Life imitates art

June 27, 2005 7:04 PM

A space ring around earthis envisioned as a means to bring down global warming. I couldn't help but think of "scorching the sky" à la Matrix.
posted by Tlahtolli (22 comments total)

oh snap!
my bad. it was this link:
http://www.livescience.com/technology/050627_warming_solution.html
posted by Tlahtolli at 7:06 PM on June 27, 2005

After the first matrix movie came out, but before the other ones, I liked the idea that Morpheus and company were a bunch of crazed Luddite/Anarchists.
Their whole explanation seemed so crummy, i mean people need the sun for food alot more than machines would. And the rational for the machines keeping humans was just like the perpetual cat fur farm.
Even if Morpheus succeeded he would be become the worlds largest mass murderer as the billions of newly awakened people starved to death.

The real story should have been that people screwed up the environment to the point were they had to go into the matrix or just live underground and most people would have chosen the matrix.
posted by Iax at 7:19 PM on June 27, 2005

This was in the Sid Meier Alpha Centauri game as something you could do to manipulate the sea levels.
posted by inksyndicate at 7:25 PM on June 27, 2005

What a great idea! What could possibly go wrong?
posted by odinsdream at 7:37 PM on June 27, 2005

Wouldn't the resources required to build and maintain such a monstrocity excerbate the problem?

You mind explaining why you had the bonsai kitten snopes article in your clipboard, you silly boy?
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 7:40 PM on June 27, 2005

Say ... what ever happened to the satellites the size of Connecticut that were going to beam solar power back to the earth too cheap to even meter?

And my jetpack ... that's should be here by now as well.
posted by Relay at 7:54 PM on June 27, 2005

I just want to know how the space ring is going to help solve the problem of bonzai cats.
posted by nervousfritz at 7:57 PM on June 27, 2005

Maybe it's a way to use the ring as a powerful magnetic field generator to manufacture HUGE Bonsai Kittens nervousfritz.

And I for one welcome our ...
posted by Relay at 8:00 PM on June 27, 2005

This reminds me of the great idea I had when I was about eleven: since there are 'frozen atmospheres' around some of the moons of the outer planets, all we'd have to do is carefully aim all the dangerous nuclear energy we've built up on earth to create an explosion in space that would change said moon(s)'s trajectory to collide (gently) with Mars, melting the moon's atmosphere around that planet and creating a baby atmosphere that we could further engineer until it welcomed its new human overlords. (Of course we'd take into account Mars' own orbit around the Sun, and nudge it (via the impact) into a more favorable orbit, possibly the same as the Earths.)

Viola! We've gotten rid of the problem of disposal of nuclear waste on our own planet, and inaugurated the terraforming of our closest neighbor and only hope for survival as a species!

Man, I still love that idea! (I'm not eleven anymore, though.)
posted by trip and a half at 8:10 PM on June 27, 2005

I'm so sorry about the mixup with the bonsai kitties. See, my mom and pretty much everyone in mexico (judging by the size of my cousin's fwd list) believes the bonsai kittie story is true.

My mom personally didn't get any sleep over it, so i just had to email the snopes story to my cousin and her contact list. Except that i got excited over the ring story and forgot to paste the link.
posted by Tlahtolli at 8:17 PM on June 27, 2005

There is one thing we can be sure of - any fucking around that we do with the climate will only make things worse. The best possible thing we can do is to stop playing with things and let nature look after the planet. It may be too late for that, though.
posted by dg at 8:43 PM on June 27, 2005

But the idea, detailed today in the online version of the journal Acta Astronautica, illustrates that climate change can be battled with new technologies...

Every solution creates a new problem, or likely, new problems. This seems to be true especially with regards to the environment.

I remember watching that part on Animatrix. I felt incredibly sad when the sky and the sun were blocked out. I prayed that we may never come to that, whatever the reason may be. And I'm an atheist.

On a side note: Great site Harry Morgan! I got stuck reading around and looking at some of the pictures. I especially liked the article on parts of the female brain controlling anxiety and fear during orgasm.
posted by state fxn at 9:06 PM on June 27, 2005

Some posit that a space ring may have circled the earth millions of years ago.
posted by brain_drain at 9:10 PM on June 27, 2005

trip and a half: I had a similarish silly idea, but it was about volcanoes. There's talk of the "little ice age" being caused by higher-than-average volcanic activity, why not just trigger a few of them and put this silly "global warming" behind us?
posted by AaronRaphael at 9:44 PM on June 27, 2005

From state fxn's link:

he had trouble getting reliable results from the study on men because the scanning machine needs activities lasting at least two minutes to record an activity

posted by dg at 9:44 PM on June 27, 2005

There is one thing we can be sure of - any fucking around that we do with the climate will only make things worse. The best possible thing we can do is to stop playing with things and let nature look after the planet. It may be too late for that, though.

How can we be sure of this? I suspect that your "best possible thing" would require a drastic and horrific winnowing of the existing human population.
posted by me & my monkey at 10:10 PM on June 27, 2005

global warming + little ice age = stability

but only in charlton heston movies.
posted by telstar at 11:47 PM on June 27, 2005

I suspect that your "best possible thing" would require a drastic and horrific winnowing of the existing human population.

...and that's a bad thing?

Seriously though. What's good for the human population might not be good for individuals. If eventually that drastic winnowing does occur by whichever way, at least there will be a bright side to it.
posted by state fxn at 12:39 AM on June 28, 2005

Geez, all these comments and no-one's mentioned Highlander 2. You saw what happened there when they tried to block the sun's rays, right? When will humanity learn?!?!?
posted by The Dryyyyy Cracker at 10:10 AM on June 28, 2005

Bright side? Not for the people who actually, you know, die, state fxn. But, of course, neither you nor any of your loved ones will fall amongst the victims when the Great Drastic Winnowing finally burns out the planet's deadwood.
posted by The Dryyyyy Cracker at 10:17 AM on June 28, 2005

Fry: This snow is beautiful. I'm glad global warming never happened.
Leela: Actually it did. But thank God nuclear winter cancelled it out!

See? Not only do you not have to stop driving your SUV, you can also stop worrying about North Korea. If someone wants me I'll be at the car dealer's, checking out the Envirocrusher-4.
posted by theemptinessinside at 6:16 AM on June 29, 2005

The Dryyyyy Cracker: I see death as a necessary part of life. Thus I take it rather lightly. I don't think anyone connected to me is in anyway so special as to be exempt from it, if it were to happen. Not to sound insensitive, but life does go on.
posted by state fxn at 1:34 AM on July 2, 2005