Climate change

Climate change is the long term alteration of temperature and typical weather patterns in a place. It is a pressing issue that we have been discussing for decades now. Recently, Tom Green has come up with a method to battle climate change. This plan includes turning a trillion tonnes of carbon dioxide into rocks and sinking it into the Earth’s water bodies.

Carbon dioxide into the ocean

This process includes dropping sand made out of ground olivine (a volcanic rock) into the ocean to absorb and lock atmospheric carbon. According to his calculations, 100% of the global annual CO2 emissions will be captured by depositing just 2% of these rocks.

This has to do with weathering which is when volcanic rocks dissolve due to rainfall causing a chemical reaction which uses CO2 from the atmosphere. This CO2 ends up in the ocean to be used by marine-calcifying organisms. This is noteworthy because Olivine weathers easily. According to Green, this means that the rate at which it dissolves is on a human-relevant timescale. Furthermore, this method can be implemented all around the world because Olivine is a common mineral.

According to Green, the ocean has been absorbing our CO2 emissions for a long time already. He mentions that the ocean has already absorbed about 30% of excess CO2 we have emitted as a society. He questions the probability of this idea working and what side effects may occur. As a marine science student, I have learnt that ocean acidification is a major problem that occurs due to climate change and global warming. Personally, I think that adding to the CO2 levels in the ocean will only affect the pH of the waters and this would further affect the living conditions of marine animals. Furthermore, there have been multiple studies that prove the negative effects that increasing CO2 levels in oceans have on the shells of crustaceans and shellfish.

While this may be a temprary solution, I think that dumping our CO2 emissions into the ocean will eventually ruin not only the terrestrial ecosystem but also the marine ecosystem. I believe that the first step to stopping climate change is to educate people on what is being done wrong to ensure worldwide understanding of the problem at hand. Infecting our oceans to save our land will eventually create issues for marine life and with time, even humans.

Sources and References

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/23/cloud-spraying-and-hurricane-slaying-could-geoengineering-fix-the-climate-crisis