It seems that buying an energy efficient light bulb, switching to compact flourescent lightbulbs and using canvas shopping bags instead of plastic are not enough to save the planet. We need ambitious geo-engineering ideas in order to fight global climate change, such as those being shown on Ways to Save the Planet on Discovery Channel.

One episode showcases astronomer Dr.Roger Angel (University of Arizona) who thinks he can diffract the power of the sun by placing trillions of lenses in space and creating a 100,000-square-mile sunshade. He intends to use electromagnetic propulsion to get the lenses into space, something like a a huge cannon with a barrel of 0.6 miles across.

The gun would pack 100 times the power of conventional weapons and need an exclusion zone of several miles before being fired. This project will cost an estimated $350 trillion (£244trn) and may take 20 to 30 years for it to be ready to launch, but Dr Angel is confident of getting the project off the ground.

If Dr Angel’s sun shield is successful he says the mirrors will last 50 years before needing to be replaced.

Even though the sums involved sound huge, in the greater scheme of things it seems like a price worth paying. But we hope that this will be a last resort. Rogers too hopes that humankind will be wise enough to deal with the now widely accepted cause of global warming and cut CO2 emissions, so his sunshade will never be needed.

Via : Telegraph UK