Elon Musk Proposes Sunshine Control With Satellites..."You can stop global warming"

Photo by: Wired

Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla and SpaceX, recently drew attention by suggesting the idea of controlling sunlight reaching Earth using satellites on Twitter. "Using a solar-powered AI satellite network can prevent global warming," he said.

Musk's idea is to control the amount of heat the Earth receives by reflecting or blocking some of the sun's light, which is called "Solar Radiation Management (SRM)" in the scientific community. To put it simply, it is a concept that slows down the temperature rise by controlling some of the sunlight like a giant sponge.

However, experts are cautious about this proposal. Because the global climate is so complex and sensitive, even a small change in sunlight can make various weather patterns such as rain, wind, and temperature unpredictable. Ethical and political issues also follow, such as whether some areas will block more sunlight and others less.

Currently, Musk's proposal is at a conceptual level, and in fact, hundreds of thousands of satellites have not been implemented to control the global climate. Experts stress that technologies such as SRM cannot replace fundamental countermeasures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and that technical and ethical reviews should be conducted sufficiently.

The tweet is meaningful in that it unveiled technically challenging ideas and sparked discussions on responding to climate change. However, it is expected that it will take a long time to realize the actual application due to various challenges such as cost, technology, international cooperation, and ethical standards.