‘Sunlight on Demand’ Plan Defies Logic

I am shaken by reading “The Race to Save the Night” (Research, June issue), on the controversy about a U.S. company’s plan to offer “sunlight on demand” via space mirrors on 50,000 satellites. Other sources, and elementary logic, confirm Professor Gáspár Bakos’s concerns about the qualitative increase in light pollution: detriment to ecosystems, harmful health effects on people and other living beings, and humanity’s scientific, aesthetic, and spiritual needs to gaze at the night sky.

But what has knocked me off kilter is the degree to which the ideological paradigm that accompanies advanced corporate capitalism permits such absolutely insane ideas to be treated seriously and to have a good shot at being implemented. How in the world can anyone think that geoengineering on this scale will not have unanticipated consequences to a planet already reeling from the effects of industrial growth societies? How can anyone think that the desire of wealthy investors to find more profits can trump the night sky's being part of what Bakos rightly sees as the global public commons?

I almost can’t blame the promoters of this venture or any regulators who would allow it to happen, any more than I blame anyone else who suffers from cognitive delusions and spiritual sickness. But it’s excruciating to watch.