Amazing G-R-A-C-E ! : Climate Action Pt 1

Recently my daughter came home scared by the talk of climate instability and after reassuring her ‘don’t worry, we’ll sort it out’… I feel the need to offer hope, promote conversation, and take action towards solutions …

As a chemical engineer wrestling with the technicalities of climate I reflect on a planetary ‘material and energy balance’ and consider our options for managing earth’s energy inputs, outputs and storage, Figure 1 below was drawn for my kids.

Basically to implement climate control and cooling we have 3 options:

A. Albedo Action to reduce inputs (e.g. increase reflectivity of planet)

B. Balance Atmospheric Composition to increase outputs (e.g. increase energy emitted from planet through managing atmospheric composition, e.g. limit CO2 etc)

C. Capture Energy BEFORE it overheats the ocean (e.g. store excess energy in materials, say by splitting water and reducing Carbonaceous gases with H2 to form solids and liquids)

These can be done alone or together using various technologies with different costs, timelines, and risk, and provide a framework for action (Figure 2).

The social organisation to deliver a climate solution is challenging. As every engineer knows ‘unless people are onside, you are wasting your time’ so I have been conversing with my colleagues and community. We need to develop new integrated skills, so how about a ‘Climate Engineering Degree’, we need a common identifier so people can deliver a solution anywhere, so how about a ‘ flag or banner’, and we need an identifier so best practice product and services are clearly visible to consumers, so we’re suggesting a blue ‘halo’ quality mark. And yes we need lots of implemented technical solutions.

Working with my daughter on the weekend she made the “0 flag” (Figure 3) where the Blue circle represents where we live (the biosphere), a goal of ‘Zero climate change’, water and the circle of life, and the white background ‘peace’ and goodwill required to implement any solution. We also think it makes a cool ‘best practice’ identifier. We hope you like it!

Finally, we hope you are well aware we currently receive more input energy than earth outputs and that the extra energy is largely being stored as heat in the oceans. The oceans can store very significant amounts of heat, which actually allows us to enjoy a good measure of climate stability, but over time heating is occurring ….so action is necessary. What we have is a once in a millennia opportunity here when we have knowledge, population, connectivity and technical scale to re-balance the planet and ultimately harness the surplus energy for useful purposes. So please continue your conversations, offer hope, and support solutions wherever you find them. I will do my best to encourage our engineering community to continue to collectively put thought, effort and passion into practice to achieve Zero climate change.