net zero,’ you’ll soon start to see the businesses you buy from, and the governments you vote for, making claims that they are being, doing, or contributing to nature positive. But to be clear, such an achievement is only possible if we fundamentally change how we run our society and economy.

“What we really need are standards, so that it’s clear what constitutes misleading information, and transparency, so that consumers and voters can tell the greenwash from the genuine efforts for change.”

https://phys.org/news/2023-09-greenwashing-threat-nature-positive-world.html

People should be wary of unfounded green credentials of companies whose greenwashing poses a direct threat to the environment, scientists have warned.

Can you think of any corporations that have friendly-up their approaches?

Do not be fooled….they may look environmentally friendly but it is only a mask to preserve their practices and profits….nothing more.

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Biden Pulls An End Run

Dems have been fighting the GOP for decades on this climate change thing and the things we need to do to avert the predicted disaster that is awaiting.

Biden is tired of Congress and their games and has decided to take matters in his own hinds.

After being thwarted by Congress, President Biden will use his executive authority to create a New Deal-style climate initiative that will serve as a major green-jobs training program. In an announcement Wednesday, the White House said the program will employ about 20,000 young adults who will build trails, plant trees, help install solar panels, and do other work to boost conservation and help prevent catastrophic wildfires. As the AP reports, such a program had been proposed in early versions of the sweeping climate law approved last year, but it was jettisoned amid strong opposition from Republicans and concerns about cost. Democrats and environmental advocacy groups never gave up on the plan and pushed Biden in recent weeks to issue an executive order authorizing what the White House now calls the American Climate Corps.

The program is modeled after the Civilian Conservation Corps, created in the 1930s by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Democrat, as part of the New Deal. “This summer, our country saw heat waves, wildfires, and floods that destroyed communities, uprooted families, and claimed hundreds of lives,” the Sunrise Movement and other organizations wrote on Monday in a letter to Biden’s White House. “While previous executive orders and legislation under your administration demonstrate tremendous progress toward meeting our Paris climate goals and your campaign promises, this summer has made clear that we must be as ambitious as possible in tackling the great crisis of our time,” the groups wrote.

More than 50 Democratic lawmakers, including Sen. Ed Markey and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, also encouraged Biden, saying in a letter that “the climate crisis demands a whole-of-government response at an unprecedented scale.” The lawmakers cited deadly heat waves across the nation, as well as dangerous floods in New England and devastating wildfires on Maui as recent examples of climate-tied disasters. The White House didn’t say how much the program will cost or how it will be paid for, but Democrats had proposed $10 billion. Republicans have largely dismissed it as a do-gooder proposal that will waste money and may even take jobs away from workers displaced by the pandemic. “We don’t need another FDR program, and the idea that this is going to help land management is a false idea,” Arkansas Rep. Bruce Westerman, Natural Resources Committee chair, said in 2021.

Of course the GOP is opposed to anything related to climate change….but they blindly throw cash at the Pentagon and its many tentacles in our society.

Biden is not my favorite but at least he has stepped up to do something….for that I thank him.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Is Litigation Good For The Climate?

There have been many attempts to solve the problem of climate change….protests do little…..debate does nothing….but could litigation be the answer?

Recently in Montana there was a climate trial…..

Young environmental activists have scored a huge victory in Montana, where a judge has agreed that the state violated their constitutional right to “a clean and healthful environment.” In the first-of-its-kind Held v Montana case, District Judge Kathy Seeley ruled that it was unconstitutional for the coal and oil-producing state to allow fossil fuel development without considering the effect on the climate, the AP reports. The 16 plaintiffs in the case, ages 5 to 22, argued in June that the state was violating its own constitution—and destroying their future. Rikki Held, the plaintiff the case is named for, said climate change was hurting her family’s ranch.

Experts say the win could “energize the environmental movement and reshape climate litigation across the country,” per the Washington Post. Julia Olson, an attorney representing the young Montanans, describe the ruling as a “game-changer that marks a turning point in this generation’s efforts to save the planet from the devastating effects of human-caused climate chaos.” “This is a huge win for Montana, for youth, for democracy, and for our climate,” said Olson. She is the founder of the Our Children’s Trust nonprofit, which has filed similar lawsuits on behalf of young people in every state since 2011.

This was the first such case to go to trial, though a district court ruled in June that a federal case brought by the group can proceed to trial, the Guardian reports. Another case in Hawaii is expected to go to trial in June next year. The Montana victory sets an important precedent, experts say, though since bringing the law into compliance with the state constitution will be left to the GOP-controlled state legislature, it’s not clear whether it will lead to major changes, the AP notes.

With this small win could it be a template for further activism?

On this front, various efforts have been made to call for the acceleration of climate actions around the world. In the past years, advocacy campaigns, strikes, public demonstrations, and activists’ protests have been increasingly reported across media platforms, lobbying for countries to fulfil their climate pledges. Although some progress has been made, they are not enough to catch up with the fast-rising global temperature.

Increasingly individuals and non-governmental organizations are turning to climate litigation as part of the social movements, using human rights law as a strategic instrument to enforce climate actions.

Since the Paris Agreement in 2015, the number of climate change-related lawsuits has doubled from just over 800 cases (1986 -2014) to over 1,200 cases (2015 – 2022), with most cases based in the Global North (particularly in the US) and a growing number of cases from the Global South.

Human rights law offers strong grounds for litigation against states as states hold the primary responsibility and duty to protect human rights. At the European Court of Human Rights, three climate cases are pending before the Grand Chamber of the Court.

Among others, the climate cases were made on the grounds of the human rights violations of the right to life (Article 2), and the right to respect for private and family life (Article 8) as enshrined in the European Convention of Human Rights.

(ipsnews.net)

Is this the way forward?

Keep in mind that here in the US SCOTUS will have the last word and we all know how corruptible these political hacks can be, right?

Any thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

When Did Climate Weaponize?

My granddaughter asked this the other day….and me being an old fart I tried to explain it to her…she knew that I had been around in the early days of the debate.

I explained that it pretty much began in earnest in 1973 with the formation of the Heritage Foundation, a GOP think tank…..and in 1981 they offered up the first of the conservative programs that become the platforms for candidates and elected officials….

Not much has changed in all these years….the newest incarnation of their ‘policies’,

The Heritage Foundation’s 2025 Presidential Transition Project released the ninth edition of Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise in April, and that mandate includes significant rollbacks to federal efforts to tackle the climate emergency, as E&E News reported Wednesday.

“Make no mistake: this is a battle plan,” End Climate Silence founding director Genevieve Guenther tweeted in response to the news. “The war being waged is against our children’s future.”

The document would essentially serve as a policy blueprint for the first 180 days if Trump—or another Republican—were to gain control of the White House in January 2025, as E&E News explained. Climate and environmental rollbacks in the document include

  • Axing the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations;
  • Stopping the focus on “grid expansion for the benefit of renewable resources or supporting low/carbon generation” and instead expanding natural gas infrastructure and overall fossil fuel use;
  • Downsizing Environmental Protection Agency (EPA offices including the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights, the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assistance, and the Office of Public Engagement and Environmental Education;
  • Preventing other states from adapting California’s stricter environmental standards for greenhouse gases; and
  • Banning the use of scientific studies including private health data in setting EPA regulations.
  • (commondreams.org)

More than 400 people contributed ideas to the final document, which was written by former Trump staffers, industry lobbyists and consultants, and conservative policy experts. The section on the DOE was penned by Trump Federal Energy Regulatory Commission appointee Bernard McNamee, while the EPA section was written by Mandy Gunasekara, who served as the agency’s chief of staff under Trump.

The document doesn’t limit itself to climate and energy policy, but rather contains a chapter on each of the major federal departments.

So when asked who weaponized the climate then you have your answer….The Heritage Foundation.

Behind all the lies and denials of the GOP stands the Heritage to offer disinformation to help make a spurious case.

Then there is social media which these days is leading the charge on disinformation…..YouTube is a major contributor to this situation…..

Google-owned YouTube is again facing allegations of profiting from not enforcing its own ban on the monetization of climate misinformation, this time in a report published Friday amid legislative battles in Brazil over policies on the Amazon rainforest, Indigenous rights, and social media.

Google announced in October 2021 that for advertisers and publishers along with creators on its video platform YouTube, the company would “prohibit ads for, and monetization of, content that contradicts well-established scientific consensus around the existence and causes of climate change.”

For four weeks, researchers with Ekō—a group formerly known as SumOfUs that works to curb the power of big corporations—reviewed 60 YouTube videos in English and Portuguese that contained disinformation and conspiracy theories about Amazon deforestation, Indigenous rights, and the climate emergency.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/youtube-climate-disinformation

I made my thoughts known on this debate 10 years ago….

Climate Change Debate

We have been waiting for an honest debate on the climate since 1977….and we wait….and wait….

Turn The Page!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Memories Of An ‘Eco-Commie’

The hot topic these days in blogs is that of the climate change persuasion….everyone is predicting and debating the end times for the planet….but where was all this concerned 10 years ago….5 years ago….even last year?

‘Eco-Commie’?

WTF?

I will explain that term shortly….but first….

After Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast I lost most of my saved earlier work but it was whisked away by the storm until the other day when I found a plastic bin that had been saved that I had forgotten about and in this bin were some writings I did on the environment and such.

Now for the Eco-Commie thing….after Vietnam I became deeply involved in the antiwar scene and by extension I also was a protester for the environment and because we were so animated some starting calling us ‘Eco-Commies’ because back in those days if you protested oil companies and other polluters you were anti-American.

I kinda liked the label to be honest.

Now to flesh out why I am writing this post…..

I have heard people ask just how did this become a problem unforeseen.

It was not unforeseen.

Back in 1977 during th early days of the Carter administration a memo was passed around.

n 1977 Star Wars hit movie theaters, New York City had a blackout that lasted 25 hours, and the Apple II personal computer went up for sale. It was also the year that a remarkable one-page memo was circulated at the very highest levels of US government.

Years before the climate crisis was part of national discourse, this memo outlined what was known – and feared – about the crisis at the time. It was prescient in many ways. Did anyone listen?

memo

Click to view the full memo.

Did they see this coming?

“Fossil fuel combustion has increased at an exponential rate over the last 100 years. As a result, the atmospheric concentration of CO2 is now 12 percent above the pre-industrial revolution level and may grow to 1.5 to 2.0 times that level within 60 years. Because of the “greenhouse effect” of atmospheric CO2 the increased concentration will induce a global climatic warming of anywhere from 0.5 to 5°C.”

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/14/1977-us-presidential-memo-predicted-climate-change

Carter signed 14 major environmental bills as he foresaw climate change coming.

Jimmy Carter Signed 14 Major Environmental Bills and Foresaw the Threat of Climate Change

I would say they were ahead of the curve.

Carter was the first world leader to recognize the coming problem.

No one was listening…..and then in 1981 with the formation of the Heritage Foundation the battle was on between facts and misinformation.

Gains made under Carter’s presidential leadership in the early 1980s might have bought the planet precious time. Instead, for the next 12 years, under Reagan and George H.W. Bush, the U.S. government would view global warming as largely unworthy of study, much less action. Then came 25 years of stop-and-start efforts under administrations of both parties, followed by a return to denial under Trump and, then, re-entry into the Paris process under President Joe Biden.

Then there was the environmental summit of 1992.

I located some of me notes from this summit…..

178 nations sent delegates to the environmental summit of 1992….it was billed as ‘coming together to save the earth’….that did not work out so well now did it?

On the agenda was forest protection,biodiversity and climate change….

On climate change the industrialized nations agreed to try and reduce emissions of greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by the year 2000….they failed miserably.

The US held out so they could force a treaty without specific levels of greenhouse gases and as usual the US never ratified the treaty….and as they say….here we are today scorching and sweating our asses off.

Some in the US have tried numerous times to head off the coming doom but each time the government did what it does best kick the can down the road and that has lead us to where we are today.

Every administration has issued this attempt or that and thanx to the silly notion of ‘bi-partisanship’ nothing has been done….and every year the situation got worse and worse until….BANG!  Here we are today with dire results of all that inaction.

For instance we just lived through the hottest month on record and yet BP made $2.6 billion in profit….so are they doing their part to help the situation…..NOT a chance!

The people can also shoulder some of the blame for they have ignored the warnings and in turn have let the government do little to nothing…..and once again….BANG!  Here we are today sweating our asses off.

If only someone had taken us ‘eco-commies’ seriously we might be talking about some other problem.

There you are the history of inaction and the results of an uncaring people.

Maybe you should have listened when you had the chance.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

 

Don’t Forget Your Umbrella

That would be sage advice for my friends in the UK……but I do not believe they need to be reminded.

Since the rising heat on earth and the fact that this topic is generating a lot of  post and Chatbot writings I would offer a post on how to ‘cool’ the planet down.

The ‘umbrella’ I am speaking about is plan for our space projects and a way to help control our climate change.

Scientists think they have come up with a new approach to mitigating global warming: put up a giant “umbrella” in space to protect the Earth from excess sunlight.

István Szapudi, an astronomer at the University of Hawai’i Institute for Astronomy, said a workable design for a solar shield could be ready in decades.

“In Hawai’i, many use an umbrella to block the sunlight as they walk about during the day. I was thinking, could we do the same for Earth and thereby mitigate the impending catastrophe of climate change?” he said.

According to ongoing temperature analyses, the average global temperature on Earth has increased by at least 1.1 Celsius since the Victorian era. It has led scientists to pursue new ways of reducing the effects of climate change.

The solar shield plan would require an exceptionally large structure to prevent solar radiation, and it would need to be heavy enough not to blow away. Therefore, the study published recently in the journal PNAS proposes using a captured asteroid as a counterweight.

Researchers said they wanted the “umbrella” to reduce the impact of solar radiation on Earth by about 1.7 per cent to prevent a catastrophic rise in global temperatures.

Using a tethered counterbalance, such as an asteroid, would reduce the weight of the shield to 3.5m tons. That is light as a feather compared to previous estimates without a counterweight, which were about 100 times heavier.

Even the largest rockets in operation today can only lift about 50 tons to a low Earth orbit, however.

Looks like we’ve got a little time to wait before we get our giant interplanetary parasol.

https://www.indy100.com/science-tech/space-umbrella-climate-change

We could speed up the process by making it a massive profit generating program….that would bring Musk out of the woodwork.

Anyway….good idea or BS?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”