Photo: ABCNews.go.com
Businessman Andrew Yang, one of the Presidential candidates to get a lot of media attention for various aspects around his campaign, is back in the headlines – this time, with a very bold and very expensive plan to fight climate change.
Made public the other day, the plan sets a 2049 deadline for the U.S. to achieve net-zero carbon emissions, 1 year sooner than the date mentioned by other Presidential candidates in their own plans. However, it’s Yang’s choice of using geoengineering that’s making him stand out from the crowd, as he discusses the possibility of putting “giant mirrors” in space as an effective means of tackling climate change – but also as a “last resort,” The Verge notes.
Yang’s 2-year plan would cost $4.87 trillion, with a large chunk of that money going to NASA and the Department of Defense and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), for research on geoengineering, including those giant, foldable mirrors. They would be used as a last-ditch attempt to lower the temperature of the planet by deflecting light and heat from the sun.
“Space mirrors would involve launching giant foldable mirrors into space that would deploy and reflect much of the sun’s light [away from the planet]. This method would be extremely expensive, which is why it should be investigated as a last resort. However, since we would be able to ‘undo’ the mirror after deployment if needed, it’s less permanent,” Yang suggests in the plan.
Other measures to tackle climate change are more… conservative, like reducing reliance on fossil fuels, increased use of renewable energy, new means of capturing and harvesting carbon emissions, and establishing new standards of emissions of cars, buildings and the electric grid, including harsh penalties for those who continue to pollute.
As Yang sees it, the U.S. has the money and the brains to become a leader in green technology and, with the clock running out on our planet, it’s time they did something to put both to good use. “We’re the most entrepreneurial country in the history of the world. It’s time to activate the American imagination and work ethic to provide the innovation and technology that will power the rest of the world,” he says.
Steven Cohen, director of the research program on sustainability policy and management at Columbia University's Earth Institute, tells The Verge that, while Yang’s idea to focus more on science and technology is a solid one, he’s in the wrong for putting blind faith in it to save Earth. Or, as other critics put it, the climate change crisis needs active measures to reduce the damage we’re still doing to our planet and not some band-aid measure that would cover it. A giant, foldable, space mirror-shaped band-aid, if you will.
Yang’s 2-year plan would cost $4.87 trillion, with a large chunk of that money going to NASA and the Department of Defense and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), for research on geoengineering, including those giant, foldable mirrors. They would be used as a last-ditch attempt to lower the temperature of the planet by deflecting light and heat from the sun.
“Space mirrors would involve launching giant foldable mirrors into space that would deploy and reflect much of the sun’s light [away from the planet]. This method would be extremely expensive, which is why it should be investigated as a last resort. However, since we would be able to ‘undo’ the mirror after deployment if needed, it’s less permanent,” Yang suggests in the plan.
Other measures to tackle climate change are more… conservative, like reducing reliance on fossil fuels, increased use of renewable energy, new means of capturing and harvesting carbon emissions, and establishing new standards of emissions of cars, buildings and the electric grid, including harsh penalties for those who continue to pollute.
As Yang sees it, the U.S. has the money and the brains to become a leader in green technology and, with the clock running out on our planet, it’s time they did something to put both to good use. “We’re the most entrepreneurial country in the history of the world. It’s time to activate the American imagination and work ethic to provide the innovation and technology that will power the rest of the world,” he says.
Steven Cohen, director of the research program on sustainability policy and management at Columbia University's Earth Institute, tells The Verge that, while Yang’s idea to focus more on science and technology is a solid one, he’s in the wrong for putting blind faith in it to save Earth. Or, as other critics put it, the climate change crisis needs active measures to reduce the damage we’re still doing to our planet and not some band-aid measure that would cover it. A giant, foldable, space mirror-shaped band-aid, if you will.
Google News