Space sunshade exposes dark side of technology

Filed in archive Environment & Health on November 6, 2006

What's the latest proposed solution to global warming? Launch a constellation of trillions of small free-flying spacecraft a million miles above Earth to create a giant shading device.

To his credit, inventor Roger Angel proposes the idea only as an emergency solution. But it still perpetuates our unfortunate habit of trying to solve problems created by technology with more technology. If unforeseen consequences of technologies like automobiles and electricity created the problem of global warming, what makes us think another large-scale technology like trillions of orbiting spacecraft won't lead to even worse unforeseen consequences?

So far, nanotechnology has a pretty good track record for helping solve technological problems. Smog-eating coatings, for example, actually absorb pollutants from the atmosphere and break them down. Let's take the care necessary to keep that record going and not rush into any more "solutions" that turn out to be even bigger problems than the ones we hoped they'd solve. (photo uanews.org)