this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2026
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Climate
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And the twats in the US "government" plan on using satellites to beam sunlight down at night, because we definitely need more fucking hot...
With luck this will get scrapped or they'll get sued. Seems like a stupid ass idea (imagine that).
It's a stupid idea, but it also won't make a difference. Mirrors aren't going to increase the total amount of radiation hitting the Earth, in an amount that can actually make any difference.
The surface area of the Earth is 510,000,000 square kilometers. How much surface area of mirrors can they even fit in a sun synchronous orbit at the edge of dusk or dawn, where the satellite is catching sunlight but not casting a shadow over a part of Earth? Even if they put up a million satellites with mirrors that are 324 square meters that's only 324 million square meters, or 324 square kilometers. In other words, their most optimistic projection involves increasing sunlight by about 0.00006%.
It's a disaster for astronomy, and for ecological balance for any affected wildlife, but won't actually heat up the Earth.