stuffnstuffnstuffnstuffnstuff:izze-bizzle:beatrice-otter:the-adhd-society: adrienaline-rushed-art:
stuffnstuffnstuffnstuffnstuff:izze-bizzle:beatrice-otter:the-adhd-society: adrienaline-rushed-art: littlenobodys-corner: ok so people are making fun of this but adding this with other anti-global warming tactics will work This isn’t adding ice just for the sake of denial, it’s adding to the Earth’s albedo. This in turn actually makes the Earth’s climate cooler, and then more ice will be produced naturally because of this. It isn’t a process we need to continue forever, in fact it’s one that needs to be calculated so that we don’t do it TOO MUCH. The only worry would be cooling down too much. So yes, this is a good idea. It simply isn’t the only thing we should do because we still have gross pollution. For the love of god do it . anything just do it. Give us hope. Here’s the thing: Most environmental catastrophes humans have ever or are currently creating can be fixed. It’s not just a matter of “oh no, things are ruined, and maybe we can stop the degradation so that things don’t get any worse, but we’re stuck with how things are.” There are some things we can’t do, like bringing back extinct species. But there are a lot of other things we can definitely do, many of which are being done right now. The problem is that most of our willpower and effort is spent on bullshit tiny things that won’t solve the problem (individual recycling, etc.) and not on the large-scale things that can and will make a large-scale difference.Ice caps are melting? Guess what! We know how to make ice. It’s not that hard. Designing mostly-automated robot ships to go to the poles and rebuild the ice caps is well within our current technical capabilities. We just need to fund it.Deforestation on a massive scale? Destruction of other biomes? Guess what! We know how to plant trees. We know how to plant grasslands. We know how to take barren, lifeless land and turn it back into a viable biome. It’s not that hard. In a lot of cases, if there’s neighboring areas where that biome still exists, all you have to do is dump a few tons of biomass (plant clippings, food waste, etc.) on the barren land and stand back and wait. The biomass will provide nutrients and keep the topsoil from blowing away, and the plants and animals from the neighboring biome will move in. In two decades, even if you don’t do anything besides dumping the biomass on it, you won’t be able to tell what was the barren area and what was the still-existing biome.Coral reefs dying? Now, coral reefs are a bit more fragile than most biomes, but guess what! We still know how to replant/rebuild them, and in fact are working on that in places affected by coral reef die-off! And we’re learning how to do it better every day.Desertification? Guess what! We know how to turn desert back into green space. They’re doing it on a large scale in China and sub-Saharan Africa. There are several different techniques, none of which are even very technology-intensive. It takes money and time and labor, but it’s perfectly doable. We know this because we’ve done it.Plastic in the ecosystem, particularly in the ocean? Guess what! There’s a lot of people working on this, both on “how to remove plastic from the ocean” and “how to reuse/recycle it more efficiently.” And the techniques are improving by leaps and bounds every year. This is a solvable problem. These are all solvable problems.So if you’re crushed by the weight of the coming environmental catastrophe … don’t be. These are all solvable problems! We can stop things from getting worse, and we can fix the things we’ve broken. The issue is political, not practical.On the political side, of course, is the need to tighten up environmental regulations across the globe. (What’s the statistic, that 90% of pollution is caused by 100 corporations?) And then of course, we need to fund these programs on a large enough scale.In some ways the political aspect is the hardest, but consider this: we are at a tipping point. Things are changing about the way politicians talk about climate change and ecological degradation. More ordinary people are concerned about this, which means more pressure on politicians. One of the ways that things are changing is that people–even conservatives–are starting to talk about “job opportunities in new green fields” and switching the conversation so that it’s not “rainforest vs. jobs” makes political action a lot more possible. And no, it’s not going to happen on its own, but it can happen.This is a solvable problem. I *needed* this. Climate change has had me feeling SO helpless, having a list of things that can actually potentially be done is beautiful Additionally (and again, this shouldn’t be a solution considered in isolation) carbon recapture technology made a massive leap in 2019 with the development of electro-swing battery filtration, thanks to a research team at MIT. This technique can LITERALLY PULL CO2 OUT OF THE AIR WITH NO CHEMICAL FILTRATION REQUIRED, AT ANY DENSITY. Previous carbon recapture technology used abrasive chemicals, or was extremely energy intensive, or could only be used at 10% CO2 concentration or higher (aka actual factory smog output, for example). This new method costs approximately 1 gigajoule to remove 1 metric TON of CO2 from the air. For comparison, the average household in Alberta uses 2.16 gigajoules of energy per month. A gigajoule of energy is equivalent to 26 liters of gasoline. That much gasoline produces 59.6 kg of CO2 - compared to the whopping 1016 kg (1 ton) of CO2 the device can remove with that energy. And they’re trying to bring this energy cost even lower. And because of the electro-swing method, it can be used at any concentration of CO2, INCLUDING as low as 400PPM, or approximately the density of CO2 in the air YOU’RE breathing right now! They can put these puppies literally ANYWHERE and they will have the same filtering effect. Did I mention it’s commercially scalable? It’s commercially scalable. They’re working on getting a production line established, but the main resource that they need to produce in order to expand this technology is electrodes, which they’ve already made cost effective enough that they can be produced at tens of dollars per square meter of electrode. Again, research is continuing to make this even cheaper. And the final great part? The heaving beast of capitalism has already decided there’s money to be made here. A private company called Verdox has founded around commercializing this technology. We likely won’t have to wait for this research to sit on a shelf somewhere gathering dust. Because there’s a pure CO2 product at the end that is captured and can be resold (for greenhouse farms, soda carbonation, and various other industrial procedures) capitalism is interested and so this one actually stands a shot at GETTING commercially scaled up. This was some of the most encouraging climate related news I read recently. PLEASE read the articles below, it’s extremely compelling stuff.MIT engineers develop a new way to remove carbon dioxide from airA new kind of battery that removes carbon dioxide from the air -- source link