April is Earth Month and in the fight against climate change, some of the proposed solutions are moving...out of this world.
A recent University of Utah study published in journal PLOS Climate called "Dust as a Solar Shield" suggested firing lunar dust — potentially with a cannon-like device on the moon — into orbit between the earth and sun to create a solar shield, blocking light and helping cool the planet.
In the study, sunlight wouldn't fade much — only 1-2 percent — but the researchers behind it say the impact would be large and wide-reaching, provided the dust is consistently resupplied.
But would it really work? The short answer is..."yes," according to the local experts at NASA Langley Research Center.
“From a basic level, if we could get some dust up there, it would reduce the sunlight and should help offset global warming," said Patrick Taylor, a Climate Research Scientist at NASA Langley. “(But) that seems like a really hard logistical thing, logical thing, very expensive thing to keep going.
Another concern for Taylor and others is he says we don't know how Earth would respond to less light.
And that's not the only drastic measure he's heard suggested. Others that are more "down-to-earth" include putting reflective mirrors into orbit, adding more sea salt into clouds and removing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air.
“I would say the cheapest and simplest solution is to find alternate energy sources for our energy needs and reduce, and hopefully stop in the near future, the burning of fossil fuels and replacing with hopefully renewable energy like solar and wind," Taylor told News 3.
Taylor says his research mainly centers around warming in the planet's Arctic regions.
“The arctic, on average is warming at least twice as fast as the rest of the globe," he said. “We know from our science, at least half of what’s been happening in the Arctic, the rapid changes, are because of man-made climate change.”
But wouldn't the mining and creating of materials for solar panels and windmills also be damaging to the environment?
Taylor says it will have an impact, but not as much as maintaining the status quo.
“We know in the long term from a climate change perspective, that’s going to be a much lesser environmental impact than continuing to burn fossil fuels," he said.
Bottom line, though, is that it's not too late, Taylor says.
He suggests small, but sustained reductions in emissions to reduce impacts of climate change, like sea-level rise, in the future.
He and other Earth scientists at NASA Langley Research Center are determined to find solutions.
