Professor Roger Angel thinks he can diffract the power of the sun by placing trillions of lenses in space and creating a 100,000-square-mile sunshade.
Each lens will have a diffraction pattern etched onto it which will cause the sun's rays to change direction. He intends to use electromagnetic propulsion to get the lenses into space. If work was started immediately Prof Angel thinks the sunshield could be operation by 2040. He said: “Things that take a few decades are not that futuristic.”
Researchers at the University of Victoria, Canada, have started experiments using computers to test the idea. Climate scientists are beginning to imagine options like the sunshield as a way of halting climate change.