Geo engineering the climate – big on promises but…

Once in a while someone thinks of a bright idea without thinking it through properly. The idea is to cure some ill, but sometimes the cure may we worse than the disease. At the heart of these bright ideas is an endeavour to do good, but often there are other motives.

Sequestration of carbon by the oceans and its consequences

The oceans and seas of the world, from which is harvested a third of the protein that people eat, also serve humanity by absorbing a third of the carbon dioxide that humanity produces. The oceans have various ways of doing this and we need the oceans to keep on absorbing carbon dioxide in order to prevent atmospheric carbon dioxide rising even faster, otherwise our climate is likely to change too quickly for us to manage.

Can plankton help us fight climate change?

The planet is now only able to store away half the carbon dioxide that is put into its atmosphere each day. The carbon dioxide that is not stored remains in the air for around a hundred years, creating an ever increasing barrier of insulation around the planet that prevents heat from escaping, causing global warming.  A moment’s thought tells us that we must not hold emissions at any level, but constantly decrease them to below 80% if we are to reverse climate change.

The Royal Society and fantastic and dangerous ideas of reducing climate change

There are many ways to slow down the rate of climate change by reducing emissions. We can have solar panels on every home, cover the shores of the seas with very large wind turbines, save energy use, prevent unnecessary energy use and even ration fossil fuel energy. These are the simple ways, simple but they come at a cost.

There are other ways which might reduce the rate of climate change which do not involve energy. Some of these ways are proven but little used. For example many buildings in Greece and Cyprus are painted white, including the roofs, which reflects back energy into the atmosphere, instead of absorbing it. Very few buildings in Southern California, which has a very similar climate to that of Greece, are either painted white or have white roofs. These buildings absorb energy as heat, making the use of more air conditioning than necessary. They warm the planet.

Plankton are prospering – how this affects climate change

Some of the smallest living organisms feed the largest animals. Plankton are the food supply of many marine creatures including the largest fish, the whale shark and the largest mammal, the blue whale. 

Plankton are organisms that float drift around oceans, seas and other bodies of water; plankton derive their name from the Greek “planktos” which means “drifter”. These high water drifters are both plants and animals (jellyfish are plankton). The plankton plants use chlorophyll to convert energy from light into carbohydrates, soaking up carbon dioxide dissolved in water as part of the process. The animal plankton eat other animals.