Overview

Hello people!!!

What have we learnt so far? We learnt that climate change is a fact, that we can declare ourselves guilty, and that we cannot continue on our current path if we do not want to find ourselves or our children living in a planet with such an extreme weather.

So, in this brief summary we are coming back to the original diagram. Sorry for repeating it but I find it very illustrative:

Source: TED video

We saw that environmental politics is a complicated topic, and studied the last agreement made. Therefore, we said mitigation is a complicated subject, because of the politics involved. Adaptation to some extent is inevitable.

Our main focus, therefore, was geoengineering. We studied solar radiation management and we saw that by partially blocking the sun, even if the amount of atmospheric CO2 doubles, we can return to pre-industrial temperatures. However, this is a big risk because of possible side effects, as a re-distribution of precipitation, possible increase of extreme climatic events, etc. Additionally, it has one major risk: once these techniques are implemented, if one does not want the weather to be like if would have been if geoengineering was not performed, then geoengineering can never stop.

We studied in less depth some of the existent carbon dioxide removal techniques, including ocean fertilisation and biochar. However, there are several other techniques being studied nowadays about possibilities of CDR and how they can change our future.

The following image show perfectly the most important geoengineering techniques, mixing both solar radiation management and carbon capture techniques. It shows the affordability, effectiveness in a coordinate system. It also shows the safety of each process, considering known and assumed consequences. Additionally, it considers how long would it take to make a change in the situation to be changed.

Scheme of the geoengineering techniques: Shepherd et al (2009)

But if there is one thing we learnt in the process is that plenty of solutions for climate change exist. But there are all new. Very few studies have been done to test the dangers of geoengineering, even though they are considered to be very important. Geoengineering nowadays is considered something that will have to be implemented. Therefore, we expect a large variety of studies on the dangers of the discussed techniques and others in the years to come.

I leave you with an example of how the world could be in the future. The power station in the picture below, called the Boundary Dam Power Station in Saskatchewan buries all its carbon emissions underground.

 Boundary Dam Power Station. Source: VOX

Goodbye!! I will see you soon!!