The New York Times recently published an article about the growing popularity of building a sun shield in outer space to help solve the climate crisis. A kind of giant beach umbrella would shield the Earth from solar radiation and counter global warming.
"The idea has been at the outer fringes of conversations about climate solutions for years. But as the climate crisis worsens, interest in sun shields has been gaining momentum, with more researchers offering up variations," New York Times reporter Cara Buckley wrote.
Istvan Szapudi is one of those researchers. He's a cosmologist at the University of Hawaiʻi Institute for Astronomy. He published an article last summer about his idea for a sun shield.
Speaking to The Conversation, he said a sun shield would only be one component of the solution rather than the whole solution.
"My personal view is that we have to do everything," Szapudi said. "I think we have to basically think through every single avenue because, at this point, we don't know what will happen and how it will happen."
This story aired on The Conversation on Feb. 12, 2024. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. on HPR-1.
