WH opens doors to study blocking sun's rays to slow global warming

[Duppers]

A Biden administration report required by Congress outlines research options for a last-ditch effort to slow the heating of the planet. But the White House says it’s not changing its climate strategy.

The White House offered measured support for the idea of studying how to block sunlight from hitting Earth’s surface as a way to limit global warming, in a congressionally mandated report that could help bring efforts once confined to science fiction into the realm of legitimate debate.
...

The White House report released late Friday indicates that the Biden administration is open to studying the possibility that altering sunlight might quickly cool the planet. But it added a degree of skepticism by noting that Congress has ordered the review, and the administration said it does not signal any new policy decisions related to a process that is sometimes referred to — or derided as — geoengineering.


https://www.politico.com/news/2023/07/01/white-house-cautiously-opens-door-to-study-blocking-suns-rays-to-slow-global-warming-ee-00104513


About time. The knuckle-draggers still do not think global warming is a problem. I've seen attempts to discuss this issue derided in GD forum.

[Phoenix61]

1. NOVA had an excellent program about how air pollution

had been doing just that.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sun/

[NewDayOranges]

2. Cover some of the Arctic and Antarctic landscapes

With huge solar panels and store the energy in batteries/power hubs hundreds of miles away...

[Duppers]

4. Would bet this will be done at some future date.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

5. That's not going to happen, for a whole host of reasons (nt)

[Bayard]

6. Sounds like a good idea to me

Do you have a scientific source to share?

[NewDayOranges]

7. It's just an idea...

[NickB79]

8. This would make climate change worse by altering the albedo effect

Dark surfaces like solar panels would radiate heat into the surrounding environment. This is the same reason why the Arctic is trapped in a death spiral; as the white ice melts, it exposes dark ocean water and tundra soil, which absorbs instead of reflects solar radiation. More ice melts, more ocean and soil exposed, until no ice remains (should hit that point around 2035-2040 now).

To cool the poles, you need to deploy reflective and/or white material, but solar panels can't by their very nature be reflective.

[electric_blue68]

9. I was thinking some years back of floating w ?buoys large sheets of waterproof, rip proof Nylon or

other treated materials in white or near white color to mimic ice sheets in the Arctic

[NewDayOranges]

3. Cover some of the Arctic and Antarctic landscapes

With huge solar panels and store the energy in batteries/power hubs hundreds of miles away...