Climate Change: What Would Captain Kirk do? An evaluation of planetary mirror cooling.

 

"I don't believe in no-win scenarios." The young Captain Kirk was tasked to play the "Kobayashi Maru" training exercise, a simulation designed to test the character of Starfleet Academy cadets in a no-win scenario. He used lateral thinking and reprogrammed the system in such a way as to be able to solve the problem. Can we do something similar for the global climate problem?

They say that the universe is all a giant simulation that runs on some unseen extragalactic computer. If that were the case, it looks like the programmers are playing cat-and-mouse with us. We are in a true no-win situation: while all the planetary temperature records are being broken, people seem to be unable to think of anything else except killing each other in large numbers.

Can we find a way to exit this no-win planetary simulation? Captain Kirk, the captain of the Starship Enterprise, is said to have solved an impossible challenge in a training exercise by reprogramming the computer that ran it. But, in our case, we don't have the password to access the code of the Great Galactic Computer. Yet, we may still use lateral thinking to find creative solutions to the problem.

So far, we used a head-on approach: if the problem is fossil fuels, then we eliminate fossil fuels. Except that it doesn't work: we still need fossil fuels to keep society working. It is a typical no-win situation: stop using fossil fuels, and we die. Keep using fossil fuels, and we die. The best we can think of is to program the smooth substitution of fossils with renewables in a few decades. It could work, but, likely, it is already too late to avoid the worst. How did we place ourselves in such a situation? 

We need to work on other parameters of the system. If we could tamper with the Great Galactic Program, we could alter the sun's temperature or the Earth's distance from it. That we can't do, of course, but we can do something equivalent by partly shielding the Earth from sunlight. It is possible; what we need to do is to work on Earth's albedo, the fraction of sunlight that's reflected back into space. Increasing the albedo would cool the Earth and give us the time to create a new energy system that doesn't produce greenhouse gases. It is one of the several forms that geoengineering can take. 

But how to do that? There is no knob on Earth that regulates the albedo. We need to physically place something between the Earth and the sun that has a reflective fraction larger than that of the average Earth's surface. Where to place it? In orbit? In the stratosphere? Or at lower heights? By far, the simplest way to do that is by mirrors at the surface level, the level that we humans can reach. The idea has been proposed more than once, but it has been explored mostly by Dr. Ye Tao with his MEER (Mirrors for Earth's Energy Rebalancing) initiative. 

The idea could work if it were possible to cover with highly reflective mirrors a truly large fraction of Earth's surface. In the MEER site, we read that we need 2.4% of the total surface (500 million km2). Which is about 12 million square km. Huge. Incredibly huge. It is larger than the whole Sahara desert (ca. 9 million km2). Larger than the whole US (10 million km2). That doesn't mean the whole Sahara should be paneled with mirrors, nor should the US be depopulated to leave space for mirrors. But the impact would be large. It would change the Earth as we know it.  

The total cost would be about 20-30 trillion dollars, assuming that the mirrors could cost a few dollars per m2. Considering that the world's GDP is around 1000 trillion dollars, we are speaking of about 1-2 trillion dollars per year over ten years. Every year, a sum equivalent to the total GDP of Italy would have to be spent in mirrors only. 

In terms of human engagement, it means more than 1,000 square meters of mirrors per person. Not the kind of thing that can be done at the individual level. Agricultural land needs to be used, about 24% of the currently used land. Of course, the proponents are not proposing to replace cropland with mirrorland. They are thinking of an integration of agriculture and their mirrors which may not affect agricultural productivity, especially in tropical regions. But it is something that needs to be proven before it can be used on a large scale. 

Honestly, it is too expensive, too big, too impacting. Given the current state of the memesphere, it is unthinkable to find a worldwide agreement to plunk down so much money and have so much impact in order to solve a problem that many people still consider as non-existing. Actually, that many consider a hoax imposed on them by the red-green cabal to turn them into slaves.  

Correctly, the proponents of the MEER idea are focusing more on the local advantages of mirrors. Reflective surfaces can be a big help to cool buildings; they are less expensive than photovoltaic panels, reducing the need for air conditioning. Mirrors might also be useful in agriculture to shade the land and improve productivity. From there, the idea may grow and provide a certain degree of planetary cooling, favoring social engagement in the problem. Giving people something practical to do to fight global warming would be a big improvement over the typical activist strategy (a la Greta Thunberg) that consists of stomping down one's feet while screaming, "Someone do something!"

But to cool the planet fast, well, we need something less expensive and quicker to deploy. What would Captain Kirk do?

Hat tip: CAJ