With the massive increase in the Carbon Dioxide levels in the recent times, the average temperature of the planet has risen causing the massive glaciers to melt.
If the trend continues at a similar pace then all the coastal regions will be drowned by the massive release of water that will be produced when these glaciers melt.
Some scientists and agencies including NASA are working on the technologies that can cool the planet, by some means. Though these ideas may look a bit crazy at the first sight, but some of them will have to be implemented if we want to save our planet.
Here are some ideas proposed by scientists that can cool our planet.
1) The Geritol Solution:
This plan is being carried by a private company. This company has launched a ship carrying 50 tons of iron dust.
This iron will be dropped in the Pacific Ocean. It should grow plankton that will drink up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. As you all know Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and if we are able to reduce it, then global warming can also be combated.
The idea might look simple but the International climate report also cautioned about the ecological consequences of large-scale fertilization of the ocean.
According to some scientists this way the crucial temperature between the sea surface and deeper waters will change and can result in disaster of marine life.
2) Man-made Volcano:
When Mount Pinatubo erupted 16 years ago, it released an enormous amount of sulfate particles into the atmosphere. Sulphate particles reflected some sunlight and cooled the planet for a year.
Now researchers are planning to build a man-volcano that can continuously do the same. It should eject giga-tons of Sulfur into the atmosphere every month so that some light from the sun is reflected back into space and the planet can be cooled down.
The problem with the approach is that it is not cost effective. Moreover it will only reduce the amount of sunlight but will have no effect on the amount of carbon dioxide.
3) Solar umbrella:
Personally I feel that this approach is the best. This call for building a solar shade that can cover the whole planet and can also reduce the amount of sun light and heat by 2%.
The shade will be built with small disks that will weigh less than an ounce and are about a yard wide.
About 800,000 of these disks will be launched in every rocket launch and will take 20 million rocket launches.
There are some problems with this approach. These include that the cost of the project will increase $4 trillion and will also take more than 30 years to complete.
Moreover launching 20 million tons of material into space is itself a very daunting task.
4) Artificial Trees:
Scientifically this technique is called air capture, but the instruments used in this technique are called artificial trees.
What these artificial trees do is they mimic the act of natural trees. They capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and convert it into oxygen. Once carbon dioxide is reduced the planet will itself cool in some time.
All these technologies may sound crazy, but if we are sure that we have to save our planet, then we will have to implement one of these at large scale and the time to do it is now…!
Via: usatoday
