Project Star Night
Her name was Izabella but none of her friends called her that; to them she was just Bella. To everyone else on base, she was Colonel Maxfield. Under her command were Geo’s, the spunky few who dared make the Earth itself their workshop. They didn’t just help to rescue people, they helped to rescue the planet, often giving the bunch an ego as big as their projects.
Although she was under the subgroup of UNIRO Engineering she was not an engineer. Bella was a physicist, consistently trying to understand the science that taught the world how it worked. Friction was fun. Torque was interesting. Gravity could be a downer. After college she thought her life was going to belong to NASA, uncovering one how after the other. But after the war, after the nukes fell, she found her way to UNIRO attempting to do something even harder. She needed to go beyond showing the world how it worked; she needed to show how it should work.
"General - "
"Subgroup General…"
"Subgroup General," Bella said, correcting herself with an exasperated sigh, "the Bering Sea Dam has the Arctic covered… Hopefully," she muttered. "But Antarctic and the rest of the world’s glaciers are in critical condition. Thermal blankets and undersea walls are Band-Aids over mortal wounds, sir. They're not going to stop us from bleeding."
The subgroup general stood up from his desk chair, adamantly shaking his head. "No, Colonel Maxfield, absolutely not."
"Solar radiation management projects are the answer, sir, and the sooner the IPCC sees that the sooner we can really start fixing this planet. My idea is different, sir. My idea - "
"Has been proposed before, Colonel," the subgroup general cutoff. "UNIRO is prohibited by the Auxilium Protocol from engaging in any solar geoengineering. You know just as well as I do that it is extremely dangerous and unpredictable. We could fuck ourselves over more than we already have. One miscalculation and we move the entire Asian monsoon system or we could deplete the ozone layer."
"Those are side effects associated with chemical alterations; stratospheric sulfur injections and all that crap. My proposal is safe because it doesn't involve actually altering anything on our planet."
The subgroup general sarcastically chuckled. "No, just all of the life giving sunlight reaching its surface."
"According to my calculations we could have this up and running within a year, superseding the need for all of our current projects, saving the world billions. Just think of it, trillions of space based mirrors, each one controllable, blocking just enough sunlight to stabilize our planet’s average temperature back to pre-industrial levels. Project Star Night is the key to undoing all that we've done, the key to controlling everything."
"Project Star Night?" The subgroup general rubbed his forehead. "Great. You named it. Now I know you're invested."
"You're damn right, sir."
"Is that what you think our projects are about, Colonel? Control? That thinking isn't going to get us anywhere. A Geo's job isn’t to control shit; it's to manage. We manage the previously unmanaged. We guide, we, we redirect… We monitor. And that’s the point Maxfield… Solar geoengineering doesn’t afford of us any of those things, least of all control. The answer is no and that’s final."
Bella put her hands on her hips. "Mark my words, General - "
"Subgroup Gen - "
"Whatever! Mark my words; what we're doing right now isn't enough. We're doing what humans have always done best. Short-term fixes."
"Our short-term fixes are buying us decades, Colonel, giving us the chance to cut and sequester our carbon emissions," urged the subgroup general.
"Well," Bella snorted, "it seems to me then that we're no better than those who came before us if we aren't willing to take the risk, knowing there is something that we could have done to make a difference."
"Colonel," the subgroup general sighed, "the fact that we aren't willing to take that risk is exactly why we're better than those who came before us."