What have you discovered a way to cool down the planet? Extreme weather events are becoming more common and more ferocious as the surface temperature of the earth continues to rise. So too will the ferocity of natural disasters in 2018.
Scientists will take bold steps to explore a technology that could reverse the effects of climate change. It’s, an engineering project that would literally touch every living thing on the planet. They’re, looking at ways to reflect sunlight back into space and cool down the earth.
Insurers say the number of weather-related disasters has quadrupled since 1917, while world leaders are debating and disputing climate change and the ways in which humans alter their behavior on earth.
Some scientists discuss changes to the earth itself. In 2018 they’ll. Take to the stratosphere to learn what it might take or cost to cool the planet directly. Geoengineering is the pioneering science that could well be on everyone’s lips in 2018.
The idea of jus engineering is the idea that humans purposefully influence the climate of the planet. Solar G Engineering specifically, is the idea of introducing a substance into the stratosphere that will cool down the planet by reflecting back sunlight, the same idea as wearing a white shirt in summer.
The white shirt reflect sunlight back. You don’t feel as hot as if you were black shirt. This is humans deliberately trying to have an effect on the climate, a fundamentally different undertaking from merely messing up the climate which we’ve, been doing for centuries.
The team from Harvard University is the first in the world to test the effects Solar geoengineering might have in the stratosphere. Our experiment will be a small balloon payload that weighs a few hundred kilograms.
It’ll fly about 20 kilometres up in the stratosphere. That’s about twice as high as a commercial jet. It will release a small amount less than a kilogram of materials, and then they’ll fly back and forth and measure the way those interact with the background chemistry of the stratosphere.
What makes this experiment unique is that there has never been a purposeful introduction of materials in the stratosphere to study the impact. This happened. The experiments in 2018 won’t impact the climate, but if one day implemented, this controversial intervention could help curb extreme weather events.
Geoengineering offers options for reducing the harm that real people are going to suffer in their tens of millions and hundreds of millions. If we turn down the Sun a little bit, that brings the Earth’s, energy more into balance, and that could reduce some of the risks like extreme storms or extreme temperatures.
Solar geoengineering has the potential to save lives, but it also poses unknown risks. You’re, introducing something into the environment that wasn’t there. Naturally, there will be side effects. The question is: can we understand how big or small they are? If humanity ever decides to do it, there will be deep uncertainty about how well it works and what the risks are, and there are fears that merely researching geoengineering might be detrimental to the long-term fight against climate change.
There are a number of highly respected scientists who say that experiments on solar changing should not be done. Their concern is that you will make people think there is a option available. That is a solution to climate change.
At best, solar geoengineering is a supplement to cutting emissions, not a substitute for cutting emissions. Some environmentalists say that the drive to reduce carbon dioxide emissions could be lost if there seemed to be a quick fix and deciding who controls the technology that effects everyone on the planet won’t be easy.
You’re gonna have disagreements about where to do this, but how quickly to do this and those sorts of disagreements might lead to international tensions. Ultimately, Solar geoengineering could prove a risk not worth taking, but ignoring it now could be even more dangerous.
I believe that choosing ignorance over knowledge is never the right choice. Our generation aren’t the deciders it’s, our kids, where they’re kids. Who will make the real decisions about implementation? My fundamental view is: we owe it to our kids to give them more information.
If we do no research, we give them a gift of ignorance.
Source: https://youtu.be/BTncjs89l-s
