SpaceX founder Elon Musk has warned that simply switching to sustainable energy may not be enough to protect humanity from future climate and extinction risks, arguing that large-scale geoengineering could eventually be necessary.
“Extremely severe extinction events happen every 100M years or so and just switching to sustainable energy will not be enough to stop them,” Musk wrote in a post on X.
“Space satellites to control temperature and massive geo-engineering will be needed or it will be game over,” he added.
Musk then outlined a futuristic proposal involving satellites positioned at Earth-Sun Lagrange points.
“And that is, of course, how it will be done,” he wrote. “Sentient satellites, launched into Earth-Sun Lagrange points by mass drivers on the Moon, can solve global warming for ~1B years.”
However, Musk argued that humanity would need to act much sooner to prevent major impacts from sea-level rise.
“But we do need to act much faster than that if people still want to live where the beach is today,” he wrote. “We have about 50 years or so to take action, which should be more than enough time for the space satellites to solve any heating problems.”
