Rising carbon levels in the atmosphere can make plants grow faster, but there’s another hidden consequence: they rob plants of the nutrients and vitamins we need to survive. In a talk about global food security, epidemiologist Kristie Ebi explores the potentially massive health consequences of this growing nutrition crisis — and explores the steps we can take to ensure all people have access to safe, healthy food.
This lab is planning to test the world’s first solar geoengineering experiment in the field. Here’s why that’s so controversial.
Solar geoengineering, an idea that picked up steam over a decade ago when a Nobel Prize winning scientist called for more research on this climate engineering intervention, is back in the news. The idea made it into the 2019 UN Environment Assembly agenda and was used to kickstart a global conversation surrounding the contentious response to the climate crisis.
With growing urgency and scientific interest, a team at Harvard University took up the charge to investigate solar geoengineering in a fully fledged research program.
Solar geoengineering involves a plan that would disperse particles into the stratosphere and could ultimately reduce global temperatures by bouncing the Sun’s rays back into space.
However, this type of geoengineering intervention would not fix the root cause, which is the rising funnel of greenhouse gas emissions that are getting trapped in our atmosphere.
The video is about the Finnafjord in the northeast of Iceland because it represents a broader global challenge. While Iceland as a whole is experiencing the negative effects of climate change stronger than many other nations, this specific region actually aims to profit from the changing climate. From 2021 onwards, the construction of a large container port will begin, which is supposed to turn Iceland into a new hub for international merchant shipping.
