Throwing Shade... from Space
emota | a creative company
Using the art of moving pictures to move hearts & minds for brands, entertainment producers, and their agencies.
Think tank's bold vision gets a boost to help stop Global Warming.
"So, you want to launch thousands of satellites into space... where? each deploys a square kilometer of solar shade...?that will orbit around Earth's equator.... in order to cool the earth?" -Chris asked.?
"Yep, we have the idea. And we know it's possible," Barnet said, anticipating some skepticism.
Barnet Bain – a feature film producer and business consultant for the World Business Academy (WBA), a nonprofit think tank focused on solving humanity’s largest challenges – went on:?
"The WBA’s think tank has been working to come up with viable ways to help to reduce global warming, and thereby reduce methane emissions."?
Turns out methane presents a greater risk to our survival than carbon dioxide. Perhaps surprisingly, methane emissions accelerate the warming of the planet faster, along with the devastation that climate change will bring, than CO2.?
"Many people don't know that methane is 25X more potent and damaging to our atmosphere than CO2. And hydrates that contain methane can be found in deep ocean waters. As the seas warm, they're more likely to melt and release consequential stores of this dangerous gas."?
That's where Earthshades comes in.?
WBA's hope is that by blocking a small portion of the sun's light, solar shades could help to keep the oceans cool enough to reduce the risk of methane hydrate emissions.
?"How can we help visualize this together?" Chris – co-founder and creative director of emota, inc. – asked.
“We need to get socially-conscious entrepreneurs excited about the idea. Lead them to want to take action and ultimately help us inspire the global science community to help us create a more sustainable future for our planet." Barnet paused,
"But... first, we need to demonstrate the idea, visualize it. We have the science in our White Paper. We just need to bring it to life."?
That's how it started.?
Once the emota team was involved, our first order of business was reading the white paper. We learned that the EarthShades project is still in its early stages of development but saw it's potential.?
By researching early concepts developed by outside science teams, as well as NASA's leading spaceflight technologies, we began developing the visualization with Barnet and the team from the World Business Academy.
Chris adds:
"We started from scratch, with no schematics or engineering concepts. Based on research and existing technology demonstrated by NASA, we created the concept for the spacecraft."
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Then, in conjunction with Barnet, emota designed a 3D model of a 2 meter spacecraft that could practically deploy a solar shield.?
Backed by practical and scientifically backed theories, we developed dynamic, photo-realistic 3D models, animations and renderings that visualized how WBA imagined the spacecraft would launch and form a controllable web of solar shades in orbit around Earth's equator.?
"It was a real challenge," Chris says, "because it didn’t yet exist, but it was the sort of challenge we really love. You know, 'how do we use our talents to help great minds inspire others to action for a good cause?' It's what makes what we do not only worth it, but exciting."
"It was Chris' high-level of experience – not only as an aeronautics hobbyist and drone designer, but also his team’s talents with CAD, animation, VFX and love of storytelling – that we now have a short film to tell our story,"?
Barnet concluded, "and now we are actively proposing this solution to the international science and space community.”
Final short film:
More about the challenges of Methane in earth's atmosphere:
References:
Solar Sail NASA technology
Solar Shades: A New Way to Cool the Planet?
Methane leaks- a climate change tipping point?
The World Business Academy is a nonprofit think tank and action incubator that explores the role of business in relation to critical moral, environmental, and social issues of our time.s. emota, inc. is a California based production and creative company.