- Neha Verma
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Sustainability
Image Courtesy: Pexels
Climate change continues to wreak havoc around the world. As evidenced by scorching temperatures, melting glaciers, rising sea levels, frequent weather extremes, and ecosystem loss. As per WHO, climate change is not only destroying the world’s biodiversity but may also result in nearly 2.5 lakh additional deaths per year between 2030 and 2050.
1. Carbon capture
Scientists attribute the Earth’s growing average temperature mostly to human-caused greenhouse gases. Emissions that trap heat that would otherwise escape into space.
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is one of the major greenhouse gases, with concentrations rising by over 50%, from the start of the Industrial Revolution.
Carbon collection, utilization, and storage technologies are among the innovations being employed to lower CO2 emissions; the Net Zero Teesside (NZT) project is an intriguing example.
2. Feeding cows seaweed
Methane emissions, another key greenhouse gas, are rising to record levels because of cow rearing.
According to a recent study, between 2000 and 2017, agriculture produced two-thirds of all methane emissions associated with human activities, with fossil fuels accounting for the majority of the remaining third.
Considering that cows digest their food by fermenting it in their stomachs, where the sugars are, this methane is mostly produced by burping cattle.
Since cows ferment their meal in their stomachs, where the carbohydrates are changed into simpler molecules that the body can absorb, most of this methane is produced when cows burp.
3. Climate repair
The University of Cambridge’s Centre for Climate Repair is looking into a range of solutions that might undo the harm caused by human pollution.
One of their suggestions is to brighten the clouds above the poles to help the clouds reflect radiation back into space. This would simply entail spraying microscopic salt flakes into the sky.
Another idea is to “green” the oceans, which involves fertilizing them to promote the growth of algae and plant stuff that could absorb more CO2.
However, some research cautions that doing so could seriously harm the ecosystems of the oceans and might not even be able to capture enough CO2 to compensate for emissions.
4. Remote working
Many office jobs can be successfully performed from home, as the coronavirus pandemic has demonstrated, potentially providing a means of reducing emissions from vehicles and office buildings.
The primary source of carbon emissions in the developed world is travel to and from work.
Businesses scrambled to control the effects of COVID-19 on their workforces, while governments rushed to lock down their nations and prevent mass casualties, prompting a quick adoption of remote working technologies.
However, it is possible that remote working only reduces emissions during the summer.
5. Household energy efficiency
Making homes more energy efficient will have the greatest impact on lowering overall energy usage, which will be the most effective technological answer to combating climate change.
Many of the newest items on the market today have the technology to achieve this and can save family expenses by hundreds of pounds yearly.
To inform consumers about how much it will cost to operate refrigerators and washing machines, as well as other products like light bulbs and televisions, the European Union devised an energy labeling scheme. This scheme labels appliances according to how energy-efficient they are.
Even though energy savings from design improvements for these home items may not seem like much, they can scale up and have a considerable influence on energy consumption over a year for a household and even more so throughout all households in a nation.
Buildings account for 35% of CO2 emissions and 40% of total energy consumption in the EU (European Union), even though efficiency improvements have reduced home energy use over the previous 50 years.
The Committee on Climate Change, an independent, statutory authority, claims that homes in the UK are currently “unfit” to handle the challenges posed by rising global temperatures and the requirement to cut energy use. Electronic products that are newer and greener can be a smart place to start.
