Thoughts on Climate Change Solar Islands   In the Thought on Climate Change overview, I brought up the idea of “solar islands”. A solar island would consist of a large array of solar panels mounted to a floating platform over the ocean. The reason the panels are over the ocean is to get double benefit from the panels. They of course produce electrical energy, but they also produce solar shading. Creating solar islands serves to directly cool the ocean and, therefore, minimize the effect of radiative forcing from CO2 and other greenhouse gases that seem to affect the weather. The concept of solar islands comes from the realization of how much of the earth will need to be covered with solar panels to produce enough energy to meet the energy requirements of the earth’s inhabitants. One estimate is that 191,000 square miles of solar panels would be needed to meet the energy needs of the world [i] . A solar island might have a size of 10 miles by 10 miles which would the...