These people are crazy.

Did it ever occur to these idiots that life on earth evolved to live in this radiation environment, and that anything that might alter it is potentially deadly? Present radiation levels may even have beneficial effects we are not even aware of. And anything we do to modify it runs the risk of altering it permanently, maybe for the worst.

VLF radio communications with submerged submarines has always been a wet dream for the masters of war, but this is ridiculous. For what may be an illusory and temporary military advantage, these idiots are willing to engage in a technology that may affect the ionosphere and Van Allen belts?

This is irresponsible lunacy. I don't believe it is a certainty this particular scheme will work as promised; it may just be Pentagon propaganda to prepare the nation psychologically for these systems, which have already come under attack by eco-freaks (probably for all the wrong reasons). But I wouldn't put it past them. I heard about the dumping of tiny metal needles into LEO. And during the Vietnam era, there was actually a scheme under consideration to spread phosphorus aerosols into space, which would absorb sunlight during the day and glow at night, providing the equivalent of bright moonlight so we could hunt down the Viet Cong more effectively. I guess the astronomer's lobby put an end to that one. The point is, we don't know what the effects of these interventions will be. Even if nothing comes of it, we cannot risk that something might.

I would imagine most of these geo-engineering schemes (Terraforming for Dummies) simply wouldn't work, but the very idea that they might is scary. That they are even being considered is terrifying. For the remote possibility of a minor military advantage, these imbeciles are ready to embark on irreversible interventions into the environment, setting into motion processes with unpredictable, and possibly catastrophic results.

If this technology can be employed to make habitable other worlds, such as satellites of the outer planets, I'm all for it (after we determine there is no other life there that might be negatively affected). It is worth a try, especially if the radiation environment there is already deadly to all life. If anything goes wrong, these places are just uninhabitable lumps of ice and slag bathed in deadly radiation anyway, and we're not going to make them any worse. No one gets hurt if it doesn't work, or even if we totally misjudge the results and completely wreck the place.

But not on earth, not our protection against solar and cosmic radiation. Please tell me this reporter is just blowing smoke out his ass. Please say it ain't so.

If there is anything environmental science has taught us in the last few decades is that everything on this planet is connected. The world has some ability to absorb perturbations and shocks and heal itself, but we don't know how or how much. Look at what happened when we accidentally and inadvertently doubled the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere over the course of a century or two.

You just don't fuck with the Van Allen belts.