Environmental non-profit organisations and universities are always striving to find an ultimate solution to the decline of sea ice in the Arctic. A company proposes a panacea for all ice-related issues, be it spraying water atop the ice, paving the surface with sand or another substance. The media is in awe, but the project quietly disappears a few years later. Does that sound familiar?
One of the “saving the ice” non-governmental organisations is known as the Arctic Ice Project, which had conducted research in Canada. Back then, covered by the media as an innovative method in combating the thawing, it proposed a simple solution—covering the ice surface with special sand, which reflects up to 80 per cent of sunlight.
The research was believed to enhance the reflective properties of the ice and actually reached some of its goals, according to the project's reports. However, it emerged that hollow glass spheres ('sand') disrupt the food chains of Arctic fauna. Exactly how?—The project has not commented but recently announced its 'final chapter' and promised—without any specific dates—to publish the results of the research.
The story itself isn't quite new, and new geoengineering initiatives always manage to emerge on every possible level. Such is the project, featured by BBC (a proscribed organisation in Russia) that proposed taking seawater from under the ice and sprinkling it on top. On the ocean floor, there was a proposition to build walls around glaciers. In the sky, it involved generating clouds, etc.
Let's not forget the battle and various measures introduced against cattle (cow toilets and feeding with garlic, for example). According to model estimations, cattle may produce up to 19.5 per cent of carbon emissions. In 2006, a UN report stated that 'rearing cattle produces more greenhouse gases than driving cars.'
These ideas often offer quick fixes and thus become popular in short bursts. An oceanologist, Alexander Osadchiev, a Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, told us in an interview, "Oftentimes, these projects are some kind of a fake. It takes a lot of energy to influence any climatic processes."
People have been thinking about climate weapons for a long time: how they could subdue nature, learn to control something, stop currents, but it doesn't work that way. Natural energies are very high, and what humans can concentrate, of course, is a drop in the ocean.
Despite being very ambitious, all these ideas of introducing new substances or disrupting the natural way of things in the Arctic and the world already seem quite dangerous in themselves. Moreover, the studies always propose to cure the symptoms, but not the illness itself. Even if the researchers and NGOs actually mean well, their work will primarily target the consequences of climate change, never the cause.
And what are the primary CO2 emitters? Transportation, energy, and industry sectors. Of course, smaller organisations and universities cannot combat the machines that are the states. Their work, it seems, is a mere distraction from actual problems. This always prompts new questions such as whether it's cheaper to finance an NGO than try to decrease the carbon footprint of a developed country.
The Editorial Board of the Arctic Century
Also read the publication:
What Are the Short-Term Plans for the NSR?
