Month: June 2024

Politics is gang warfare using language. It long ago ceased to be a public debate on different choices we can make. In the details it should be, so when the final law is made it has to be enforceable. Often these days though neither the ‘debate’ is detached from reality and the final law is of nobodies interest, because the whole process was a distraction to allow the passing of other laws nobody talks about.

The problem is really

In the Netherlands the leader of the VVD party (which ruled for the last 13 years under Mark Rutte), in the run up to the elections of 2023, claimed immigrants where reuniting with family by the thousands in Holland, one after the other ‘nareizer’ (individual now allowed in because the first member of the family was allowed in) was flooding our country. This triggered a mass vote for the anti-immigrant PVV (Geert Wilders) which now led to an insane new government formed and run by people that openly admit interest in Nazi ideology, and run by a former head of the intelligence agency and confidant of the same Mark Rutte. I mean the VVD, when it gets thrown out, always tries to install another party that will then do the dirty work and suffer electoral defeat allowing the VVD to reenter the scene.

The problem is really that nobody respects facts. This is the nature of politics, everything is an opinion and if you can make people doubt the words of your opponent you are ‘winning’. It is a game of brainwashing, where you can end up like two muslims debating whether islam fully supports christianity or not. Its all stories and zero fact. This is defeating the purpose of government, which is to protect the fundamental rights of its citizen. This fact free epidemic comes on top of zero policy disclosure. Copying the habit of republicans in the US, there is barely an outline of what people plan to do. Especially the right wing is always about punishing unwanted behavior and never about supporting wanted behavior. The latter because that wanted behavior usually looks pretty anti-social if you investigate. I would suggest two principles to change all this.

First, with every proposal there should be a one page explanation of the position, a ‘position-paper’. The politician or minister can only talk about a proposal for which such explanation is provided. This makes it easy for every citizen to read the proposal and form an opinion. The position paper can change, that means it gets published with an update. Currently proposals for laws or motions in parliament come with a short explanation, but this is often too short and is hard to trace back to previous proposals. This is because some are made for show. The opposition often makes a huge noise as it makes proposals that never go anywhere because well, they are the opposition.

Second, every verifiable assertion of a fact must be verified, and once it is it is the only assertion or fact that can be used. So if the VVD claims ‘many thousands of family reuniting immigrants flood the country’, this can be checked, it has to be checked and say it turns out to be 1200 people in 2022 then this is the only fact others can use when they want to talk about ‘family reuniting immigrants in 2022’. Give the fact a name, an code, store it. These ‘known facts’ have to be used in position papers. They are to be determined by a method that is explained. The Netherlands has the CBS, which is the central bureau of statistic, the AR (? Algemene rekenkamer) general accountancy office. Sources can not be ‘authorities’ they have to be the closest to the real world or people will once again go to sleep believing some political source of truth.

Fact determination has to be hypertransparent, so for example use @X platform to report. It has to be tied to individuals that do the reporting or data that is from satellites or other sources, bank statements. All as transparent as possible. The debate on what is a fact and what not should not take place in parliament or during debates. The point of the proceedings is how to deal with reality, what laws need to change to make it better. Financial facts should also be public, which includes all income of politicians, previous employers etc. so people can see who is a lobbyist. If you want to make a broad statement it can be required to get it fact checked first. It becomes easier to take actual facts and present them, this in itself always causes a bias anyway, I mean if I talk about tapdancing smurfs for 5 minutes this massively biases your mind towards thinking they have some reality or importance.

There should also be more openness about undiscussed or undebated laws, because some rediculous laws passed in recent years that really hurt society, namely the investment in rentad homes and other laws that benefit banks and the totalitarian machinery. But the first step is to eliminate lies as much as possible using verified facts!

I’m doing a couple of ESP32 projects because I want to get to know the device. Some code is hard to find or doesn’t work so here I share it.

If you want me to build an ESP-32 application for you email at frits@rincker.nl

I use the ESP32-Wroom module and the ESP32-CAM module from AI-tinker.

Make sure your power supply is stabile, so direct USB connection to your computer, not via a hub. Also add delays if you think the process crashes due to power draw issues.

ESP32-CAM

A simple function of the ESP32-CAM module that is for sale in Holland is to make pictures and store them on the Micro-SD card. This is often done with a time function to add a date but that’s not included here. This code will save the images in the root dir of the SD, with numbers (counter) that run up. If you restart the module it will start again at 0 and overwrite previous images. You can set the time between images with the delay in the loop part.

#include <eloquent_esp32cam.h>
#include <eloquent_esp32cam/extra/esp32/fs/sdmmc.h>
#include "SD_MMC.h" 
#include "FS.h" 

using namespace eloq;

int counter;

// Function to write the image file to the SD card
void writeFile(fs::FS &fs, const char * path, const uint8_t * data, size_t length){
    Serial.printf("Writing file: %s\n", path);

    File file = fs.open(path, FILE_WRITE);
    if(!file){
        Serial.println("Failed to open file for writing");
        return;
    }

    if(file.write(data, length)){
        Serial.println("File written");
    } else {
        Serial.println("Write failed");
    }
    file.close();
}

void setupSSD() {
    if(!SD_MMC.begin()){
        Serial.println("Card Mount Failed");
        return;
    }

    uint8_t cardType = SD_MMC.cardType();

    if(cardType == CARD_NONE){
        Serial.println("No SD_MMC card attached");
        return;
    }

    Serial.print("SD_MMC Card Type: ");
    if(cardType == CARD_MMC){
        Serial.println("MMC");
    } else if(cardType == CARD_SD){
        Serial.println("SDSC");
    } else if(cardType == CARD_SDHC){
        Serial.println("SDHC");
    } else {
        Serial.println("UNKNOWN");
    }

    uint64_t cardSize = SD_MMC.cardSize() / (1024 * 1024);
    Serial.printf("SD_MMC Card Size: %lluMB\n", cardSize);
    Serial.printf("\n\n\n");
}

void setup() {
    delay(3000);
    Serial.begin(115200);
    setupSSD();
    // camera settings
    // replace with your own model!
    camera.pinout.aithinker();
    camera.brownout.disable();
    camera.resolution.vga();
    camera.quality.high();

    // init camera
    while (!camera.begin().isOk())
        Serial.println(camera.exception.toString());
    Serial.println("Camera OK");
}

void loop() {
    if (!camera.capture().isOk()) {
        Serial.println(camera.exception.toString());
        return;
    } else { 
        Serial.println("Capturing Image");
    }

    
    String path = "/picture";
    path += counter;
    path +=".jpg";

    writeFile(SD_MMC, path.c_str(), camera.frame->buf, camera.frame->len);
    
    delay(3000); // Capture image every 10 seconds
    
    counter++;
}

ESP32 Wifi Config

This is code to have the ESP32 module log in to to set the Wifi and that then will log into the Wifi itself. You can use this if you want to set up the module as a sensor that talks to a server, if you want to use the ESP32-CAM module that you want to post pictures via your Wifi network. This code stores the password in the eprom memory and if it doesn’t find any credentials that work it will ask for ‘network id/password’ in a dialog. I have not figured out how to make it captive on my mobile phone, but it does direct to the configuration page when you log in with your laptop or PC.

Then if you are logged in the Wifi network it will do a POST to a website.

#include <FS.h>                   //this needs to be first, or it all crashes and burns...

#include <WiFi.h>          //https://github.com/esp8266/Arduino

//needed for library
#include <DNSServer.h>
#include <WebServer.h>
#include <WiFiManager.h>          //https://github.com/tzapu/WiFiManager
#include <HTTPClient.h>

void setup() {
  // put your setup code here, to run once:
  Serial.begin(115200);
  Serial.println();

  //WiFiManager
  //Local intialization. Once its business is done, there is no need to keep it around
  WiFiManager wifiManager;

  //exit after config instead of connecting
  //wifiManager.setBreakAfterConfig(true);

  //reset settings - for testing
  //wifiManager.resetSettings();


  //tries to connect to last known settings
  //if it does not connect it starts an access point with the specified name
  //here  "AutoConnectAP" with password "password"
  //and goes into a blocking loop awaiting configuration
  if (!wifiManager.autoConnect("AutoConnectAP", "password")) {
    Serial.println("failed to connect, we should reset as see if it connects");
    delay(3000);
    ESP.restart();
    delay(5000);
  }

  //if you get here you have connected to the WiFi
  Serial.println("connected...yeey :)");


  Serial.println("local ip");
  Serial.println(WiFi.localIP());
}

void loop() {
  Serial.println("In the loop");
  Serial.println(WiFi.localIP());
  // put your main code here, to run repeatedly:
   // Perform HTTP POST request
  if (WiFi.status() == WL_CONNECTED) {
    HTTPClient http;
    
    http.begin("http://www.website.com/esp32/index.php"); // Specify the URL
    http.addHeader("Content-Type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"); // Specify content-type header

    String postData = "temp=32&banana=yellow"; // Data to send in the post request
    int httpCode = http.POST(postData); // Make the request

    if (httpCode > 0) { // Check for the returning code
      String payload = http.getString();
      Serial.println(httpCode);  // Print HTTP return code
      Serial.println(payload);   // Print the request response payload
    } else {
      Serial.println("Error on HTTP request");
    }
    
    http.end(); // Free resources
  } else {
    Serial.println("WiFi not connected");
  }

}

The server side code is very simple (PHP stack index.php)

<?php

echo var_dump($_POST);

echo var_dump($_GET);

The comments are by the original author, I publish it because this code 100% works so it saves some time. Make sure you have the right libraries and if it gives an error that there are several just go into the library manager and uninstall the ones you don’t need.

ESP32-CAM Upload

The following script posts an image from an ESP32-cam to a website. The script also provides a Wifi config interaction, but the way the script is written now you need to re-enter the wifi credentials every time you power up the module. To fix this there need to be a button press or something added, but the used USB programmer doesn’t have space for buttons, a bit of a waste.

The ESP32 code just posts the image data to the URL

#include <eloquent_esp32cam.h>
#include <eloquent_esp32cam/extra/esp32/fs/sdmmc.h>
#include "SD_MMC.h" 
#include "FS.h" 
#include <WiFi.h>
#include <DNSServer.h>
#include <WebServer.h>
#include <WiFiManager.h>
#include <HTTPClient.h>

using namespace eloq;

int counter = 0;
const char *post_url = "http://www.website.com/index.php";

void setup() {
    Serial.begin(115200);
    delay(3000); // Allow time for serial monitor to start

    // Initialize SD card
    if (!SD_MMC.begin()) {
        Serial.println("SD Card Mount Failed");
        return;
    }

    // Print SD card type and size
    uint8_t cardType = SD_MMC.cardType();
    if (cardType == CARD_NONE) {
        Serial.println("No SD_MMC card attached");
        return;
    }
    Serial.print("SD_MMC Card Type: ");
    switch (cardType) {
        case CARD_MMC: Serial.println("MMC"); break;
        case CARD_SD: Serial.println("SDSC"); break;
        case CARD_SDHC: Serial.println("SDHC"); break;
        default: Serial.println("UNKNOWN"); break;
    }
    uint64_t cardSize = SD_MMC.cardSize() / (1024 * 1024);
    Serial.printf("SD_MMC Card Size: %lluMB\n", cardSize);

    // Camera settings
    camera.pinout.aithinker();
    camera.brownout.disable();
    camera.resolution.vga();
    camera.quality.high();

    // Initialize camera
    while (!camera.begin().isOk()) {
        Serial.println(camera.exception.toString());
        delay(1000);
    }
    Serial.println("Camera OK");

    delay(3000);
    // Initialize WiFi
    WiFiManager wifiManager;

    //reset settings - for testing
    wifiManager.resetSettings();
     
    delay(3000);

    if (!wifiManager.autoConnect("AutoConnectAP", "password")) {
        Serial.println("Failed to connect to WiFi, resetting...");
        delay(3000);
        ESP.restart();
    }
    Serial.println("Connected to WiFi");
}

void loop() {
    if (!camera.capture().isOk()) {
        Serial.println(camera.exception.toString());
        return;
    } else {
        Serial.println("Capturing Image");
    }

    String path = "/picture" + String(counter) + ".jpg";
    writeFile(SD_MMC, path.c_str(), camera.frame->buf, camera.frame->len);

    // HTTP POST
    HTTPClient http;
    http.begin(post_url);
    http.addHeader("Content-Type", "application/octet-stream");

    int httpCode = http.POST(camera.frame->buf, camera.frame->len);
    if (httpCode > 0) {
        Serial.printf("[HTTP] POST... code: %d\n", httpCode);
        if (httpCode == HTTP_CODE_OK) {
            String payload = http.getString();
            Serial.println(payload);
        }
    } else {
        Serial.printf("[HTTP] POST... failed, error: %s\n", http.errorToString(httpCode).c_str());
    }

    http.end();
    delay(10000); // Capture image every 10 seconds
    counter++;
}

void writeFile(fs::FS &fs, const char * path, const uint8_t * data, size_t length) {
    Serial.printf("Writing file: %s\n", path);

    File file = fs.open(path, FILE_WRITE);
    if (!file) {
        Serial.println("Failed to open file for writing");
        return;
    }

    if (file.write(data, length)) {
        Serial.println("File written");
    } else {
        Serial.println("Write failed");
    }
    file.close();
}

On the server side you have the above script uploaded (as index.php), and an images directory where the index.php is located. As is the image file name will not be chronological so one could call it time() with some added text or identifier or even format a date to save it.

<?php

// Define the directory to save images
$target_dir = "images/";

// Ensure the directory exists
if (!is_dir($target_dir)) {
    mkdir($target_dir, 0777, true);
}

// Generate a unique file name
$target_file = $target_dir . uniqid() . ".jpg";

// Read the raw POST data
$image_data = file_get_contents('php://input');

if ($image_data) {
    // Write the image data to a file
    if (file_put_contents($target_file, $image_data)) {
        echo "File uploaded successfully: " . $target_file;
    } else {
        echo "Failed to write file.";
    }
} else {
    echo "No data received.";
}

This will place the images in the /images folder for download or further analysis.

You can follow my @X account which has been blocked atm. You can also become a Patreon

The BRICS are a group of countries that banded together to attempt to counter the robbery perpetrated by the USA because the USA can print dollars. If food is scarce or oil is expensive all countries used to have to pay in Dollars, which they have a limited amount of, yet the USA could always print more and buy whatever they needed. Also when the USA wanted it could print new dollars and cause inflation, which meant that ‘dollar poor’ countries could not buy a lot of commodities that they needed.

The idea is to create a gold backed currency. Its not sure what that means. It can mean unfractional gold equivalent, meaning if you hold a unit of the currency, you can go to a bank and get physical gold in exchange. It can also be fractional gold (like Bullion market certificates. The London Bullion market is fractional 1 to 100 for example, banks will always defraud you). Either way this plan is doomed to failure. Its not that it doesn’t represent an attractive alternative as a store of value, its that it can’t do what the dollar does atm.

The original ‘Gold Standard’ for international currencies worked such that you could always buy gold in return for dollars. All countries had gold reserves and the amount of currency was clearly limited and needed to be balanced across the countries that had hard currencies (that mattered in terms of trade and wealth creation). The gold standard was inherited from the labor intensive economy that preceded the coal and oil and gas based fossil economy. It is easy to understand why you can have a gold in a labor intensive economy. The number of workers is quite constant, meaning the population, just like the amount of gold and productivity per person. So if five man can make a hundred pizzas each evening you need say one dollar per pizza in gold (say in 1930) in circulation to pay each for the pizzas. That dollar needs to pay for all the labor and materials that went into the making of the pizza. In a population stabile system this means the gold backed dollar price of a pizza will move until it settles where this works. Then it stays there because the system has a fixed nr of workers, farmland, but also pizza places (the population doesn’t change!). A gold standard works here.

Now in real life 1930 the US population was already growing rapidly. What was the reason? Fossil based fertilizer, mechanization, expansion of farming. Something strange was happening as well, some people got really really rich : Oil companies. How was that possible? Well, before the money you pay for anything would end up with a worker, a human being that did the work. After the introduction of diesel and gasoline engines, those fuels did a lot of the work, and money ended up with the person you bought that fuel from. The oil companies got massively rich because of the gold standard and the fact the economy was not designed to deal with the expansion in productivity and work fossil fuel based mechanization afforded. Everyone knows the name Rockefeller and his company ‘Standard Oil’. He made his shareholders very rich (kept only 35% of profits in the company) because of the amount of oil he produced and the work it did was indeed extemely valuable (making $21,321,800,000 of 2023 dollars in 22 years of operation). Funny we don’t even think that’s a big number anymore, but back then it was insane.

Rockefeller showed the gold standard was incompatible with having a fossile energy based economy. It was incompatible with having a ‘trade balance’ with countries that used less or no fossil energy (who are now called poor or undeveloped). Two people fixed that. First Nixon went off the gold standard, then later Larry Summers killed caring about the debt, both national and international. These two actions caused the later 20th century boom of the US economy and the current unease with dollar supremacy in the world.

So what happened? Nixon said the Fed (which is just a group of US banks pretending to be another bank) could now print dollars and hand them out to people. Those people could go to the global oil markets which where priced in USD and buy all the oil/gas they needed. This oil/gas (fossil fuels) could then be used to power machines, make more machines, transport machines, do with the machines what they where for (build, farm, go to war) and thus the US dollar became the fuel source and favored reserve currency in any countries. Several things happened, the oil crisis (people in the oil rich countries wanted a bigger cut as they saw what was happening) and the establishment of fixed and then floating exchange rates and the ‘Special Drawing Rights‘ which is a basket of currencies that can be used to settle international debts, made up out of the five major currencies (Yen, Dollar, Euro, Yuan, Pound).

All the above happened because people realized there was a lot of oil gas and coal, people could live wealthy and in peace using it. The same happened in Europe with the establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951. ‘No need for war, just make sure you don’t fight over coal and steel’ was the idea. The monuments of that deal are still found all over Europe, huge extremely dirty often derelict coal/steel mills. They where a foundation of cooperation and that cooperation still continues.

But back to the USD, this had now become the ‘Petrodollar’ and as such it supplied the life blood to every corner of the world. I was in Cambodja recently and there you can pay with local Riel, which has demonimations going to less than a Eurocent, or USD. Elsewhere the same thing. Africa, middle America, all poor countries climb up by mechanizing and to mechanize you need fuels and fuels are (where). mostly for sale in USD. I believe trust in the USD is still strong and I believe it will remain so.

Larry Summers and his team then pushed the US presidents to just take the oil by printing USD. This happened under Bush and Clinton and Bush and Obama and Trump. Finally those that where stuck believing the US was on a gold standard realized it was on an oil standard and the fact oil was sold in dollars meant he US had the treasure chest of the world. Other countries could make stuff if you gave them dollars for it, they would buy the oil in dollars and keep some for themselves. China became an industrialized country because of this power of the USD. Meanwhile everyone was still told the budget needs to be balanced blah blah blah (except by Larry Summers). What needed to happen though was the US needed to dominate the oil producing countries and produce oil itself!

Iran tried to move to payment in gold for their oil (2012) but also way in the beginning (when its oil was taken by British Petroleum, formarly the ‘Anglo-Persian Oil Company’) it of course accumulated a lot of gold and silver. This didn’t work out well for Iran. Saddam Hussein same thing, he was hung for it. All this because in the US people knew a simple thing “If we control oil wells or can buy oil in USD, we keep the power of the USD, if we don’t we will lose it!”. Strong persistent leadership is often based on very simple ideas, in general it is ”Serve banks and fossil and you will do well” in politics. It means with any question you only have to ask yourself “what would banks and fossil say” and give that answer. But I digress.

According to this tweet/X message the Petrodollar agreement made by Nixon has come to an end. Interesting. Its called the ‘Nixon Shock‘.

But back to the BRICS which added China and Saudi Arabia recently. They are peoples that want to get control of their own wealth and resources for their own population and security, not be ransacked by the US using USD or weapons afforded by the unfair control over the fossil energy supply and unfair dependency of many manufacturing countries on the USD. I claim the following : A gold based currency will not work. Where will the gold be mined and by whom? Who will now be the emitter of this new BRICS currency (most likely China who has a vested interest in Russia’s implosion under Putin)? So the Yuan will be the new gold backed currency but its main purpose in trade is to secure fossil energy to replace the goods you buy? And Saudi Arabia will participate and sell its oil for gold? But then the gold runs out? Also the amount of money will be limited by the amount of gold? This was all tried and didn’t work before. Clearly they have not thought things through at all!

This is the problem of the BRICs, its that in a mechanized economy, the most attractive currency is the one that makes most engines and motors run, and in the case of oil and gas these are even raw materials for plastics and ferilizers. Fossil is a complete solution to humans existential challenge if it wasn’t for the CO2 emissions. So the BRICS have to agree to pool their fossil resources, then have one bank emit the central BRICS currency, then allow it to be used in their economies. If China says it wants to be the leader it has to get Saudi Arabia to agree, Russia to agree. Guess what? This won’t be easy. Saudi Arabia could be the bank, the issuer. Then everyting China produces is always owned by Saudi Arabia, unless China supplies the fossil energy.

An injustice that is hard to settle is best left undiscussed and unmentioned. For years Holland provided natural gas to Italy at a discount. Why? Guess it was just a deal made by people concerned with the peace and harmony and the plight of italians. Why extract a lot of money from Italy for gas, Holland has been a very rich country for most of the 20th century. Its not an ‘injustice’ really, but when looked at by desperate or greedy people it sure seems to be. Those people don’t make the world work though. The key of wealth creation is cooperation, not competition or greed (so redundant desire to own). You can contrast on one side ‘economic cooperation’ and on the other ‘war’ if you want an extreme version if this wisdom.

It seems that if the BRICS want to launch their own currency, they have a challenge that I don’t know it can meet at the moment. Nigeria is also a big oil producer, it contemplates membership. It will also ‘pay’ the most if it does not control this currency. Will it be the Niara (currently at 0,00061 Euro). Nigeria is one of those countries that could seriously go to war with its fossil capital.

What would work? I think a new Dollar deal and of course the Roboeconomy, meaning rapid removal of fossil dependency of any country around the world. That is the problem people try to solve after all, to own their own productive capacity, not be dependend or be vulnerable to dollar based raids of their property and fruits of their labor. The BRICS currency should be renewable solar, wind, geothermal capacity (call it ‘Part One’) build in the BRICS countries and sold in a currency emitted for that purpose, local and depending on the capacity of those energy sources, say the Joulecurrency.org.

However, this does not match or answer the frustrations that drive the BRICS movement, it is run by people who crave power. For those the choice is either endlessly bicker over who gets to decide what the currency is and how much to be emitted, which means decades of war and conflict or tension all over a currency with deminishing value and with another one the Dollar still being a more stabile alternative (the more BRICS go their own way the more stabile the remaining USD will be). It is wiser to once more pool all the fossil fuels under the USD, to go to the FED banks and negotiate a distribution of USD fossil fuel prices (‘Part Two‘), which has been the case until late 20th century (oil was more expensive in Asia). This is the same process as allocating currency to renewable energy sources, so ‘Part one’, which should also happen.

So in short, the BRICS get a Joule currency for renewables and put major effort in distributing renewables across their territories and create a valuation agency that will emit the Joule currency (distribute it possibly as a basic income to the local population), and at the same time enter negotiations with the US about its dollar emission policies, where for example the FED prints money for all territories to the proportion of production or need for fossil energy. The local currencies can remain to support the Bioeconomy. In a way a ‘Global Coal and Steel Community’ meant to balance US fossil consumption with that of the world in a more equitable and fair way. This should please both the BRICS, the USA and most importantly the BANKS. This should include fossil energy reserved to build renewable energy source factories and battery factories, in short an agreed effort to transition to the Roboeconomy.

This way the BRICS country members don’t have to sit at their meeting tables wondering what the hell they should do, listing to poor labor intensive countries wanting a gold standard, knowing this doesn’t work for them etc. etc. This is my solution, I’m a Roboeconomist. If you like this post you can thank me at frits@rincker.nl or send me some money at Paypal info@climatebabes.com 😉

The world has gained enormously by SpaceX lowering the cost of access to space, as we will see succesfull take off and landing of its flagship Starship in the next months. Even without Starship its Falcon rocket lineup has become a low cost space elevator for all kinds of satellites, not the least of them being the Starlink constellation. These include laser and radio connected sats, but also new versions that can connect directly to the smartphone you already own. For now this will be for emergencies only but no doubt in newer versions it will be high bandwith video.

The drive to create these rockets has been the desire to colonize Mars to secure consciousness in the vast emptiness of our surrounding unconscious universe. Because of several unpredictable civilization level threats this is necessary, if only because at least some will get to enjoy the spectacle when they occur. “Well then the Yellowstone caldera exploded. Well then China nuked Russia” sounds better than the sound of the wind over barren rocks. Ignoring the threat of AI, who’s androids can wait in space no problem and be moved to Mars as bunches of grapes dragged after small rocketships (with some radiation detection?).

My interest is to slow down and halt climate change. We will and we probably will this century (2000-2100), thanks to robots, AI and renewables. But it is way harder to recover an overheated half dead planet from its state than to do it with a somewhat bruised one where the heat is not boiling the oceans and taking away half the oxygen production or doing worse.

The answer here is SpaceX and Starship. Just for the moment ignoring the enormous problem the economy poses to innovation, as Elon and SpaceX shown, because it prioritizes cashflow over wealth increases, we can say that when the Earth is modelled it has different zones where it accepts solar radiation, the top is cold, 25/75% regions are moderate and the middle 50% is hot (the equator) because the Sun’s rays hit it with the highest density through the least atmosphere.

To solve the warming crisis for decades the injection of sulfur in the stratosphere has been proposed, as a lazy ‘Ok moron, if you really insist lets say we could do this!’ kind of solution. Not thought through at all. It requires lofting massive amounts of sulfur (dioxide?) to high altitudes which would cause emissions and not present a permanent solution. Not good. But meanwhile we are lofting thousands of satellites that actually try to be inconspicuous to stargazers into relatively stabile orbits.

I don’t think its far fetched to propose to design a new type of satellite, an ultra light weight one that spreads the maximum surface of mylar (or something better) it can carry in a controlled fashion. Mylar can reflect sunlight back into space effectively canceling it out. It can lower the insolation (solar power) to the hottest regions of Earth. It has to be designed so it does not block the radiation from Earth back into space, so the altitude has to be high, but it does not need to be stationary, they can actually be controlled through Starlink (and possibly even be pushed up when they fall using laser).

This SpaceCanopy can form a band over the Equator alleviating some of the warming in the hottest regions, which will then mean that the more moderate regions have less heat to deal with as well. If they are timed right they only have to cover part of the circumference of Earth, that is if they spin along with Earth (no idea if it would mean we all wiggle a bit). @Grok doesn’t like the idea..

“Retrograde orbits (that move against the rotation of Earth) are less common than prograde orbits because they require more energy to achieve and maintain. This is because the satellite is working against the Earth’s rotation.

However, even in a retrograde orbit, a satellite wouldn’t be able to stay between the Sun and Earth. The dynamics of orbital mechanics don’t allow for a satellite to permanently position itself between two other bodies like the Sun and Earth. The closest we can get is the aforementioned Lagrange points, but even these don’t provide a permanent Sun-Earth barrier.”

(It may be the increased energy requirement is only during launch)

The idea is anyway to have a cloud of satellites orbit Earth so that they remain between Earth and the Sun or close to it. They can shield Earth from part of the light it sends to Earth and deflect it into space. Both the design and deployment of such system over time should be easy, even if the area it has to cover is enormous. It is a very safe, very controllable solution for which there will be enough resources. It can be added to all the actions we take on the ground and will especially be valuable to save our oceans from dying.

We may be able to design loftig sailplanes to do a similar thing..

This may actually help Asian countries in the medium term who are trying to deal with excessive heat and heatwaves. A gift of US ingenuity to them, preferable over war. But of course someone has to make the calculations and decide to try it.