4.2. Technical Solutions

How might knowledge and practices from science and engineering fields be used to address the challenges brought by climate change? 

This web site from the EPA (http://www.epa.gov/climatestudents/solutions/technologies/index.html) offers a nice overview of various technologies, ranging from development of alternate energy resources to carbon capture.

One technological approach to mitigating climate change, called “geoengineering”, involves the large-scale manipulation of Earth’s natural systems to counteract the effects of climate change.  

a. Read these two brief articles for an overview of geoengineering strategies and answer the questions below, recording your responses in the Lesson 4 Response Form. 

1. What is Geoengineering? (http://www.geoengineering.ox.ac.uk/what-is-geoengineering/what-is-geoengineering/)
2. Geoengineering: Our Last Hope, or a False Promise?(http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/27/opinion/geoengineering-our-last-hope-or-a-false-promise.html?_r=0)

Questions:

• Briefly describe the two basic categories of geoengineering and give some examples of each.

 

•  Why is geoengineering so controversial?

b. Now watch this fictional news story, a video from the Geoengineering Debate Website, https://sites.google.com/site/geoengineeringdebate/  (note: scroll down to find the video) about geoengineering and answer the questions below, recording your answers in the Lesson 4 Response form.

• What are some of the implications (positive and negative) of using geoengineering technologies?

• Which scene did you find most striking and why?