• Question: Will humans ever be able to reverse global warming.

    Asked by CDoyle to Chris, Joanne, Kathryn, Sarah on 15 Nov 2017.
    • Photo: Sarah Guerin

      Sarah Guerin answered on 15 Nov 2017:

      I think it’s scientifically possible, but I don’t know if it will happen. Research is being done on converting carbon dioxide to oxygen, and cooling the atmosphere, but we need people to reduce emissions and recycle and work more to help the environment too.

    • Photo: Chris Werner

      Chris Werner answered on 15 Nov 2017:

      Very difficult in the immediate future as CO2 and other greenhouse gases we emit stay in the atmosphere for many years and takes a long time to even out. Even if we stopped emissions now, it may take a century for the increase to stop, before gradually returning to pre-industrial levels.

      An important thing to remember, some people will say that the Earth has been through warmer periods and we shouldn’t worry too much. True, there were rainforests at the South Pole and no ice caps at all, but the issue is the rate of the rise, its happening tens if not hundreds of times quicker than anything nature has done in the past!

    • Photo: Kathryn Schoenrock

      Kathryn Schoenrock answered on 15 Nov 2017:

      Just to follow what Chris and Sarah said- a lot of dispute with global warming (actually climate change as parts of the earth are cooling rapidly instead of warming) comes from scientific records of past climate on earth. But humans never experienced those and when we worry about climate change we worry about ourselves.

      We can remember that primates have only been around for 65 million years. That is approximately the same time that the Antarctic continent was covered in ferns. About 35 million years ago Antarctica broke away from South America and the southern ocean was created, whose current caused cooling that froze the poles started 25 million years ago. 4 million years ago the humans evolved from chimpanzees…. so if we think about major climate shifts they happen super slow- and humans have never experienced a large ice age, or a tropical earth. Who knows whether we will be able to adapt, or modify our food supply to feed humans, even with technology and scientific advances.

      If any change is going to happen it will be because people want to stop climate change- and that means voting the right people into office. And being mindful in the way you live.

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