I'm getting really sick of all these environmentalists whining about the global warming. Ice shelf collapse this... catastrophic flooding that.... And then insisting I have to give up my SUV and stay warm during the winter with mere sweaters.

So I propose we cool earth. The main problem we have is that we are too darn close to the sun. What we need to do is trade momentum with a convenient nearby celestial body. What I propose is that we sling a bunch of superballs off the moon as the earth-moon system accelerates away from Mars in our orbit. The superballs would be targetted at Mars (ideally at a trampoline on Mars). Mars bounces the balls back to, preferrably the Moon, and the process repeats itself. In a few millenia, we'll be a couple percent farther from the sun, and Mars will be a couple percent closer.

Now, does anyone know how to convert Ceres into a superball?
-- pathetic, Mar 22 2002

Does anyone know how to convert this into an idea worth keeping here?
-- bristolz, Mar 22 2002


Ditch the first rather baitlicious paragraph, then spend a few minutes trying to come up with an idea to move earth that woulden't involve causing the moon to either de-orbit or attempt a re-entry?
Other than that, I can't think of anything.
-- Orb2069, Mar 22 2002


Cough... conservationofmomentum... cough cough.
-- st3f, Mar 22 2002


You could of course just put up a giant smoked glass window between the earth and the sun. Simply open it every now and then to stop everything freezing.
-- jambu, Mar 22 2002


Ceres _is_ a superball, didn't you know?

Inane whatever-it-is (not an idea). Global warming is a myth anyway.
-- waugsqueke, Mar 22 2002


But I WANT the earth to warm up. When the sea levels rise, that newly-ocean-front property I own in the middle of Kansas will be prime real estate, and I'll be able to retire in style. A few years after that -- after I've bilked the folks who haven't drowned or been melanoma'd to death for every scrap of their equity for cornfield-cum-beachfront timeshares, then we can talk about cooling things off enough to repurpose the Dakotas for glacial recreation.
-- quarterbaker, Mar 22 2002


Exactly how cold do you want the Earth to get? You may lose a few friends considering some people already have nasty cold winters.

Careful what you wish for - quick fix - nuclear winter, very cold, very bad.
-- dag, Mar 23 2002



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