January 28, 2006
A town in Italy that's inside a deep valley doesn't get sunlight during several months of the year, and they've come up with a horrific "solution": installing a giant mirror on a neighboring mountain to reflect sunlight into their town's piazza (that's Italian for "town square").
Even worse, we're informed that other cities in Canada, the U.S., and France are looking into similar plans.
Obviously, attempts like this will simply exacerbate global warming, reflecting the sun back to previously cool areas, heating the Earth and leading us to a global catastrophe. Some cities are even considering sawing the tops off mountains to get sunlight.
However, these plans set me to thinking, and I've asked several members of my Arcata Project to look into this matter.
What if we installed giant mirrors on high mountains, and had them reflect the sunlight back into space? We could even use the Hubble Space Telescope to carry giant - but lightweight - foil "sun reflectors" so some of the Sun's heat doesn't reach the Earth.
Of course, this would just be a stopgap measure until we can elect President Gore in 2008, then we can finally ratify the Kyoto Accords and start to work on a real solution and stop the coming global superstorm.
Posted by Lori Gold to Lori Gold at January 28, 2006 01:54 PM
You do know that you are insane, don't you?
What's horrifying is that your education was so lacking that you think this has anything to do with global warming! Ask yourself where this light goes without the mirror. Since you're obviously one of the science and math-phobes who ridiculed the nerds in high school instead of spending any time paying attention in physics class, I doubt you'll be able to figure it out, so I'll explain it. The mirror creates a shadow behind it. The area shadowed by the mirror does not get warmed. A little energy is absorbed by the mirror, thus warming the mirror slightly. The rest lights and warms the town square, instead of lighting and warming the area that is now in the mirror's shadow. The earth receives no net gain or loss of energy over what it otherwise would have.
The real question is whether someone so obviously ignorant deserves to participate in choosing who runs the country. How many other topics do you hold yourself forth as an expert on, in spite of being totally ignorant?
Better yet - tinfoil hats! If every balding fellow switches from ball cap to tin foil, it reflects enough sunlight to cause ice age - which, of course, increases tourism dollars from Iraq's new ski industry.
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