The whole bit about global warming that’s been talked about the last few years never really interested me much — because it’s such old news to me. As a geeky little kid 20+ years ago, I learned all about the concept of global warming from watching PBS and reading various semi-obscure on-the-fringe science books.
And you know what one of my very first thoughts about it all was? We may have accidentally saved our “stupid selves”* from an impending ice age. Ice ages come and go. It’s part of a complex cycle of nature, magnified by various out-gassings and geographic-based weather patterns of the Earth, but driven mainly by the solar output of our local Sun. I remember reading a few decades back how we were overdue for an ice age and thinking what could we do to stop such a thing? Well….
Honestly, one of the first things that occurred to me was reflective mylar sheets in space — all the rage in fringe-science for a while in its day, especially among the Russians who actually put up a small one for testing at one point. A thousand kilometers of taut reflective foil over our heads, keeping us warm on chilly days might be a way to go, but its tricky to maintain these things, and more expensive than you want to think about to actually haul up into orbit in the first place.
But aside from that, Carl Sagan had talked extensively about the Greenhouse Effects on Venus around that time — dense gases on the planet have it baking at 700 degrees (Fahrenheit). So it wasn’t far to go to start wondering if the runaway atmospheric processes on Venus could be used for good purpose here on Earth — that is, to keep an Ice Age at bay — if we could just convince the major nations of the world to pump enough of the the stuff into the air somehow. And then it all dawns on you … as such an irony.
Just remember, if you encounter any extraterrestrials in the next few decades and the subject of Global Warming comes up, just say we did it all on purpose. It looks so much more impressive to leave them thinking we came together as species and terra-formed our world in a bid to protect our Civilization than — well, the Truth.
*Note: I’m a long-time misanthrope. That means, as a person, you probably horribly disappoint me in some way. So, try to do better in the future ok? Thanks.
