The Planetary Sunshade Foundation is proposing the installation of a massive “sunshade” in space to reduce so-called global warming. Their scheme builds on physicist Gerard O’Neill’s 1976 theory about the feasibility of space-based, solar-powered satellites providing an unlimited and sustainable energy source for the planet.
Rather than using O’Neill’s concepts to generate power, the current focus is on the viability a giant curtain that would reflect solar radiation, reducing the Earth’s temperature. The Foundation insists this space-based solution could help keep the global temperature below the 1.5 Celsius target set by the Paris Agreement.
Envisioned as a vast megastructure with a total area of over 1.5 million square miles, the sunshade would use solar sail technology. It would be stationed at the Sun-Earth Lagrange-1 point, roughly one million miles from Earth. This location already hosts the James Webb Space Telescope.
Morgan Goodwin, the Executive Director of the Planetary Sunshade Foundation, claims “[o]ur survival as a civilization depends on our ability to wisely and intentionally change how we interact with our planet.”
The move is not the first attempt at human tinkering with the sun and earth, with startups such as “Make Sunsets” releasing reactive particles into the atmosphere in an attempt to alter the climate.
