Cooling earth with moon dust – a clever climate solution or making Frankenstein’s monster

Cooling earth with moon dust – a clever climate solution or making Frankenstein’s monster

• The latest media buzz on this front comes from a paper recently published in the journal PLoS Climate.
• A sufficiently powerful volcanic eruption can spew sulfates and other aerosols into the stratosphere, cooling the air there. This fact has motivated human efforts to artificially spray aerosols into the stratosphere to slow global warming, with occasional support from the U.S. government, among others. The U.S. government is currently officially supporting research on solar radiation management (SRM).
• In a controversy late last year, a private venture called Make Sunsets released tiny amounts of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere using balloons in an effort to sell ‘solar-dimming’ as a way to offset carbon emissions. To many researchers, the event was a major red flag signaling the colonization of common goods like the atmosphere by private players.

Moondust:

• Researchers from the U.S. have proposed that billions of tonnes of dust can be launched from the moon to a Lagrange point – a point in space where the earth’s and the Sun’s gravitational fields cancel each other out. The feat is obviously beset by severe technical and economic challenges, yet there is interest in it.
• The science of the consequences of volcanic eruptions is well-established. Aerosols in the stratosphere, especially radiation-scattering ones such as sulfates, do have a cooling effect. This is what led to the ‘year without summer – but it would be unwise to forget the other consequences of the same eruption. 

Possible consequences: 

• The cool summer led to widespread drought across the planet, sent crop yields plummeting, leading to disease and starvation. Many climate models have confirmed that dimming the amount of incoming sunlight with stratospheric aerosols will have similar outcomes.
• Some recent studies have argued that the resulting drought won’t be as harmful and that the GDPs of most countries will be positively affected by this approach to SRM (solar radiation management). 
• Three judge Bench headed by CJI dismisses petition seeking to enhance the minimum age of marriage of women from 18 years to 21 years, on par with men
• Noting that there are some matters which should be left to the “ultimate wisdom of the Parliament”, the Supreme Court dismissed a petition seeking to enhance the minimum age of marriage of women from 18 years to 21 years, on par with men.
• “We should not perceive that we are the exclusive custodians of the Constitution. The Parliament is equally the custodian of the Constitution. Parliament can amend the law to provide uniform marriage age. However desirable it is, the power to do so lies with the Parliament. There are some things which only the Parliament can amend and legislate… We cannot enact the law here,” Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud addressed petitioner-advocate Ashwini Upadhyay.