1 Tipping the energy balance scales
Imagine you have been hired as an Energy Balance Consultant to advise humanity on climate change. As you have seen in previous sessions, there are compelling reasons to engineer the climate. But the question now is how?
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As an Energy Balance Consultant, you must ‘tip the scales’ of Earth’s energy budget. What were the two types of approach discussed in Session 1?
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You could geoengineer the climate by reflecting sunlight with mirrors (to reduce the energy coming in) and/or by reducing the greenhouse effect (to increase the energy going out).
The greatest source of Earth’s energy is the Sun. Just how much energy do we receive from the almost unimaginably vast nuclear fusion reactor in our Solar System? You might find the answer surprising!
OpenLearn - Could we control our climate?
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