Climate Solutions
By Kathryn McClintock
Graphic by Carla Cieza Espinoza
Climate change is an ongoing problem that affects ecosystems in many ways. People from all different backgrounds, from architects to biologists, have united to attack climate change from multiple angles.
It’s necessary to remember that climate change isn’t always driven by greenhouse gas emissions—it can also be set in motion by other human-created environmental alterations. Deforestation in rainforests affects how carbon dioxide is recycled. However, the rainforests—and the oxygen and water they release—also affect weather patterns that stir up dust from the desert oceans away. Land miles across is fertilized due to this planetary exchange.
The albedo of the earth is another important factor in climate change. Something with a high albedo reflects more light. To put it simply, the more light something reflects, the cooler it is. Ice has a high albedo, and the more ice the earth has, the more sunlight it reflects. This keeps the world cooler, and a cooler world has more ice.
According to CNN, a group spearheaded by the architect Faris Rajak Kotahatuhaha proposed a way to create more ice. Floating submarines, grand in scale, would create hexagonal chunks of ice, which would heighten the earth’s albedo. However, to do so would require millions of these submarines, and this plan wouldn’t lower the sea level.
If the world continues to heat up, and water currents continue to bring warm water to the poles, these new icebergs could end up melting faster than they could be created. Still, Kotahatuhaha said that climate change requires solutions from all walks of life and all levels of feasibility.
Other ideas to increase the earth’s albedo include spraying seawater onto the surface of floating ice, where it will freeze faster. Ice911, a non-profit from America, has developed a silicate glass dust to spread on floating ice to protect it from the sun. Considering that ecosystems are interconnected entities, it’s important to consider the effects both of these suggestions could have on surrounding wildlife.
It is a concern of some critics that radical ideas like these may excite audiences who trust future technology at the expense of present action. According to The Economist, countries are betting on carbon-absorbing technology before it’s even been developed.
However, Kotahatuhaha’s point still stands. Climate change can be dealt with conventionally and unconventionally. Clean energy can be expanded, farming can be made more efficient, and countries can cut down on dirty fossil fuels. It’s also necessary for new ideas to come from all sectors.
The BIG architecture group constructed a ski slope on top of a waste-to-energy power plant in Copenhagen, highlighting how clean the emissions—producing the air at the top of the slope—really are. Neri Oxman and her group of innovators from MIT are designing structures made of organic materials—like casein, a milk product.
These initiatives, strange as they are, give people new ways to make human life on the earth cooperative and responsible, and incentivize governments to look at things like construction differently. While these innovations may or may not be adopted, they are complex answers to the complex issue of climate change.