The Maine Solution to Global Warming

Greetings L. John Neihouse,

I have had a similar thought, only on how to mitigate
global warming rather than to figure out it's root
cause or causes. Below is a copy of a speech I gave
at a Toastmaster's meeting about a month ago. If you
think it has any merit, please add it to your website.
I too plan to send copies to politicians and would be
very interested in seeing some parts of it started.

I am glad you got your website up, it's very
interesting.

kind regards,

Dave Handwerk

Global Warming Revisited

Toastmaster Club # 111
Presented by: David Handwerk
February 7th, 2008

Did anyone here watch the story on the History
Channel, on Sunday evening 01/27/2008, on Global
Warming? It was sobering. There are not many of us
who dont believe Global Warming is real, although we
may not agree on exactly what is causing it. Does it
really matter if it is caused be Greenhouse gasses,
increased solar radiation or by some other cause(s)?
Well, maybe a little so that we can try to reverse it.
However the results of Global Warming make it
irreversible. Let me explain. The melting of the
Tundra in Siberia, Alaska and Canada is releasing
Methane from frozen hydrate in and under the ground
and lakes. Methane is a Greenhouse gas 5 times more
potent than Carbon Dioxide. Further Methane hydrates
in the ocean, will boil off as the oceans warm. This
and other rational, in my opinion make this an
irreversible, chain reaction that will increase Global
Warming (whatever its initial cause), until all the
frozen Methane is in the atmosphere. This chain
reaction will speed up over the years; I guestimate a
60-foot sea-level rise in the next 100 years. Make no
mistake, this is serious, and it may lead to the
extinction of life on earth, other than a few
'Extremophile' single cell lifeforms. This is just my
estimate based on an average of what I have read, it
could be much sooner, or later. So since nothing on
heaven or earth can stop it, I recommend selling your
beachfront home and buying in the mountains.

WAIT, did I say on heaven or earth? Lets look at it
one more time from heaven. Global Warming occurs
because sunlight from our slightly variable sun passes
through 93,000,000 miles of space, then strikes the
earth and is partially absorbed by the earths land,
oceans and atmosphere. There doesnt appear to be
much we can do at the earth end, but might it be
possible to attenuate some of the sunlight between the
Sun and the Earth?

What do you think of this idea? We put up a partial
reflector at the Sun-Earth-L1-Lagrange-Orbit (Ill
just call it
L-1). L-1 is a very stable location that stays
between the earth and the Sun with very little effort.
So what will it take to do this?

To accomplish this remediation (and to provide at
least 2/3rds of Earths Energy needs) in the next 20
years, with my estimated Sea-level rise of 4 to 5
feet, we must do the following steps:
1. Realize that we will be able to resolve these
problems from space, and to spread the word.
2. Quickly develop the political will to make this
happen.
3. Increase the space budget by a factor of 11 or
more, to $2B / year (about what the Iraq War costs).
4. Persuade other nations to join in this effort,
(Perhaps we could remind them of the costs that
sea-level rise will have on their nations) and begin
updating our space program.

As money becomes available here is what NASA, or
whoever runs the project should do:

A. Improve our launch capability tonnage by a factor
of 1,000 while lowering the cost to orbit by a factor
of 1,000. This could be done be adopting various
Electromagnetic & Tether Launch Systems, in as little
as 5 years.
B. Establish a dozen or two Lunar Colonies to Strip
Mine lunar regolith from the Moons surface then to
electromagnetically launching it in a stream of
buckets to L-1 (as defined above).
C. Establish a dozen Solar Powered Space Factories at
L-1, to process this dust and cause it to form a
controllable cloud to attenuate the sunlight headed
for Earth.
D. Allow commercial interests access to space to build
Space Solar Power Satellites to provide at least
2/3rds of Earths Energy needs. The rest could be
provided by on-earth Solar, Wind, Fusion, Geothermal,
etc. (Access to low fixed cost supply of electricity
could further persuade other nations to join in this
effort.)
E. This needs to be studied and acted upon as quickly
as possible. If we could get the entire system
operational in 20 years, plus another year or so to
cause actual reversal, sea-level rise may max out at
only 4 5 feet. Cities could build dikes and the
land loss may be acceptable.

The scientific and engineering effort is huge; we have
a lot of work to do. This includes:

i. Quickly developing various ElectroMagnetic Launch
Systems(EMLSs).
ii. Test the suitability and properties of lunar
regolith for this purpose and design machinery to
re-powder and disseminate the compacted lunar soil.
iii. Rapidly develop lunar colony and mining plans.
iv. Rapidly develop Solar Powered Space Factory plans.
v. Automate the entire project, as it may need to
operate for decades or centuries.

This huge project has other benefits that may not be
obvious. Very fast, very low cost transportation
between points on earth and/or space destinations.
The relocation of many polluting mining and
manufacturing plants to space. The opening of vast
energy sources, vast material resources and vast new
land areas in space. Adventure, exploration,
expansion, and colonization of the solar system and
eventually the galaxy.

I for one think this project is extremely important
and plan to spend my remaining life on its
realization.

Thank you.