Regardless of whether you agree or not, global warming is happening. According to reports by NASA, human activity is worsening the situation. As of right now, there is more carbon dioxide in our atmosphere than in all of the history of mankind. Two-thirds of the severe weather events from the last two decades can be attributed to human activity.
Nonetheless, all hope is not lost yet. Bill Gates is backing a potential solution to global warming. The idea is to make use of solar geoengineering for putting an end to global warming. Solar geoengineering is a radical but at the same time quite an effective way of ceasing global warming. For those who don’t know, this technology can be used for mimicking the effects created by a huge volcanic eruption.
Andy Parker is the project director at the Solar Radiation Management Governance Initiative and said, ‘Modeling studies have found that it could reduce the intensity of heatwaves, for instance; apparently it could reduce the rate of sea-level rise. It could reduce the intensity of tropical storms.’ The planes would fly at high altitudes while spraying millions of tons of particles all around the planet. This would lead to creating a mammoth chemical cloud that could cool the surface.
However, the technology is not officially ready as of yet. It is quite close to being ready, but it still might take some. Furthermore, this process might end up affecting the regional weather patterns apart from eradicating the blue sky. The good news is that the project is affordable. Stephen Gardiner, the author of ‘A Perfect Moral Storm: The Ethical Tragedy of Climate Change’, says this about this particular technology. These consequences might be horrific. They might involve things like mass famine, mass flooding, the drought of kinds that will affect very large populations.’
It appears, however, that the benefits of solar geoengineering might just outweigh the cons of this particular technology. We will have to wait and see how this unfolds.