You can't do it all with mirrors
A costing for a giant sunshade in space shows that there are probably better ways to spend the money.
The leading economist Nicholas Stern has just handed us, in advance, the bill for the impacts of climate change: close to $4 trillion by the end of this century1.
And with perfect timing, astronomer Roger Angel of the University of Arizona has delivered the equivalent of a builder's estimate for patching up the problem using a cosmic sunshade2. It will set us back by... well, let's make it a nice round figure of $4 trillion by the end of the century.
Read the column here.
Comments
Great article, Phil. I wonder if there are any costings available for the low-level technofixes to which you allude? In a B&Q hardware store the other day, I found that you can have a domestic wind turbine supplied and installed for less than GBP1600 inc taxes (about USD3000). As advertised, this can save up to 30% of domestic electricity costs. If all the houses in the world installed one, I wonder how much this tried-and-tested technology would cost globally?
Posted by: Henry Gee | November 2, 2006 10:45 AM
If designed with features, the sunscreen could be a better *roof," not just a replacement.
For example, it could be designed to alter regional weather, which could be very cautiously studied, then phased it where desirable. How much would a fertile Sahara be worth, an aborted hurricane in the American Gulf, or a well-timed rainstorm in Sudan?
Posted by: David Rudloff | November 2, 2006 01:32 PM
Good article, good idea but unfortunately I don’t see it ever happening.
What we could do though is to apply reflecting material to many more things on Earth. Snow reflects tons of heat and etc. We should put tiles on house that are a light color to reflect the sun. We should cover vast amount of land with white plastic that normally has had snow on it in the North. We should put a white dye in the asphalt to create roads with a lighter color. Every building should have a white roof. What we also could do is install many millions of solar panels on roofs and in the desert to create power and reflect the sun.
Trees create shade to cool the Earth. We need to plant millions more trees.
Posted by: Steve Langdon | November 2, 2006 06:28 PM
A little science fiction is a dangerous thing. A decade before the etraterrestrial space optics of Cooper & Niven's "Ice and Mirrors" appeared , Larry Niven and Jerry pournelle produced a novel appropritately title 'Fallen Angels' in which the return of the earthly Ice Ages is preciptated by excess of zeal on EPA's part, as a tottal ban on greenhouse gases usshers in anunwounted Big Chill.
While Henry Gee's wind driven technology fix weighs in in the low trillions of dollars along with Roger Angels smart space umbrellas , Paul Crutzen's
revival of shady aerosols is barely macroeconomic- SO2 is cheap as coal and the kilogram per capita per year mass budgets of the aerosol parasol school of remedial albedo modification yield envelope back cost estimates in the mere tens of billions of dollars a year- Paul may be on to something , given our perennial survival of volcanic sulfate conniptions and catastrophes .
Posted by: Russell Seitz | November 2, 2006 10:24 PM
Dear Phillip:
Your approbation of my shooting from the hip last week led me to try a
right and a left at the high birds over Carlton House Terrace yesterday
in the WSJ Europe yesterday. Current RS management got away when it was edited for lengthby the Wall Street Journal Europe-
Here is the link to 'Nullus in verba '
http://adamant.typepad.com/
Posted by: Russell Seitz | November 5, 2006 07:09 PM
I don't know where you get the number $4 trillion in the first line. You later cite the same report as saying that we can spend 1% of GDP to reduce emissions, or else suffer economic effects from global warming of 20% of GDP .
Global GDP is now about $50 trillion annually. So 1% over 50 years is $25T, and 20% over the same time interval is half a quadrillion. That's assuming a stagnant economy--plugging in the current 5% growth rate and looking out to the end of the century gives a price of 1 petabuck in reduction to save 20 in damages.
$4 trillion is a minuscule amount of money to save the world. There may be cheaper ways to achieve the same goals, but Stern's analysis tells us that there are more expensive ways as well.
Posted by: David Palmer | May 14, 2007 09:22 PM