If It’s Broke, Fix It: Geoengineering
the podcast:

ezra klein is a journalist and the host of the “ezra klein show”,where he talks about current events and trends with major intellectual figures. In the podcast episode Ezra talks about geoengineering and the reasons for them.

the overview:

In order to reduce the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees, there’s a need to remove 100-1000 gigatonnes of co2 until 2100. Large scale CO2 removal requires a lot of land and resources, and so it could harm food and water sources, and it could be hard to reverse. As a result, governance is needed. Every method listed in the overview is feasible with modern tech or currently used. but the main problems are the scalability of the removal (how much co2 can be removed),the costs and unknown environmental impacts.

climeworks:

Climeworks is a Swiss company that develops carbon capture tech. It was founded in 2009 by Christoph Gebald and Jan Wurzbacher, and in 2017 it sold its first commercial CO2 air filter, which filters CO2 and sells it to become fertilizer, aviation fuel or part of drinks. The company was founded as a split from the Swiss institute of technology in Zurich, and their goal in 2025 is to filter 1% of all CO2 yearly global emissions. They built their first large-scale plant in Iceland,and it’s named orca. They also sell the CO2 they produce as soil fertilizer, thus profiting both from capturing the CO2 and from using it.

carbon sequestration:

the process of storing the co2 in the land or in creatures. plants sequest carbon through photosynthesis, a process where CO2,water and sunlight are transformed into oxygen and glucose,which can then be broken by the plant and be used to store ATP, thus making it an energy source for plants. The climeworks plants also act similarly, but they sequest the carbon into the soil, or into fuel or fertilizer.

land use management:

the process of managing the land to allow for reduced emissions. An example of that would be dedicating lots of land to build solar panels, climeworks plants and trees, instead of building oil rigs. Land use management is all about using the limited source of land in the most efficient way possible.

biochar:

a carbon rich material that’s produced when biomass is decomposed in a temperature higher than 700 degrees celsius without oxygen. It is black and the sequestration of carbon through the production of biochar is considered a solution to climate change. Biochar can be used as fuel (since it’s in many ways glorified charcoal) and as a fertilizer that improves soil fertility, water quality, agricultural production and can contain the carbon for hundreds of years without decomposing. Biochar was first produced by pre-colombian amazonian villages that smoldered their agricultural wastes in pits. As a result of that there are lots of black terrain patches found all across the Amazon , called “terra preta '' or black soil in Portuguese. terra preta was used for agriculture in the amazon and has helped the development of amazonian civilisations that contained 100000’s of people, as well as allowing future archeologists to discover said civilisations, since most of their architecture was lost in time (thanks to the decay of wood and clay), and their people got killed by plague. Biochar can be also used as stock fodder and as remidition of toxic gasses and metals, as well as a catalyst for industrial applications. Biochar can also be produced by several species of worms as a waste product.

biomass:

biomass is a term for the mass of biological objects, or the combined mass of species, ecosystems and animal/plant groups.

biomass can be used in construction (bamboo and wood, as well as worm and fungi filled mud), fuel production, food , and pretty much everything alive.

enhanced weathering:
a method of CO2 removal, in the method CO2 is sequestered by mineral dust ,thrown into the ocean and fields. The CO2 reacts with the minerals and forms molecules with them. Weathering is the breakdown of rocks and minerals with rainwater and CO2. Weathering done by CO2 is also called carbonation. It can be from chemical or physical reasons. The minerals are crushed to make the process faster. The process isn’t scalable, however forms of weathering are used to store CO2 and were done naturally for millions of years,as well as being used to store CO2 in climeworks plants.

carbon dioxide capture:

Any method of CO2 getting sequestered or absorbed is a method of CO2 capture. every method of CO2 removal “captures” it in some form or another. Climeworks plants do CO2 capture, and so do trees.

ocean fertilization:

phytoplankton (which is a type of plankton) does photosynthesis, and so in order to increase plankton growth, the ocean gets fertilized with phosphorus, nitrogen and iron. also the ocean’s ecosystem is based on planktons, so it improves the ecosystem of the ocean. Whenever a phytoplankton dies its carbon sinks into the ocean and so phytoplanktons help with global warming in both life and death :)

ocean upwelling:

Water from the deep ocean moves upward and carries nutrients with them. This enriches the surface water with materials, as well as cooler water and thus allows for a stronger ecosystem and more plankton, so CO2 is sequestered. The process is natural and so it isn’t a method, though there was a successful attempt in artificially replicating ocean upwelling.

removal of other GHGs:

CO2 isn’t the only greenhouse gas. There's also methane (which is emitted from oil production and usage) nitrous oxide (or laughing gas, which also harms the ozone layer) and water vapor. Cloud seeding can help with water vapor. while ice formation and a material inside our dirt called zeolites can deal with methane capture, with the zeolites (that are also a component of cat litter) reacting with the methane and breaking it down..

6 geoengineering techniques:

in order to reduce the temperature,sunlight can be reflected away from earth,which can be done in several ways:

1.aerosol can be injected into the atmosphere, and work similarly to a volcanic eruption and block sunlight. The eruption of  Mount Pinatubo in 1991 caused a similar effect and decreased the temperature by about 1 celsius degree for a year. though the problem with aerosols is that if we were to use them,we’d have to add more and more into the atmosphere, otherwise the temperatures might rebound

2.marine cloud brightening:

ships spray saltwater into clouds, and the saltwater acts as cloud condensation nuclei (clouds form around these things), and so clouds would appear bigger and brighter, and so sunlight would be reflected away from them.the main problem is the lack of encapsulation in one country/region

3.albedo crops and housing:

albedo is another word for whiteness, and so high albedo crops/buildings would reflect the sunlight and thus reduce temperature

4.ocean mirrors:

using sea vessels to make lots of bubbles that would reflect the sunlight

5.cloud thinning:

removing cirrus clouds that absorb more radiation than they reflect .

6.space sunshades:

building mirrors to block out sunlight.

solar radiation:

energy, heat and photons that gets out of the sun

albedo:

“whiteness”, or how much light is reflected from beings. lower means less reflection,and it’s measured between 0 (maximum absorbtion) and 1 (maximum reflection, or a perfect mirror).

ice albedo feedback:

light is being reflected from ice since it has a high albedo, and so the area cools down and more ice is being formed. The reverse can also happen if ice is being melted, and so more ice being melted would reduce albedo,which will increase temperatures and so more ice would be melted.

radiative forcing:

a change in the direction of temperature trends in the atmosphere, caused by artificial or natural means.

marine cloud brightening:
touched on that.

desert reflectors:

deserts receive lots of solar radiation, and so to decrease the temperature, we can build reflectors there to decrease sunlight. we can use mirrors or just plain white fabric.main problem with that is the lack of infrastructure in the desert,as well as costs

cool roof:

planting plants in the roof, or using high albedo materials in order to make roofs cooler and so reduce solar radiation. The main problem is the low effectiveness, but it’s relatively low cost and easy to implement.

sunshield:

a piece of metal made to block solar radiation from coming to earth, the main problem would be reversibility , externalities and cost.

stratospheric aerosols:

 already explained. putting aerosols in the stratosphere (which is between 20-50 km above ground).

Mt Pinatubo:

a volcano in the Philippines that released aerosols when it erupted in 1991 and decreased the temperature of earth by about 1 degree celsius for a year.

Arctic methane release:

methane is a greenhouse gas, and it’s produced from the decay of organic matter. The methane is trapped in the arctic under frozen oceans, but since global warming warms these oceans, the methane can be released,thus creating a positive feedback loop.

effectiveness:

how much CO2  is removed from the atmosphere/ how much the temperature is being decreased from this method

time scale:

how much time does it take for the change to happen

externalities:

does this method affect things other from the climate, like the ecosystem or cause diseases

costs:

how much money would it cost for the method to work

trade-offs:

does this method decrease something else

termination effect:

what would happen if the method was stopped being used

reversibility:

is this method reversible if we stopped using it

encapsulation:

can this method work in a small scale environment, or does it spread

antarctica being habitable:

Because of climate change, Antarctica will technically  become habitable in the next 2 centuries. Even then, Antarctica would be completely dark for 6 months every year ,so while living on the coasts is doable for most humans, plants would struggle living in the polar regions because of the solar angle. Antarctica is also very dry , but given how climate change would lead to the oceans there getting defrosted, Antarctica could become wet. For the coasts to become habitable, we’d have to consistently burn fossil fuels for 200 years at the same rate we do now, which is impossible given the fact there’s not that much fossil fuels on earth now.

cloud seeding:

Clouds are formed around chemicals in the air, and so to generate more clouds the chemicals (such as silver iodide) or bacteria  are being put there in the air. there are 2 main methods of cloud seeding:

glaciogenic cloud seeding is cloud seeding done to make snow or hail

hygroscopic cloud seeding is done to increase rainfall

fog harps:

It's a low-tech device made to collect water from fog. fog harps are used mostly in deserts and in droughts, but it doesn’t produce a lot of water. fog harps were inspired by the sequoia tree. It was produced at the Virginia institute of technology.  

Bioprecipitation:

using special bacteria to seed clouds and thus generate rain. It was proposed by David Sand from Montana State university. in order for snow and rain to fall, there’s a need for an ice nucleus. ice nuclei can be dust ,but if it is biological snow and rain can form in much warmer temperatures

cloudbuster:

a pseudo-scientific construct made to manipulate clouds using orgone energy. orgone is an anti-entropic concept of energy made by willhelm reich that was related to sexual energy and the orgasm. through orgasm orgone is released , and exessive storing of orgone,or deficiencies in orgone leads to mental and physical diseases. orgone energy is widely considered by the scientific community to be absolute bullshit.

hail cannon:

a pseudoscientific building made to create shockwaves that would destroy hailstones in the atmosphere.

article on policy makers changing the climate:

China dramatically improves the quality of air in the polluted cities in the north of their country whenever there are important political events. such as the APEC summit and the September military parade. It is achieved by factories being forced to close down and cars being blocked from driving. Because of that, after the event ends there’s a need to compensate for the economic loss, which leads to more pollution than expected.  

manipulation of the climate in the vietnam war:

During the vietnam war the US invested 3 million dollars to extend the monsoon season and it was done through cloud seeding with silver iodine. it didn’t really work and congress banned the usage of climate control in combat in 1974, and there was a un resolution in 1978

un environmental modification convention:

It's a treaty signed in 1978 , and prohibited the usage of environmental modification in military settings and as a part of a hostile effort against another country. it doesn’t count herbicides such as agent orange (which was also used in Vietnam and caused the death of several jungles).

House Hunters 3000: A User’s Guide to Settling the Stars

hyperspace:

a hypothetical method of FTL travel where the ship travels to another dimension where FTL is allowed, or time and space work differently than our own dimension, and then move from there to another point in our own dimension. The dimension is called “hyperspace” and the engine needed to get there is called “hyperdrive”. variations of hyperspace in science fiction describes the place as chaotic and unsuitable for humans. It is mostly used as a plot device to explain FTL travel.

imagine the nether in minecraft, where if you were to move 1 block, you would move 8 blocks in the overworld.

warp speed:

a device mostly used in the star trek universe made to allow FTL travel. The device distorts (or warps, if you will)  the shape of the space-time continuum and thus allows for the ship to move incredibly faster than expected. it is too used as a plot device, and the science it is based on is dubious at best. it was proven to be mathematically possible, yet FTL is still probably not possible,since it would also lead to time travel.

wormholes:

which are also called einstein-rosen bridges are the supposed result of black holes. black holes are so massive that they cause the gravity of the universe to contort in such a way to allow for travel between 2 locations incredibly faster. This is because gravity is like a plane , and the mass of the object causes the plane to shift and distort,and so two places that used to be far, can now become extremely close.

generation ships:

Since FTL travel is probably impossible, in order to access other stars we’d have to build ships that can be sustained for hundreds and thousands of years. As a result, they’d have to be big enough to sustain a population of at least a few hundred people, and so they’d have to contain agricultural, medical, and even some industrial areas to allow for their survival. The smallest crew that would be needed in a generation ship that wouldn’t cause genetic problems later on needs to be at least 98 people. The minimum amount of land needed to grow enough calories for 500 people is 0.45 sq km. The ship would also need artificial gravity that’s achieved through spinning the spacecraft, and so it would need to be at least 224 meters in radius and 320 meters in length in order to provide gravity that would sustain a human being. The spacecraft would also need a lot more, and so would be twice that size, though still smaller than Burj khalifa.

the article:

living in an ark ship would be incredibly hard. the ship would be isolated and in order to survive would have to implement strict reproductive policy that would resemble a totalitarian state. The societal problems in the ark ship could be fixed by improving our sustainability on earth that would allow for the development of a sustainable society on the ark.

human stasis:

In order to allow long term survival of humans in an ark ship, usage of human stasis is possible. In the method, the humans are put in an unconscious position and their vital needs are supplied while being put on some sort of coma-like sleep. they’re also frozen to allow for lesser need for food and energy. Thanks to that the ship can be a lot smaller and reduce the need for food and water by 70%. We still haven’t been able to do that, but there’s a company called Spaceworks which works on achieving a method of therapeutic hypothermia that reduces the temperature to 5-10 degrees fahrenheit. It has been proven that some methods of therapeutic hypothermia lead to higher success rates in surgeries, but the main problem with it is that it’s tested only on the severely injured, and there are also problems of bone and muscle atrophy that can be treated with some drugs. therapeutic hypothermia can also reduce the cranial pressure experienced from low gravity and also reduce tumor growth from radiation.

solar sails:

Light from the sun can move objects, and so solar sails can be built that would use the light from the sun to push them to their destination. The sail has to be around several meters in length, and tests done by the European space agency have proved that it can work. The sail has to also be resistant to radiation, but if the sails were to work, they would be able to go to Alpha Centauri in 20 years.

goldilocks zone:

based on the story of goldilocks, the goldilocks zone is an area in a solar system where solar radiation allows for liquid water, and so for the development of life

exoplanets:

planets that exist outside the solar system. Currently, there are about 5000 confirmed exoplanets, mostly thanks to the work of the Kepler telescope that detects small interruptions of light coming from a star.

exomoons:

moons that exist outside our solar system. Currently there are 0 found exomoons, because of their small size and near impossibility to detect light interruptions made from them. however there are exomoon candidates.  

Kepler 186-f:

also called “earth’s cousin”, the exoplanet detected by the kepler telescope was found to only be 10% larger than earth (and so be most likely a rocky planet, hence different than the gas giants normally found in the kepler telescope) and in the habitable zone of its star (which is too incredibly rare).

super-habitable planets:

planets that are more suited for life than earth is, super-habitable planets wouldn’t have deserts or massive ice-caps and would have higher concentrations of phosphorus, nitrogen, carbon, and oxygen than the earth has.

super-earths:

planets that are similar in every way to earth, except they’re bigger.

Kardashev scale:

made by soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev, the scale is made to quantify the ability of a civilization to use energy. type 0 civilizations are simply the dominant civilization/species on a planet. type 1 can harness all of the energy sources of their planet, type 2 can harness the power of their entire solar system and star, and type 3 can harness the entire power of their galaxy, type 4 is about the power of the entire universe and type 5 is other universes or the multiverse as a whole. the scale originally included only types 1,2 and 3. type 1 civilizations would have to include multiple planets since the amount of heat generated by them would increase the temperature of their planets by about 30 degrees celsius. we’re currently at 0.7 on the Kardashev scale.

To achieve a high Kardashev level, technology isn’t only what’s needed, but also production and the usage of energy. We may discover the tech needed to reach Kardashev level 2 and 3 (which is mostly about building dyson swarms around stars ) but we’d need high levels of organization and production to actually use that technology and that level of energy and material. In fact, the amount of energy we’d need to reach Kardashev level 1 is so high, that if we were to reach it and exist on earth only, the average temperature would increase by at least 30 degrees just from the heat produced by energy usage. The Kardeshev scale isn’t the only way to measure the level of civilization. there’s also the micro dimensional mastery by john barrow, which claims that as civilisation and tech develop, smaller and smaller particles can be manipulated, and so type 1 minus is about manipulating objects at the scale of the living being (and so building, mining, etc), type 2 minus is about manipulating genes, type 3 minus is about manipulating molecules, type 4 minus  about manipulating individual atoms, type 5 minus about manipulating the atomic nuclei, type 6 minus about manipulating objects as small as quarks, and type omega minus is about manipulating the basic structures of space and time.

how to terraform the moon:

terraforming is how to transform a planet or a moon to allow life to form there. The moon is filled with helium-3, which would be needed for nuclear fusion. in order to make the moon habitable it would need to be bombarded with ice-filled comets, that would be brought from areas beyond pluto and be blown apart while traveling to the moon, in order for the comet shards to be small enough to not be able to escape the moon’s gravity. the comets arriving would make its day-night cycle move from 28 days to 60 hours, and its poles would be moved ,allowing for a tilt that causes seasons to happen. There's also a need for 100 hailey-sized comets, nitrogen, algae that can create oxygen and an atmosphere, but its gravity problems would still persist.

interplanetary contamination:

use space probes and satellites to bring bacteria and other life forms from earth to other planets, and those life forms would do photosynthesis that would allow for a breathable atmosphere to exist,as well as dissolving chemicals dangerous to humans

space mirrors:

in planets closer to the sun, sun mirrors can be used to divert sunlight and thus create a temperature suitable for human life.

shell worlds:

planets could be cased with shells made from kevlar, dirt and metal. These shells would provide the planet with an “atmosphere” and allow for gasses to stay on the planet, as well as controlling the pressure and temperature inside the planet. the outside of the planet could also be colonized thanks to the gravity of the shell. The shell planet would need lots of nitrogen and water.

artificial magnetospheres:

magnetospheres may be needed to retain an atmosphere and work similarly to how mass works in keeping the atmosphere, and so to produce an artificial magnetosphere there would be a need to either create a dynamo in the molten planet core, a plasma torus of particles or a chain of discrete stations.

atmosphere thickening:

In order for life to thrive, the planet needs to be under a certain pressure. That's why the atmosphere needs a certain range of mass. in mars there’s a need to thicken it which will include emitting greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere and bringing oxygen from earth, while in venus there’s a need to thin out the atmosphere,and so we can use bacteria to do photosynthesis, or cool down the planet and transport the CO2 to somewhere else.

nitrogen importation:

plants need nitrogen to survive, and so there’s a need to move nitrogen to planets that need it from earth. Earth has more than enough nitrogen for that. there are also asteroids filled with frozen nitrogen that can also be used

extremophiles:

life forms that can survive and thrive under conditions considered extreme, such as high or low temperatures, radiation, high or low pH levels, or the vacuum of space. bacteria can be genetically modified to survive these conditions, because we have access to the genes of the water bear, an extremophile being that possesses these qualities. Genetically modified bacteria can process and slowly eliminate dangerous chemicals to humans, do photosynthesis and so create oxygen and energy needed for more life on the planet, and are generally helpful in the terraforming world.

3d printed habitats for mars:

nasa organized a competition to create plans for habitats that would be used in mars. the first place in the competition is team Zopherus that used a mixture of readily available ice, calcium oxide and martian rocks to create “martian concrete”, which can than be used as 3d-print material that the habitats can be made from. their idea is to build a huge metal dome that would contain the concrete mixer and the 3d printer. the dome can survive the dust storms of mars and protects the buildings inside it. the second place took a more artistic approach and designed a cylindrical habitat, with walls that can be adjusted to the rising and lowering temperatures of mars and so give the building the ability to “breathe”. the third place designed a habitat from a core made from fabric, that would extend a giant arm that would 3d print the habitat. the fourth place designed an “inflatable volume” that would be shielded with a 3d printed shell. northwestern university too designed an inflatable habitat encased with a 3d printed shell, except theirs had specific allocations to the different needs of the colony.

outer space treaty:

an international treaty that forbade the usage of unconventional weapons in space and the ability for a country to claim territory in space. and ordered the usage of the moon to be for peaceful reasons only.

mars one:

a nonprofit that tries to create a colony on mars. The nonprofit has largely failed, because it doesn’t have any manufacturing capabilities, wasn’t in the aerospace industry, and was declared bankrupt in 2019. However, the nonprofit tried to make movies and sell Mars related merchandise in order to pay for said trip.

Lagrange points:

Lagrange points are points between 2 objects, where the gravitational forces on that point would be equal, effectively keeping the object in the exact same spot between the 2 objects. We use lagrange points when we send satellites to space, and we tend to send those satellites there in order to stabilize their orbit.

biocentrism:

an ideology that places the increase of biological life the most important thing in the universe, and the center of creation. it was created by physicist Robert Lanza

planetary protection:

protecting planets and other celestial bodies from contamination from earth’s life forms, and protecting the earth from life forms coming from other planets. The risk of dangerous bacteria spreading to other planets is the main reason to protect a planet. Planetary protection is also done to research more on the origins of life in the solar system, without the interference of humans.

artemis project:

Artemis is the sister of Apollo and the hellenic god of the moon. The Artemis project is hence the name of the NASA mission to return astronauts back to the moon by 2025. The project was founded in 2017 under the Trump administration, and will use the new starship rockets made by Spacex, and its main purpose is to ready the ground for a moon base. The plan is also to land the first POC and woman on the moon. They tried to launch the SLS rockets needed to start the projects, but as of yet (September 25th) they failed.

there are 2 main types of rockets that will be used in the artemis project: spaceX’s starship (which is the best spaceship ever created, being both reusable, massive and refusable ) and NASA’s SLS (which was developed 20 years ago and isn’t that good)

space tourism:

Space tourism is a new industry, based on taking people to space. As of now, most of space tourism is about taking rich people to low earth orbit, where they experience a low gravity condition for some time, and eventually returning back to earth after several hours or days. People like Jeff Bezos and Ethan Stiva have become space tourists. The reason only rich people are space tourists nowadays is because of the high costs associated with the trip, but as technology develops and government regulations start to back off, we’d be able to see more and more people hop into the trend.

dyson sphere:

dyson spheres are built to access the power of the sun. They can either be a swarm of small sun mirrors and solar panels that absorb the solar radiation and beam the energy back to earth, or it can be an actual sphere, though that sphere would probably collapse from its own mass. Building a dyson swarm and being able to use the energy gathered from it would turn the civilization into Kardashev level 2 status.

What Would Noah Do? Coping Mechanism as the Waters Rise

climate migrants and refugees:

droughts and rising sea levels can and will push people to migrate out of their homelands. The article linked talks about using the term “climate migrant” instead of “climate refugee”, but the point still stands. 25% of all cities are built near coasts,rivers or passages of water,and a huge chunk of the world (especially in the middle east and sub saharan africa) is prone to desertification. because of that, mass migrations out of these places would eventually happen. Climate migration is mostly in the internal borders of a country. The first forecast: south vietnam, shanghai, the gulf countries and so on would be destroyed and submerged in water.

second forecast:

Jakarta, Lagos, Houston, Dhaka, Venice,Virginia Beach, Bangkok, New Orleans, Rotterdam, Alexandria, and Miami could all sink by the end of the century because of climate change and drained aquifers .

dike in netherlands:

The Netherlands is mostly under sea level, and so the Dutch government built a dike to prevent sinking. The dike will prevent any level of sinking , and is able to withstand waves larger than we’d ever see in our own lifetimes.

A big reason why cities tend to sink is the misuse of aquifers. aquifers are natural underground bodies of water, and so they’re used as water sources in agriculture and industry. but if an aquifer is depleted, the land above said aquifer sinks to fill the vacuum left by the draining of water there. if the land above is urbanized and it’s near a coast, you got yourself a new source for danger!

venice flooding:

Venice is a dying city and is popular as a tourist destination. It's made from 100 islands in the Adriatic Sea and it has sunk by about 5 inches in the last 50 years. They invested billions of dollars in a flood barrier system named MOSE, that is behind schedule, over budget, and is connected with several embezzlements and corruption schemes.  

kivalina:

It's a small Alaskan village populated by inuit people. The locals there are hunters and fishermen, and now the village will be flooded in the next decade. The arctic region of Alaska is warming at twice the rate of the mainland US,and so ice caps are melting incredibly fast there. it would cost 400 million $ to move the Kivalinans to a new place. As a result of global warming, the hunting cycle of this year was destroyed, and so were the whales coming to the shores. Also Alaska has lots of oil and coal deposits, and thanks to the amount of oil there isn’t income tax in Alaska and people receive UBI there.

evolution of american cities:

cities in America have rapidly grown in the last decade.

singapore’s growth:

Singapore is a city state on the Malacca straits. It's incredibly wealthy and dense, and so there’s a need to reclaim lots of land.

the first land reclamation project in singapore happened in 1822 in the south bank of the singapore river and formed port quay, and eventually became the commercial square of singapore. in the 1860’s the merchants of singapore started occupying the reclaimed land of collyer quay, which was reclaimed between 1859 and 1864, in order to watch the arrival of new ships coming to singapore. between 1879 and 1897 the shoreline of the telok layer was reclaimed by about 42 acres. after the singapore river became congested, a new harbor near raffels quay was built and reclaimed. in 1931 the kellang basin became reclaimed to build an airport there,and after independence singapore reclaimed 1525 hectares on the eastern coast, in a project dubbed “the great reclamation”, which started in 1966 and ended in 1979 and cost around 600 million dollars of that time. the reclaimed areas gave housing to 100000 people and reclaimed areas around marina bay eventually gave rise to skyscrappers in the 21st century. while the east coast was reclaimed the kallang basin ,  clementi new town, pasir ris, punggol, and seletar were all reclaimed. western reclamation efforts were mostly done for industrial purposes, specifically in jurong island. about 25% of all land in singapore was reclaimed throughout the years. the pink areas are reclaimed, and the red ones are future additions to be done by 2030 if plans come to fruition.

the guardian article:

the reclaimed land in Penang,Malaysia is good for the people who move there, but fishermen who lived there for generations and the ocean’s ecosystem are severely damaged as a result of the reclamation. between 2006 and 2010, the cities on the chinese coast have expanded on an area about the same size as singapore every year. the projects got so out of control, beijing put a stop to every project not coming from their main government. countries in south east asia have banned the export of sand, since they need it to increase their land area. the city of georgetown in penang became a world heritage site, and as a result penang’s property value skyrocketed.

wildlife connectivity corridors:

national parks are united with wildlife corridors made to allow animals from one park cross to the other with ease. because of climate change lots of species are in danger, and one way of protecting them is to build connectivity corridors between current habitats and future ones, and so animals would be able to survive the crisis. one of the common ways to create a wildlife connectivity corridors is by building a bridge that connects 2 hills seperated by a highway/ train.  

dubai green city:

the prince of dubai wants to turn it into the city with the smallest carbon footprint by 2050 as an attempt to divert from reliance on oil. dubai used to be dependant on oil, but now it has boosted its real estate, tourism and industrial sectors to the point that dubai’s economy isn’t as dependant on oil as the other emirates in the UAE,or as saudi arabia. but because in order to cool down their skyscrappers and keep their tap water they had the biggest carbon footprint per capita. but after 2006 areas like sustainable city were built, where water and waste were recycled, and more energy was produced than consumed. they also built massive solar panels and now their plan is 75% of their energy from renewable sources. one of the main reasons dubai got so much real estate is their 0% income and sales tax, as well as allowing foreigners to build property there. after the 2008 crisis dubai slowed its construction, and now areas like Masdar city , which will be powered by solar energy were built. also nuclear plants are being built in Abu Dhabi, which will provide Dubai with 8% of its energy. as of now the per-capita carbon footprint of Dubai is similar to the US. the attempt to make dubai green also connects with the attempt of dubai to disconnect from oil, which is on its way to succeed as dubai makes most of their money from the services and construction sectors, as well as from being a really good tax haven.

underwater cities:

as of now the technology to build underwater colonies of under 100 people exists, but beyond that number, there needs to be tech equipped to handle emergency evacuation and air control. marine biologists, underwater archeologists, mining companies, as well as tourists would enjoy the benefits. the main thing stopping underwater cities from existing is the lack of tech,funding and interest.

sea levels go up:

the article talks about how the attempts to fortify the shores with sand have lead to the sand getting washed away. one of the reasons for the land getting sunk is the extraction of water underground for industrial purposes, which creates vaccums that’s filled with the land getting sunk. about 50 acres are being converted to wetlands in accomak county alone every year.there are more and more floodings and the sea level goes up. Congress hasn’t approved the raising of several monumental structures to accomodate the rising sea levels, and counties are left on their own. the US doesn’t handle the issue and so it’s going to shit.

Concluding Questions

alien planets in film and tv:

christopher daniel walker is mad that alien planets in scifi don’t have a lot of worldbuilding put into them. they’re similar to earth’s general environment, because it’s near impossible to film in other planets. single-biomed planets are also bad , but series such as the expanse and movies such as avatar challenge those preconceptions

carrying capacity:

a concept invented by thomas malthus, and it is the amount of people (or any animal species in general) who can live in one area. it’s the basis of malthusian economics, which is based on the idea that there’s a fixed amount of resources, but unlimited amount of humans, and so the human population is limited by the amount of resources there are, which is the carrying capacity. modern tech has challeneged that notion and dramatically increased the carrying capacity of earth.

the antman article:

if every person reached US levels of consumption, we’d need 4 more earths, and so to help the environment people should stop reproducing and to be focused on being sustainable.

mining asteroids:

 mining asteroids that contain pentillions worth of rare earth materials can dramatically decrease the reliance on mining on earth, which makes earth greener. water in asteroids can be used to make rocket fuel,and the insides of an asteroid can be drilled and turned into a long term settlement. massive solar sattelites can be built from the materials in the asteroid belt.

eco-modernist movement:

earth is becoming a human planet, and so humans should allow for the earth’s ecosystem to thrive. because of cities and efficiency in agriculture, human impact on the environment will decrease as the century moves. humans should rely less on the environment, and so have more resources to preserve it. there needs to be plentifull access to energy and nuclear energy is good, as well as democracy

new york 2140:

it’s a novel by kim stanley robinson, where new york becomes a new venice because of climate change. the main characters are mutt and jeff who got kidnapped after hacking into a financial system while inspector gen is trying to find them. there’s franklin who bets on the housing bubble and 12 year old stefan and roberto who found a sunken treasure in the bronx,as well as amelia the airship blogger, charlotte the social advocate and the sarcastic citizen who narrates the events, and they all live in the same building. they come together to deafeat someone who wants to take over their building and the novel touches on the problems of capitalism.

the concession to climate change:

the author of the article, jedediah  doesn’t want his children to fear climate change before he grows up because he doesn’t want his child to lose his hope and give up everything.

moving the earth:

in order to escape climate change we can move the earth orbit. if we launch enough material from earth, we’d be able to move the orbit to mars levels. using electric thrusters we’d need to push out 13% of the earth’s mass. using a laser we can slowly move the earth over the span of 3 billion years. but the best method would be to use asteroid “slingshots” that would go to earth and thus move it. we’d need over a million asteroids, with each wave spacing about a thousand years, to keep up with the sun’s expansion. the asteroid method is the best, but it would be a bad idea to move earth because of global warming, because of the costs.