(cumulative attenuation from a monodisperse cloud of particles with total mass Mcloud = 109 kg at
Some of my fellow Gerry's Kids have published a study of how we can cool down the earth with moon dust. The idea is based on the High Frontier. Throw some construction robots and bulldozers at the moon; the bots set up and maintain solar collectors, mass drivers (magnetic rail guns) and dust factories. Once deployed, the rail guns shoot 10^10 kg of very fine (100 nm) dust particles at L1 or into an orbit that lingers near L1. The dust reduces sunlight by 1.8%. Cool the earth. In the future, we will vacuum up the dust for space habitat construction.
Almost all of the geoengineering methods I have seen (Termination Shock is a fun book!) do not solve the critical problem of reaching zero CO2 emission and then going negative (sequestering CO2) to mitigate ocean acidification, and other deleterious effects of too much CO2. Humans put almost 3.6% of all new CO2 into the atmosphere and when volcanism has some quiet times, our contribution can go up to almost 4%.
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