Climate Change Issue - Essay Example

It is time we think seriously on the climatic engineering more so on the geo-engineering aspect to curb the global warming through carbon dioxide and solar radiation management. Climate change over the years has been approaching tipping point and from the trends it might soon reach to a new irreversible points due to changes of composition of gases into the atmosphere and oceans by the emission of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane; increasing the global temperatures which is associated with hazards such as excessive melting of Green ice and Atlantic ice sheets which pose a great environmental danger to the ecosystem thus an alternative measure to curb this “long term effects” menace.

Carbon levels and other heat trapping gases have been on the increase and to some extent surpassed the tipping point; as of May 2012, carbon dioxide had reached 396.18 parts per million in the atmosphere which is way over the 350 parts per million upper limit, a stable climate’s relative point. With earth’s atmosphere monitoring stations over the last two decades indicating an increase in annual carbon emissions by 41% mainly from the fossil fuel combustions, indicate that the carbon concentration has approximately been increasing with 2 million parts per million each year; with this trend, it might be more than twice of the pre-industrial levels by the end of century resulting to further ecosystem damages.

Geo-engineering measures more so the suggested strategies of pumping 5million to 10 million tons of sulphur dioxide in to the stratosphere; where they cannot be washed away easily by rain, intended to form microscopic particle to shade the planet from direct radiation, advancing bio-technological research on the algae fertilization to enhance carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere and invention of an alternative to fossil fuels, will go an extra mile in combating the global warming menace.

Despite these measures being faced by a couple of limitations such as lack of effective understanding of ecological problems, increasing the acidity of the oceans, ineffective measure of full implication tests and barriers from the economically benefiting segments and organizations/governments with interests in these biodegrading activities, extensive research more so on the geo-engineering to curb the radiation and carbon emissions. A further global warming of 1 degree centigrade defines a critical threshold with the earth creating more Venus like conditions characterized by unhealthy and unlivable conditions with storms becoming frequent and severe globally.

This will result to adverse effects of water shortage, unhealthy ecosystem that cannot support growth and development of micro-organisms necessary for plants growth translating to food insecurity, and displacement of the populations due to uncontrolled rising sea levels. These calls for effective measures to consider the average temperatures, regional variations and the effects of precipitation; a role of geo-engineers to try to balance the effects particular level of greenhouse gases, lower levels of sunlight and the optimum combination of both to increase the amount of precipitation/rainfall (Begay, 2).

Internationally, economies have come up with policies that directly touch on the importance of climate change some of which have involved reorganization of their cultures and/or manipulation of national policies to meet the environment international mitigation standards. For instance, in the United States, the operation “POPEYE” which marked the end of the Nixon era, advocated for inducing rainfall to reduce the traffic ability in the slogan “make mad, not war”, others argued that nuclear weapons were more destructive and adapting geological weapons such as rain and restoration of snow was a much better weapon.

The United Nations convention on the prohibition of military or any other hostile use of Environmental Modification Techniques [ENMOD], has seen a change of war cultures and the extended value to natural resources and an improved perspective/ethics on the environment. Works Cited Begay, Grayson. Advanced Climate Engineering. New Delhi: World Technologies, 2011. Internet resource.