14 DAY TRIAL // Over the past few years, a consensus has been growing within political, economic, and scientific circles, as to the fact that geoengineering may ultimately become the only way to fight global warming.
The thing about this approach is that it's not very safe, and also that the public has been largely kept in the dark about what it can do. No one at a grassroots level really knows what geoengineering means.
In short, it is defined as a process or series of processes, whose goal is to artificially modify Earth's climate. Thought of as unfeasible at first, the idea has gained many adepts over the past few decades.
There are numerous ways that researchers can take in making this a reality, but most of them are extremely resource-demanding, and would also take many years to yield any tangible effects.
The main reason why changing the climate may become a necessity is the fact that the planet appears to be warming beyond control. This is caused primarily by human pollution and greenhouse gases.
Climate change brings with it numerous consequences, such as for example changes in temperature and precipitation patterns, increased sea levels, melting glaciers, more floods and droughts, and so on.
Geoengineering schemes have the potential to curb these effects, but only under very specific conditions. Additionally, such approaches need to be carefully balanced in order to succeed.
One possible approach would be to inject fine particles into the atmosphere, in a manner simulating vast volcanic eruptions.
Over the years, scientists have noticed that large eruptions spew out to many particles, that sunlight is blocked from reaching the ground, and global temperatures decrease.
According to the Royal Society, the two main methods of conducting geoengineering efforts are carbon removal and managing the amount of sunlight reaching Earth.
Injecting sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere is part of the second approach. Researchers say that volcanoes emit the exact same gas when they cool down the atmosphere.
But this effort would require releasing vast amounts of gas every week, for the next couple of decades. The result would be an atmosphere whose properties could be controlled by humans.
But the risks associated with geoengineering are still very little known, or have never been serious studied altogether. More work should be conducted into this field, before we settle on a solution, Our World reports.