The World Economic Forum recently suggested that “space bubbles” can be used to block out the sun and thereby reduce climate change.
Highlighting a study from Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers, the entity explained last month that the “geoengineering” project seeks to reflect a portion of solar radiation back into space. The group said that a device, which covers an area the size of Brazil, would likely pose “no risk” of disrupting the planet’s ecosystems because of its deployment in space rather than in the atmosphere.
“Geoengineering might be our final and only option,” Carlo Ratti, an MIT researcher and architect, said of the project. “Yet, most geoengineering proposals are earth-bound, which poses tremendous risks to our living ecosystem. Space-based solutions would be safer — for instance, if we deflect 1.8 percent of incident solar radiation before it hits our planet, we could fully reverse today’s global warming.”
The bubbles, made of a thin plastic material, would be manufactured in space and positioned at the L1 Lagrangian Point, where the gravitational pulls between the Earth and the sun cancel out.
According to an MIT press release, “This proposal addresses many questions: How to engineer the best material for the bubbles to withstand outer space conditions? How to fabricate and deploy these bubbles in space? How to make the shield fully reversible? What are the potential long-term effects on Earth’s ecosystem?”
In his most recent budget proposal, President Joe Biden suggested funding several climate technology initiatives — including a $3.2 billion loan to the Clean Technology Fund, which provides resources to developing countries “to scale up low carbon technologies with significant potential for long-term greenhouse gas emissions savings.” In recent days, however, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) announced that he would “unequivocally” refuse to support Democratic legislation related to climate change in future spending packages.
The World Economic Forum, led by German economist Klaus Schwab since 1971, is an international non-governmental entity based in Geneva, Switzerland. The group holds an annual summit that assembles corporate and government leaders to discuss approaches toward running the global order.
“The future is not just happening. The future is built by us, by a powerful community as you here in this room,” Schwab said at this year’s summit. “We have the means to improve the state of the world. But two conditions are necessary. The first one is that we act all as stakeholders of larger communities, that we serve not only self-interest but we serve the community. That’s what we call stakeholder responsibility. And second, that we collaborate.”
Schwab argued in 2020 that the world needs a “Great Reset” on capitalism. “Every country, from the United States to China, must participate, and every industry, from oil and gas to tech, must be transformed,” he wrote.
Climate change protesters have begun vandalizing masterpieces in an effort to draw attention to their environmental policies. Earlier this month, protesters glued their hands to a copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” at a museum in London. In May, a cross-dressing activist threw cake at the “Mona Lisa,” while two activists glued their hands to a Vincent van Gogh painting in a London museum last month.
