Temperatures are starting to rise once again. We even hit about 23 degrees in Edinburgh the other day, which is bananas! As time goes on, I have moments of fear thinking about climate change and what life is going to be like. It’s only recently that I heard the term climate/eco-anxiety, and I’ve definitely started to notice it here and there. For me, I feel more of this sort of unfair powerlessness and anger. Because we all live on this world together, and yet a select few people get to make the majority of decisions. And most of them are almost criminally negligent.

It’s infuriating when you see all the damage and indifference happening day-to-day, and there doesn’t seem to be that sense of urgency or care at the top. So on that note, I think I’ll waffle a little bit about some potential positives I’ve read and generally just whatever other crap I feel like :D.

The main issue with climate change (well, one of them anyway) is that the rising temperatures are causing the polar ice caps and glaciers to melt. These white sheets help reflect sunlight back out into space instead of remaining in the atmosphere and/or ocean. Therefore, as time goes on, Earth becomes darker and darker as these polar mirrors shrink, reflecting less and less sunlight back into space. So one of the first steps is to halt the shrinking and actually help them regrow. And there are three exciting projects I have come across over the past few months to do exactly that.

Solar Engineering

The first one is a bit controversial, as it involves something called solar engineering. This idea came about after reductions in global temperature following certain volcanic eruptions. Specifically, eruptions in which large amounts of ash are ejected into the atmosphere and remain there for long periods of time. This persistent blanket of ash prevents sunlight from reaching the surface, and, if it stays long enough, can actually reduce temperatures on a global scale. Recreating these conditions using aerosols, we would, in theory, be able to create a cover of clouds over sensitive polar regions. This would, in effect, shield our ice caps for a period of time, allowing them to recover while we accelerate emission reductions. However, this would be incredibly expensive, and the effects of blocking sunlight on such a large scale are still relatively untested and not without risks.

Underwater Drone Technology

The next super ingenious one involves pumping seawater on top of the ice sheets. Sounds kind of stupid, though, right? How could we do that at the scale needed? Well, using drones, of course! Underwater drones scanning the thickness of large sheets of ice would react on finding some particularly thin sections. These drones are not only capable of drilling through the ice but also pumping seawater through the hole! As the temperature drops, the water will refreeze, and then the drone moves on to the next section. This would help stop the ice sheets from shrinking while we do all we can to reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, giving us more precious time.

Underwater Curtain

One of the issues that was largely underestimated until recently was the warming waters flowing under our ice shelves and accelerating the loss of our glaciers. One idea that sounds the most far-fetched to me but is still very interesting was creating a MASSIVE curtain underwater that was able to block warm water but let out cold water. By placing this curtain in front of our glaciers, we would be able to prevent this flow of warm water. This would need to be done in combination with one of the other two, as while the curtain would help stop warmth from reaching the bottom of our glaciers, air temperatures would still be affecting everything on the surface.

In a time when the world needs innovative solutions on a large scale, it is projects like these that give me hope. I’m no expert on any of these subjects in the slightest, but you’d have to have your eyes and ears taped shut to not realize we are in a perilous situation at the moment. We need solutions, and we need them NOW.