The received wisdom re global warming as espoused by Al Gore et al may well turn out to be accurate – we’re incompetent to decide. While the preponderance of the evidence does seem to be in their favor, the 4 main reasons holding us back from warmly endorsing the initiative against global warming are:
-The Holocene Climate Optimum , which was a long period of natural global warming about 6K years ago.
- Fear of wrecking the economy needlessly.
- The mediocrity principle , which assumes that there is nothing special about our place (or time).
- The self-correcting effect of rising energy prices. And lurking somewhere in an unarticulated background is a kind of generalized miasma revolving around vague concerns that GW is succumbing to hubris, and dismay about the Kyoto Protocol exemptions as garnered by China & India. And then there’s the matter of Al being a politician, an avocation whose counsel is at times viewed by some as being self-serving.
In any event, and assuming that global warming advocates, or perhaps more accurately global cooling advocates, are right (and they probably are), a new technical solution has been proposed, namely a solar shield to block the sun. While proponents of greenhouse gas emissions reduction and searchers for alternative energy sources may well roll their eyes, the suggestion from prof Roger P. Angel of the University of Arizona seems doable, if expensive.
Angel’s proposal involves sending trillions of small 2 ft diameter transparent disks to the L1 Lagrange point between the earth and sun, where they would float freely, while reducing sunlight by about 2%. He estimates the cost at “a few trillion dollars”. More information is available at this link. The “Solar Shield” seems to have at least some credibility – the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts deems it a Funded Study.
Space Sunshade Might Be Feasible in Global Warming Emergency – UANews, Nov 3 2006
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I’d never heard the phrase “mediocrity principle,” but yes, I think it’s definitely a big factor in the minds of those who don’t believe in global warming.
I like the idea of the mediocrity principle, but I think it needs a better name: it suggests the people who don’t believe in something are mediocre people.