Although the sun is an essential life force, we need to protect ourselves from its relentless glare.
Sunglasses? Check. Beach umbrella? Check. Tinted car windows? Check. A huge, multi-trillion-dollar parasol floating in outer space to reduce global warming? Uh… huh?
Ready or not, here come the corporate hucksters and techno-fantasists with a dazzling scheme to prevent climate-change without requiring any actual change in human behavior. Amazing! It’s easy, they exclaim: Simply put a massive SpaceBrella, between us and El Sol, and – voila! – it will block enough of those bad ol’ sunrays to lower the planet’s temp enough for us to keep trucking.
This is indeed simple – as in “simpleton”. It reminds me of the 1950’s atomic bomb drills we had in elementary school, when we tykes were instructed to protect ourselves by crouching under our desks.
Today’s SpaceBrella hawkers offer the same sort of approach: Since political and corporate powers aren’t doing near enough to prevent cataclysmic climate disaster, they cheerfully say we can hide under their phantasmagoric space shield. That way, we won’t have to bother Big Oil, Big Coal, and other money powers with our demands to convert from an exploitative fossil-fuel economy to climate-friendly fuels and sustainable systems.
It’s embarrassing that this clique of profiteers, politicians, and so-called scientists should be so frivolous as to propose that humanity dodge reality and fritter away our future on such a gimmick. The real solution is right here on Earth, basically requiring that we STOP THE STUPIDITY!
These techno-money schemes are like Icarus, the mythological Greek character who created wings of wax and feathers so he could fly – but he flew too close to the sun, and his wings melted, so he plunged to his death in the sea.
Do something
Here on Earth, there are loads of environmental justice organizations taking serious action on climate change—and many of them are led by young people, to boot. Here are a few of our favorites:
Is “Icarus” the Solution to Climate Change?