Space shades are often touted as our last hope if our climate change situation gets too out of control. If we can’t keep carbon emissions down, we could just block the sun. I hear this option get thrown out very casually, but I’ve never seen a realistic look at what that would look like. How big would it need to be? How much would it cost? Wound it even work? So I decided to take a serious deep dive.
The current rate of species extinction is alarming, but it’s happening at a time when we may, for the first time in history, be able to bring back extinct species. We’re getting very close. And some think it may be a key to fighting climate change.
Movies like Jurassic Park have shown the wonders and dangers of bringing back extinct species. It’s not really science fiction anymore.
While we’re probably not going to be bringing back dinosaurs anytime soon – the DNA is just too damaged over that time – there is the potential for bringing back prehistoric mammals, and even animals that we’re losing in the current extinction event.
Some think that bringing back mammoths – or something like them – could help climate change by feeding on the bushes that absorb heat and thaw the permafrost.
Other species, like passenger pigeons, which once migrated in flocks so big they would darken the sky for days at a time, may have served to help keep forests healthy, and bringing them back could help with our forests.
And others, like the saber-tooth tiger, could be just for fun.
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Earth Day was this weekend, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to look at some of the most common myths promoted by climate change skeptics and see what the science has to say about it. Links to supporting material below.
