It is evident that our planet's environment has been progressively worsening throughout time, due to countless factors, primarily because of human involvement and destruction over the years. Although the general human population may not want to or be able to agressively prevent more harm done to our environment, it should become more widely known about simple aspects that we can try to help as much as possible, in addition to more severe scientific and environmenal measures that may be done to help benefit our climate.
GeoEngineering' refers to human-made changes to the Earth's land, seas or atmosphere that are intended to help slow climate change. However, some scientists are worried that geoengineering techniques may cause more harm than good.
This article from ''Facts on File, Science Database" demonstrated the scientific, social, and political aspects not only in favor or in opposition of GeoEngineering, but gives reasoning as to why and how it should be considered and seriously investigated if nesessary so as to help our climate and environment. The Royal Society is the primary scientific organization of Great Britain and the Commonwealth. They issued a report September 1 titled "Geoengineering the Climate," discussing what may be referred to as 'plan B' for the environment, scientific possibilities to counteract the climatic effects of greenhouse gas emissions by GeoEngineering. This scientific report describes in depth concerning large, worldwide scale schemes to alter or affect the climate and environment if absolutely necessary.
I came upon this article when searching online journals and databases for a science article which i actually found interesting to continue reading. This piece about geoengineering stood out because I am extremely interested in environmental science, especially since our environment and climate may be in detrimental condition in the near future. I feel like environmental science should be better understood and considered by more of our general population, considering our climate and environment are our home and should be a priority to maintain as well as possible.
Geoengineering consists of significant changes to the Earth's water, land, or atmosphere with the priority of decreasing the planet's global warming and carbon emissions. This specifically is categorized as climate and environmental science which should, and will continue to be thoroughly developed with progressive technology and further education in the future.
There are many possibilities of geoengineering that should be investigated further and seriously considered when preparing for our planet's future. Scientists' creative geoengineering schemes and preparations include concepts such as "seeding vast tracts of the ocean with iron to promote algae growth to absorb carbon, simulating major volcanic eruptions to inject kilotons of sunlight-blocking sulfates into the atmosphere, launching trillions of tiny reflectors into space to reduce incoming sunlight, burying megatons of carbon deep in the ocean, launching fleets of automated vessels to spray saltwater into the atmosphere" among other such creative alternatives for our planet's future.
These possible geoengineering schemes may be extremely beneficial such as by decreasing carbon in our climate and fighting against global warming, while they may also turn out to be more harmful to our planet in the long term perspective. In particular, increasing the carbon intake into the atmosphere by fertilizing the oceans with iron may "create a rise in iron-limited phytoplankton populations, which by dying and sinking would use enough oxygen to create extensive dead zones in the oceans," which would be horribly harmful. In addition, "Global alterations of Earth's natural cycles have too many uncertainties to be viable with our current level of understanding."
Although there are possible hazards going alone with these possible scenarios, research should definitely continue and hopefully become more realistic and productive for benefitting our climate.
I hope this important scientific topic for our environment has been found interesting! Please see the links and articles relevant to geoengineering, which give more detailed analysis about the possible situations and areas of interest.
Sources:
Astrobiology Magazine. FirstGov Astrobiology Network, 8 Aug. 2009. Web. 4 Oct. 2009.
"Geoengineering: Plan B for the Planet." Today’s Science. Facts On File News Services, Sept. 2009. Web. 4 Oct. 2009.
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