Climate Solution

Define:

In today’s world, climate change is affecting us all and will only get worse if nothing is done about it. The main thing causing climate change is the burning of fossil fuels which releases greenhouse gases such as carbon. With too much carbon being put into the atmosphere and not a lot of factors taking it out, the cycle is unbalanced causing many problems like a domino effect. Fossil fuels are very often burned for everyday uses such as transportation. In 2016, transport emissions made up for over 24% of carbon emissions worldwide which is expected to grow 50-250% by 2050 if a solution is not found fast enough. Specifically, ships are accounted for about 3% of global emissions of carbon and greenhouse gas emissions. Ships don’t only affect the atmosphere in a negative way, but can as well affect marine animals with things such as oil spills, pollution, and collisions.  Not only does it affect the population’s health, but as well as habitats and animals.

Discover:

After researching what has already been done to help solve this problem and improvements upon the design of ships, I found the practice of slow steaming which is reducing the speed on the ship which entails using less fuel that cuts back on emissions. This does help but, it still is putting harmful amounts of carbon and emissions into the atmosphere. The idea of wind-powered ships has also been recently introduced with various technologies such as soft, rigid “wing” sails, kites, and Flettner rotors which is a cylinder column that spins (by the power of a motor) which makes lift from the Magnus effect. The article that brings attention to wind power ships also touches on the dilemma with investors and politicians which has a heavy impact on getting these solutions into action. Other things that have been taken into consideration, are having filter devices in exhaust gas systems to collect harmful gases as well as creating liquid natural gas-fueled engines to cut back on carbon. The article that talks about this, also mentions electric engines and how they could be a possible solution but, are not developed enough to be used for big ships. Lastly, I found an article about a solar-powered boat where its purpose is to collect trash from rivers. Per day, it collects around 110,000 pounds of trash per day from being anchored to the riverbed. An extending arm catches the garbage and leads it into the opening and this contraption has a very positive impact on pollution in the waters.

Articles:

https://www.transportenvironment.org/what-we-do/shipping-and-environment/shipping-and-climate-change#:~:text=What%20is%20the%20impact%20of,of%20annual%20global%20CO2%20emissions.

https://theconversation.com/researchers-are-looking-to-a-surprisingly-old-idea-for-the-next-generation-of-ships-wind-power-44204

https://theconversation.com/designing-green-ships-from-sails-to-micro-bubbles-17508

https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/ocean-cleanups-collects-110000-pounds-trash-rivers-each-day

Dream:

Here are some of the possible ideas I thought about to help solve or cut back on transportation emissions and to get rid of pollution in the oceans and rivers:

• Use renewable energy for ways of transportation
• Find a way to create energy for cities electricity from renewable sources
• make ocean dumping completely illegal
• try to buy from places that don’t create lots of emissions from transportation
• make a way for humans waste (such as food waste) and plant scraps to be used as a better, eco-friendly energy source for ships (ships that run off of waste)
• As agriculture has lots of transportation involved such as for fertilizers and pesticides, find a way for farms to make eco-friendly fertilizers right where they are needed
• Have a contraption that runs on renewable energy to be set in rivers or bodies of water to collect trash and plastic
• have a mammal-looking contraption “swim” around in the ocean and “eat”/collect any garbage or plastic using a scanning device to identify trash

Deliver:

For my delivery, I have come up with a solution to stop the use of burning fossil fuels for energy as well as cleaning our oceans and rivers.

Debrief: 

After completing my climate solution project post, I feel I did well at including all the necessary parts of my post such as the five D’s and my solution video. At first, the process was a little rocky as I should have done more research at the very start of this project. I made sure to get as much feedback as I could from my friends, parents, siblings, teachers, and peers along the way so I could have many suggestions to consider and reflect on. I as well tried to take in many factors about my solution such as how it would affect habitat and marine life. As for screen recording on Flipgrid, I ran into a few technical difficulties but, I ended up finding solutions to them while making a video that I think informational yet easy to follow. Lastly, I could have gone more into depth about the different materials used for my solution as well. Overall, I think I did a good job at finding a solution to my problem that could eventually be used in today’s world.

 

Sources:

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/oceanbird-wind-powered-car-carrier-spc-intl/index.html

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/oceanbird-wind-powered-car-carrier-spc-intl/index.html

https://theicct.org/sites/default/files/publications/Global-shipping-GHG-emissions-2013-2015_ICCT-Report_17102017_vF.pdf

https://www.transportenvironment.org/what-we-do/shipping-and-environment/shipping-and-climate-change#:~:text=What%20is%20the%20impact%20of,of%20annual%20global%20CO2%20emissions.

https://container-xchange.com/blog/shipping-emissions/