Solar Umbrella (Book 1)

27: Proposals

"OKAY, WE AGREED to talk about any proposal here, right?" Parker asked and waited for the agreements and head nods. "So, hear me out, you know how an umbrella cools you because it blocks the sun, right? So Kate was talking," he waited for the oooo's and whistles to stop, "alright, alright, settle down. Kate had this umbrella and it got me thinking," he stopped again, took a breath to settle himself down. "Okay, so, food is a problem. It's too hot to grow, there's too much sun...that's one problem. Storms are out of control. Areas heat up too long, there's forest fires. The ocean heats up too much and you get hurricanes and typhoons. That's two. Three, the Arctic and Antarctic ice is melting out of control and flooding the planet. Fourth, parts of the planet, especially here at the equator are literally unlivable. Animals and humans simply can't survive, so we have mass migrations that are killing millions. Add to that, we're overloading the rest of the planet. It's a series of dominoes falling out of control. Finally, the overall temperature is just too high and it's still going up and will continue no matter what we do. That's five major issues we're facing, and if it's not the top five, they're all up there. So far, so good? Well, I mean bad. Fuck, you know what I'm saying."

Fen Wu jumped in to save him. "Parker, slow down. We're listening, and yes, you've listed a bunch of issues we're looking at," she said calmly. "Surely you're not suggesting we can solve them all at once?"

Marie Pesquet added, "none of the ideas we've looked at so far can cover all of those...are you suggesting a hybrid solution of some sort? We're listening."

Alex just looked at Parker, his arms crossed, a wry smile on his face that said more than words could. He thought Parker had lost his mind. Maybe he was right.

"So yeah, the umbrella. I read up, and just having an umbrella can drop the temperature eleven degrees. Just like that," Parker snapped his fingers. "I mean, I know it's nothing we don't know. Clouds, tree cover, a piece of plastic tarp...they all do the same thing, right? We talked about clouds a while ago, and one of our sticking points was that they were just too hard to control. And once you had them, what if you wanted to get rid of them? A lot of variables out of our control, right?"

The rest of the group nodded agreement, inviting him to continue.

"Okay, so what if instead of clouds, it was an umbrella?" he asked. "If you put the umbrella far out enough, you can block the sun before it gets to Earth. By limiting the actual energy the planet receives, we limit the impact it has." He put out his hands at his sides, "ta-da..."

The other people at the table had a look on their face similar to Kate's the night before. Parker was ready for this. He had a lot more to say, but he wanted to let it sink in for a minute and let them ask questions—he had answers.

"Parker," Alex ventured, "are you suggesting a...space umbrella?" He tilted his head to the side, waiting for Parker's response.

"I mean, I was thinking of solar umbrella, but it could be sun net or heat tarp, I don't care," he replied.

Fen had been looking down for a while, seemingly lost in thought. "So...are you thinking the umbrella sits out there in space in between the sun and Earth, and it's letting in more or less sun depending on what we need?" she asked and waited for Parker to nod. "And, we're going to be able to, I don't know, open and close the thing whenever we want?"

Parker smiled, he had been expecting this question early and had some thoughts. "So, stop picturing an actual umbrella and instead think of something more like a big quilt. An old one like you'd see at a rustic cabin...all little pieces quilted together. Each little patch on our quilt is a pixel, like on an old computer monitor. Instead of opening and closing an umbrella, you're changing the density of each pixel—each patch on the quilt," he replied, opening and closing his hands in front of one of the lamps on the table.

Pesquet took over for him, running with the idea. "I think I can see it. You can match up the pixels to places on the Earth. You could let in the perfect amount of energy for your purpose. Leave it transparent to power a solar array. Set it to opaque to cool an ocean current and prevent a hurricane," she said. "Parker, I think there's something here. Pardon my French, but holy shit."

Wu was nodding along to Pesquet. "I can see it too, we could use the different pixels to affect different areas," she added. "You could allow enough sunlight on a farm to grow food perfectly, either by setting it at, say sixty percent all day, or leaving it open for only a part of the day. By controlling it over the course of the entire planet, we could significantly lower the overall energy the Earth takes in, which would lower global temperatures, without having a negative impact on areas that need that sun. There is definitely something here Parker."

Alex finally jumped in with a question. His face still screamed suspicion, but he had moved forward in his chair listening to the others. "The sun is spinning at 66,000 kilos a day. The Earth does about 1700 in the same time. How is this quilt of yours going to manage to keep the sun lined up with the places on Earth you're targeting? That's a lot of moving pieces to hit perfectly."

A few others at the table nodded along with Alex thinking the same thing. Parker prepared to answer, but Fen jumped in. "It's just math. Look around Alex. I've seen your resume. You could probably do it on your own. We teach software to line it all up, look to the future, measure the changes and adapt. The pixels don't line up with the Earth. They're just a stop on the way for the energy. The light leaves the sun, travels to this umbrella, gets dimmed or let through on the way to the final destination here on Earth."

It was going better than Parker had hoped. He had been so excited last night, he had barely slept. It had been like old times with Kate, only better. They had stayed up for hours talking about it, looking for negatives, but they both agreed this idea was worth pursuing. "So, Fen. Do we add it to the list?" he asked.

"Oh, absolutely Parker," she replied immediately.

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I decided to post a few new chapters for the holidays. Hope you enjoyed. Reminder that the whole book is finished and available on amazon and Kindle Unlimited. There is a sequel as well that is complete. Learn more at author.mrjohnston.ca