Climate 411

Can We Engineer Our Way Out?

Yesterday I talked about the phenomenon of "global dimming", where pollution particles suspended in the atmosphere reflect sunlight back into space. Because they cause less sunlight to hit the Earth, these particles also cool the planet.

So here’s an idea for fighting global warming. Instead of trying to reduce greenhouse gas pollution – the root cause of the problem – why not use technology to counteract the effect of the pollution? For example, we could artificially add to the planet’s reflectivity so that the warming is cancelled by the cooling.

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Vacuum Up Greenhouse Gases?

Everybody’s always talking about reducing greenhouse gas emissions. What you don’t hear so often is a suggestion to clean up what’s already there. How would you do that? Good question! And it’s the question that Virgin Earth Challenge is posing to the world. Come up with a commercially viable way to remove a billion tons of CO2 from the atmosphere per year, and win $25 million.

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