Overview of solutions to climate change

Technical vs Non-technical approaches

There are many avenues by which society can tackle climate change. There are technical approaches and non-technical approaches. Let me give you some examples.

A technical approach would be to use renewable energy sources such a hydroelectric dams to generate electricity. This would reduce the carbon emissions associated with energy use and so limiting the greenhouse effect. These sorts of solutions receive press attention (remember when the Three Gorges Dam was inaugurated?) but they aren't the only options.

A non technical approach could include initiatives like education campaigns as well as marketing to raise awareness of the issues that society is currently facing. If young students are educated about the risks and negative impacts of a business as usual approach, the idea that something must be done to combat the issue would be in their head from a young age. This allows for solutions to come about organically and to be included in all aspects of design and implementation of projects.

Scale

Solutions can vary in scale they could be from the personal to the commercial to the utility scale (the scale increasing respectively).

Personal initiatives are relatively easy to implement but on their own they do not account for much. For example, a person or a household can start recycling all their paper instead of throwing it away or they could reduce the amount of water they use when they're brushing their teeth and showering. these activities are only useful if large portions of the population partake in that because at the end of the day if only one person closes the tap while they’re brushing their teeth a negligible saving will be had.

Commercial Solutions could look like a clothing brand changing their plastic buttons to only be manufactured from recycled plastic. because the scale is much larger than a personal initiative many more savings, in terms of carbon output, will be had.

Following the same principle at the utility scale the largest savings can be had. Increased efficiency at the utility scale would allow people to live similar lives at a similar quality of life that they currently experience while minimising carbon output. Let me give you an easy example: imagine a country with 30 million people inhabiting it relies solely on fossil fuels to power its residential commercial and industrial sectors. The amount of carbon (and other gasses) being released will be enormous. Now if this country gradually starts implementing renewable energy sources into its grid so that only 50% of its electricity is derived from fossil fuels then its carbon output would be halved. Obviously this isn't an all-encompassing analysis as there are many drawbacks (such as the amount of quarrying needed to mine the metals required to create the renewable energy technology) to the use of renewable energy as we will see an upcoming posts.

Engineering focus

My background is in engineering and so I tend to look at these issues through an engineering lens, whether it be technical solutions or infrastructure policy.

Looking at solutions from a high level (with an engineering focus) there are 3 main routes you can take.

Smart initiatives try to minimise the causes of climate change whereas infrastructure resilience is the idea of ensuring that infrastructure can withstand the effects of climate change. The business as usual approach is essentially continuing to do what is currently being done and hoping that everything happens to work out for the best. This approach is disastrous and only serves to line the pockets of corporations and institutions but don't have the best interests of the people and the planet at heart.

The business as usual approach is mutually exclusive with the other two options, but infrastructure resilience and smart initiatives can work in tandem.

The ratio at which to invest in either approach is entirely dependent on the progressiveness of the policy makers and the market.