5 Engineering Solutions Proposed to Fight Climate Change

As the looming threats from climate change continue to become more real and dangerous, increasingly inventive strategies are needed to combat its effects. Through decades of relative inaction and both growing economies and populations, our impact on the land, sea and air continues to create new problems.

While technology alone can’t solve every issue related to climate change, there are a wide variety of engineering solutions that could mitigate some of the damage in the years to come. As such, let’s take a look at five engineering solutions proposed to fight climate change that could become realities in the near future.

Carbon Dioxide Removal

This process – known as CDR – is one of the longest standing engineering solutions proposed to fight climate change. There are a variety of techniques for carbon dioxide removal, including new proposals that have emerged in just the past couple of years. This broader form of climate change reversal has produced proposals that have been created by expert engineers and engineers in training alike; an Engineer in Training works under a professional engineer. One of the more popular methods involves burning various forms of biomass to produce energy, with the waste – in this case, CO2 – being stored underground.

Albedo Alterations

Did you know that the brightness of the planet can actually affect how much heat is trapped in its atmosphere? This phenomenon – known as albedo – means that the darker a planet’s aggregate surface, the more heat is absorbed from the sun’s rays. Scientists and engineers have proposed multiple solutions involving altering the albedo of the planet, including simple options such as painting roofs white. More complex measures involve strategic use of land management, since paved surfaces and forests trap more heat than arable land in-use.

Reforestation

Even though trees actually reduce albedo (and therefore trap more heat), the key to combating climate change doesn’t revolve around destroying our forests. One of the more common-sense engineering plans for combating climate change involves reforestation and afforestation. By strategically planting or replanting trees at specific sites around the world, both the global and local temperatures in select areas can be lowered. Not only that, but trees are a capturer of carbon dioxide – meaning they serve as an all-natural hedge against runaway greenhouse gas emissions.

Stratospheric Aerosol Injection

Even though reducing greenhouse gases solves the root problem of climate change, some engineers are focused on mitigating its effects instead. One of the more popular options is known as stratospheric aerosol injection, or SAI. This technique functions similarly to how major volcanic eruptions in the planet’s past blocked out sunlight: the side-effect is that it generates a cooling effect on the planet. Even blocking just one percent of all light absorbed could have a huge impact on runaway temperatures across the planet (though it does not solve the root cause, which are greenhouse gases). Recent evidence shows SAI is highly effective in terms of cost and feasibility.

Space Mirrors

While there are many engineering feats we can be pursuing here on Earth, one engineering proposal involves reducing sunlight at its source. A vast array of space reflectors has been proposed, aimed at the sun to reflect excess sunlight back into space. This network would help minimize the amount of sunlight making it into the planet’s atmosphere, thereby cooling the planet by default. In order for the “space mirror” proposal to work, however, we’d need to reflect around one percent of the sun’s light: that would require an array of mirrors roughly the size of Alaska orbiting the planet.

These five anti-climate change engineering proposals address various stress-points of the problem, and certainly offer varying levels of feasibility with current technology, but the future is clear. Engineers and other scientists – along with the rest of the humanity – will sooner or later be forced to commit to large-scale and viable projects to combat this massive long-term problem. While the end result may vary when compared to the options presented above, they do show that there are multiple options to address this crisis.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or management of EconoTimes.