Persuasive Essay On Geoengineering

Imagine our future, a prosperous and alluring world covered with green trees and thriving plant life. All the people are amicable and healthy, it is the ideal community. Sadly, this is not a viable opportunity if we continue to ignore the pressing issue of global warming. Global warming is defined as “the gradual increase in the overall temperature of the earth’s atmosphere generally attributed to the greenhouse effect caused by increased levels of carbon dioxide, chlorofluorocarbons, and other pollutants” (“Global Warming”). In simpler terms, it is the warming of our atmosphere due to the pollution created by humans. Global warming presents a particularly urgent challenge to human society, even threatening the very survival of our species. We must take immediate action if we want to continue living on this planet we call home. As habitants of Earth, we should be nurturing and loving. Instead, we are greedy and selfish. We need to stop thinking about ourselves, and think about what we can be doing to save our world. Measurements from satellites and scientific experiments blatantly show that our atmosphere’s temperature is slowly climbing. Research shows that each decade is warmer than the last, setting new records with every rise in temperature. This is due to the human activities that produce heat-trapping gases, such as water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, ozone, and nitrous oxide. These types of gases are known as greenhouse gases and are created by fossil fuels in electricity generation, transportation, industrial processes, and space and water heating (Climate Communication, 2016). These specific gases are responsible for the warmer atmosphere, and we are responsible for the gases. A higher global temperature leads to increased evaporation, which heightens the amount of water vapor, causing more warming, and thus evaporation also. This is a never-ending cycle. Global warming has already begun to affect our current weather patterns. We are starting to see more severe and frequent hazardous weather. There are reported cases of more rain in heavy downpours and longer periods of droughts. Also, deadly heat waves have become common in some parts of the world. Especially in Europe, where “unprecedented heat in the summer of 2003 caused an estimated 70,000 premature deaths” (“Global Warming Is Already Affecting Weather”). This kind of heat can become a regular thing if nothing is done to decrease greenhouse gas emissions. Desertification, empty aquifers, and sporadic flooding are all things to expect in the near future. Rising sea levels are the biggest concern to scientists right now; islands and glaciers are starting to slowly disappear. 2,000 years have passed with no significant change, yet during the last century sea levels have risen at a rate of 1.7 milliliters per year. These past 15 years, sea levels have been rising at an alarming 3.1 milliliters per year (Climate Communication, 2016). One specific example of disappearing islands is the country of Peru. Nearly one-fifth of their glacier’s mass has melted, just in the past few decades. The country’s population relies on glacier runoff to create hydropower and to irrigate their crops. With a significant decrease in glaciers, the locals can suffer from loss of long-term electricity and possibly …show more content…
One of the most popular theories to reverse global warming is geoengineering. According to Jay Michaelson (1998, p. 76), “the time has come to expand our policy horizons to include geoengineering, the direct manipulation of the Earth’s climatic feedback system, as a serious alternative to ineffective and contentious regulation.” Geoengineering holds the possibility to considerably reduce greenhouse gases. There are two different types of geoengineering, carbon dioxide removal and solar radiation management. Carbon dioxide removal attempts to reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and includes methods, such as afforestation, creating biochar (carbon-rich charcoal) from burnt crops and adding it to soil, capturing CO2 and depositing it into the deep ocean and rocks, ocean fertilization that increases the population of carbon-absorbing plankton, and capturing carbon right from the air. Some forms of solar radiation management include thinning high clouds to retain heat, increasing reflectivity in the atmosphere through aerosols, and spraying low clouds with sea salt to spread reflectivity. There are many different risks and uncertainties that come along with geoengineering, yet many experts believe we must study the possible