ENGINEERING EARTH • PART II
What problem is excess carbon dioxide causing in the oceans?
How would pulverizing the seafloor help with ocean carbon dioxide?
How much can fish abundance increase around artificial reefs compared to bare seabeds?
How do artificial reefs help capture carbon?
How do artificial reefs protect coastlines?
How much sea level rise could the Thwaites glacier cause if it collapses?
What is the proposed solution to protect the Thwaites glacier?
How much has energy use grown in the last two centuries (200 years)?
Why are deserts ideal for solar power?
What dangerous side effect could occur if we produce too much energy on Earth?
NUKING THE SEAFLOOR
Excess carbon dioxide in the oceans is weakening food chains by causing the water to become more acidic.
Pulverizing a part of barren sea bed would allow rock particles to soak up the excess C02 and restore balance to the waters.
A single nuclear bomb, placed 5 kilometers beneath the sea bed, could shatter enough rock to sequester 30 years of carbon emissions.
The bomb would have to be massive – potentially over a thousand times more powerful than Zar Bomba, the largest nuclear bomb ever dropped.
But the deep sea water pressure would contain the blast and minimize fallout.
The best location could be the remote Kerguelen plateau in the southern ocean, where the seafloor is mostly barren, and rich in basalt rock.
The operation would leave a 12 kilometer wide blast zone that would remain uninhabitable for years.
This is geoengineering at its most extreme, and most dangerous.
But preserving the oceans and millions of human lives makes even the most extreme ideas worth considering.
For a safer way to manage the seas, we don’t have to go far from shore.
Artificial reefs, built from sunken ships and man-made materials, can become bustling marine cities, with some studies showing fish abundance increasing up to 20 times compared to bare seabed.
Widespread artificial reefs could boost the ocean's natural carbon drawdown by offering habitats for trillions of corals, shellfish, and seaweeds that capture carbon during their growth.
On a massive scale, these reefs could offer powerful natural defenses, reducing erosion and storm surges by absorbing wave energy.
But managing our planet’s hydrosphere is about more than protecting our oceans -- it means preserving the glaciers and ice sheets that cool the world and hold back rising seas.
THE ICE MACHINES
This is the Thwaites glacier in Antarctica, a massive ice sheet that spans 75 miles… also known as The Doomsday Glacier.
Rising ocean temperatures are causing warm oceanic currents to wind their way underneath the glacier, causing it to crack and destabilize. If the Thwaite glacier collapses into the sea, it could trigger up to 10 feet of sea level rise, flooding coastal cities around the world.
To avert disaster, a geoengineer at the university of Lapland has a bold plan.
The idea is to construct a massive 100 kilometer long underwater curtain around the glacier, designed to block warm ocean currents from reaching the underside of the ice.
This vast undersea barrier would be engineered to withstand collisions with icebergs, and could be removable if problems arise.
At the opposite pole of the planet, ambitious proposals are being made to stop the loss of arctic sea ice.
Vast fleets of wind-powered pumps could draw seawater to the surface during the winter, and spray it over the arctic waters, where it would rapidly freeze in the frigid air.
An American architect has recently designed a polar umbrella, which would float in arctic seas, using solar power to harvest sea water and create new ice.
Deployed in the fastest melting regions, these umbrellas would cast a cooling shade that would lower surface temperatures and rejuvenate the arctic ice.
But most of these grand solutions have a common problem: they each require enormous amounts of resources and energy.
Where do we get the power and materials? and how will the insatiable demand for energy shape Earth’s future?
ENERGY
For the last two centuries, our energy use has been growing exponentially, surging over 2000 percent and fueling a 10-fold increase in global economic output.
Continuing this level of growth will eventually require generating hundreds of trillions of additional watt-hours every single day.
But thanks to revolutions in solar power efficiency, covering just 0.3% of the Earth’s surface in solar panels would be enough to power all of civilization.
And the frontier for our solar powered future will be one of the least livable regions of the planet: the deserts.
Deserts provide ideal conditions for solar power with their vast, flat landscapes, abundant silicon, and constant sunlight.
There are now proposals for massive scale solar farms in the Sahara, capable of generating four times our current global energy usage.
But covering over 20% of this desert could have dramatic side effects.
The increased heat absorbed by the dark solar panels could disrupt global weather patterns and cause a spike in temperatures, especially at the poles.
No matter how or where we get our energy, producing too much on-planet will eventually be deadly.
If our consumption grows at just 2% per year, we will use up all the energy available to Earth in as little as a few hundred years.
But the real problem is that the waste heat from energy production at this scale would heat the Earth by over 20 degrees celsius, which would make large parts of the planet uninhabitable.
How do we balance continuous energy growth with a safe stable planet?
Acidic - Having properties like acid; sour and able to damage things
Pulverizing - Breaking something into tiny pieces or powder
Barren - Empty; having no life or plants
Sequester - To capture and store something safely
Fallout - Dangerous particles that spread after a nuclear explosion
Basalt - A type of dark volcanic rock
Uninhabitable - Not safe or suitable for living
Geoengineering - Using technology to change Earth's environment
Artificial reefs - Man-made underwater structures that act like natural coral reefs
Abundance - A very large amount of something
Drawdown - The process of removing something from the air or water
Erosion - When wind or water wears away rock and soil
Storm surges - Large waves pushed onto land during storms
Hydrosphere - All the water on Earth (oceans, lakes, rivers, ice)
Glaciers - Large masses of ice that move slowly over land
Ice sheets - Huge areas of thick ice covering land
Oceanic currents - Rivers of water flowing through the ocean
Destabilize - To make something unsteady or likely to collapse
Geoengineer - A scientist who designs ways to change Earth's environment
Curtain - In this case, a barrier under water
Arctic - The cold region around the North Pole
Frigid - Extremely cold
Rejuvenate - To make young or new again
Exponentially - Growing faster and faster over time
Watt-hours - A way to measure electrical energy
Efficiency - How well something works without wasting energy
Silicon - A material used to make solar panels and computer chips
Consumption - The act of using up resources
Waste heat - Unwanted heat created when making energy
► COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS
— please answer with complete sentences
What problem is excess carbon dioxide causing in the oceans?
How would pulverizing the seafloor help with ocean carbon dioxide?
How much can fish abundance increase around artificial reefs compared to bare seabeds?
How do artificial reefs help capture carbon?
How do artificial reefs protect coastlines?How much sea level rise could the Thwaites glacier cause if it collapses?
What is the proposed solution to protect the Thwaites glacier?
How much has energy use grown in the last two centuries?
Why are deserts ideal for solar power?
What dangerous side effect could occur if we produce too much energy on Earth?
► From EITHER/OR ► BOTH/AND
► FROM Right/Wrong ► Creative Combination
THESIS — Argue the case that bold action is needed now if we are to save the Earth.
ANT-THESIS — Argue the case that bold action will create terrible problems.
SYN-THESIS — We’re “damned if we do, damned if we don’t” so — what do you think we should do?
