Climate Change Pertaining to Engineering

 Our Place in Nature has been making me contemplate how climate change will impact my future career, and for my particular field of work, the connection is easy to make. My field of study is aerospace engineering, where climate change not only is a concern, but it can be a primary objective for designs. Energy efficiency is a major focus for aerospace engineers when designing a new product, such as a rocket. A rocket requires an immense amount of initial thrust to leave the ground and escape the atmosphere, which, as recent studies have begun to show, could potentially be partially responsible for climate change. According to The Aerospace Corporation, hydrocarbon-fueled rockets release black carbon into the atmosphere, which efficiently absorbs the sun's visible light. An estimate shows that this black carbon could be a major problem as the industry continues to grow and transportation to space evolves. When all emission sources are considered, it may be second in heating the atmosphere only to carbon dioxide, which absorbs the sun's infrared light.

However, as I am beginning to learn in thermodynamics, this task may not be so simple. According to the second law of thermodynamics, a machine that does work, such as a heat engine or a heat pump, needs two thermal reservoirs in order to operate. One of them provides heat to the machine, and then the machine rejects a certain percentage in the form of waste energy to another reservoir. By this definition, energy will always be wasted, and many times, it is a large percentage that make it tough for many machines to crack above 50 percent efficiency. Even if all processes happening in the machine are reversible, meaning the engine is idealistic (Carnot engine), its efficiency depends on the quality of the thermal energy reservoirs that it is taking from and rejecting to. As ideas grow, people are trying to find smart ways to recycle or conserve much of the energy that is wasted from combustion engines.

Thompson & Stouffer, 2015

Engineers have to balance the energy that a system could provide with the costs that it would take to install it. For example, building a system in an ocean that connects the hot reservoir (surface) with a cold reservoir (deep water) to produce work would have extremely low efficiency, and the install costs would be too great to be practical. Luckily, the rise of large-scale computers that can calculate at high speeds and simulate relevant processes related to emissions has made costs decrease significantly for designers. Electric powered On-demand Aviation (ODA) sounds very promising with its environmentally clean and safe transportation powered by rechargeable batteries. When comparing its greenhouse gas (GHG) intensity with that of conventional jet fuel, ODA shows to be approximately equal to or slightly greater than that of conventional fuels, but if ODA energy intensities were greater than estimated, then the GHG intensity could be about 20% lower (Thompson & Stouffer, 2015). Looking at the sources themselves, nonrenewable sources are estimated to have a much higher GHG intensity than any other type, which is not shocking. Its ability to generate power is a hurdle that designers are still trying to overcome.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

World Meteorological Organization Headquarters

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a global organization that organizes and analyses the science related to climate change. It was set up in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and it's designed to give policymakers regular information on the scientific basis on climate change, it impacts, future risks, and options for adaptation. The IPCC works to collect a wide variety and balance of sources and interpret what the information means for the decision-makers. Thousands of scientists from all over the world contribute to the IPCC, and it aims to review materials extensively while reflecting a large range of views and expertise. When reports are analyzed, there are three different stipulations that the group looks at: approval, adoption, and acceptance. It does not conduct its own research. All countries who are a part of the WMO and the UN are open to membership, and there are currently 195 nations that are members.

IPCC Meeting 2014

The panel organizes many events and meetings with other groups every year in order to make sure that its members are all on the same page of the issue. For example, on December 7, 2015, the IPCC gathered with the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) at the UNIESCO Headquarters in Paris. The purpose of this event was to simply allocate methods of reaching out to the public and raising awareness on climate change.

As far as students who who may want to become involved with this organizations, it seems that all members who are involved with the IPCC are either scientists or policy-makers, so getting involved as a student may be difficult. Anybody who registers for the events are experts in the field, and I am not entirely sure that a simply concerned person would be able to involve themselves with the IPCC.

Computer Games: Power Up and Recycle This

I apologize for the late post, but I guess I missed the assignment. Anyway, I explored a few climate change related games that NASA has made on its website. Many of them are quite simple and not quite as in-depth as I was hoping, but I feel like the real draw of these mini games is their addictive quality and educational value. While they seem to target a younger demographic, I feel that this is a very smart choice to make; these kids who stumble upon or take part in these games may have the thought of the existing threat ingrained in their minds, and it may be more likely to stay there permanently. This is similar to learning a new language.

One of those games is called Power Up, and I would say that it is more reaction and reflex-based than most of the other ones, but it is quite addictive, and I could easily see younger kids getting hooked to it. In the game, the player controls a solar panel on the ground that can move left and right, as well as a wind turbine that can move up and down. Players use the arrow keys, to control these movements. Clouds appear to create patches of shadow that players have to avoid in order to collect the most amount of sunlight. Simultaneously, regions of wind will pass from left to right or vice versa, and players must move the turbine up and down accordingly to generate the most wind energy. A time limit helps determine if you get a bronze star, and silver star or a gold star. I loved how simple the controls and concept was. One of the problems with the game, in my opinion, is that it is not challenging enough to keep me engaged for long periods of time. There are simple mobile games that have become addictive addictive simply because of their challenging objectives or the monotony of how long they go on. Even on the hardest difficulty, I can complete the game with a gold star without hardly any practice.

The other game that I tried out was called Recycle This, which, as you probably guessed, has players operating recycle and trash bins. Random bits of trash will fall, and the player has four possible to which the food can be tossed to: paper, glass, plastic, and metal. What is great about this game is that it subconsciously teaches the players about which trash belongs in which bin. Now I suppose you could say that this is common knowledge, but not everyone pays attention to what gets thrown into its proper disposal. All of the games that I found have relatively simple objectives associated with them. They are a resource for teachers in middle schools, certainly. Here is the full games list.

Shackleton's Man Goes South

I chose the YA Cli-Fi book known as Shackleton's Man Goes South, written by Tony White. My first impressions were that the story would revolve around the journey of one man or a few people to the southern tip of Earth, Antarctica. Maybe the topic of climate change would serve in the background of the story; I feel like I had a loose idea of what to expect. However, my experience with it has been much different. In fact, the author occasionally abandons the fictional story and sets off telling a new one in the non-fictional world. Climate change is in the foreground of the reading, but I found Tony White's method of exploring its issues to be very strange and not very young-adult focused.

Most of the book is a flip-flop between a fictional story and a nonfictional account of scientists' opinions on the extent of climate change, and the first time that it happens will probably come across as a little jarring to the reader, because it certainly left me a little taken aback. In the fictional portion of the story, a woman and her daughter, Emily and Jenny, are fleeing as refugees to one of the only habitable and safe parts of the world, Antarctica. I really appreciated how the author can tell a fictional story with fictional events but in a believable way that feels grounded.

The science journalism aspect of the book is hitting the nail right on the head with what White wants to discuss with climate change, even if it disrupts the flow of the narrative a bit. Besides getting some interviews with contemporary scientists, the book also delves into some of the business with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

White was inspired by some supposed stories of the real Earnest Shackleton, who tried to make it to the South Pole and failed, but saved some people in his open boat in sailing from Antarctica to South Georgia. He wanted to explore what would happen if the entire Antarctic ice sheet melted, which would be the last hope for refugees escaping the climate disasters all over the rest of the world. It has some parallels to stories of refugees who flee their countries due to political or economic turmoil, except in this this case people are leaving their homes for a more habitable area.

Here are a few quotes:

• "The travelers could smell the potent and unmistakable human cocktail carried to them across miles of ocean (10).
•  "It felt as if they were at the centre of some chaotic universe of sound created by so much humanity on the move and this vicious wind that whipped and tore and rattled at everything" (17).

Solar

My chosen Cli-Fi book is called Solar, written by Ian McEwan. So far, I have been really engaged in the story and the situations of the main character, Michael Beard, who is an overweight, balding, aged Nobel prize winning physicist. The book is broken into three sections, and each section jumps ahead a few years in time. Part one is set in 2000, part two in 2005, and part three in 2009. Beard is the head of a research center in England for investigating possible technological advancements in solar and wind installations, and his most accomplished days are behind him. The author seems to joke frequently about how his coworkers at the institution all look the same with their haircuts and clothing choices. However, Michael Beard seems to have his mind on other issues besides alternative energy, and he leads the project halfheartedly.

When trying to connect this book to the ideas of climate change. I have some difficulty. Even though the title itself , Solar, suggests that this issue may be at the forefront of the novel, the truth is that it really is not. Perhaps the dilemmas and decisions that Michael Beard takes help reveal humanity's attitude toward a heating Earth. There are themes there for sure, but the impending dangers of the issue are certainly not the focus, and the book is extremely grounded. Without spoiling anything, the ending does not have a very tight connection to climate change, but the novel thoroughly entertained me from start to finish.


I love the tone of the novel. There is a lot of humor sprinkled in, especially when the author decides to delve into Michael Beard's personal life and how it is in shambles. Yet, the humor contradicts with the heaviness of the background topic, which is climate change and the efforts being put forward to slow its process. The first entire scene covers how terrible Beard is at forming meaningful relationships with any woman that he marries, as he has divorced four times, and his fifth wife has started an affair with another guy. Of course, they are still together, and something about this story-line seems sort of satirical to me. Sure enough, after doing some research on McEwan and the novel, this novel certainly lies in the satire genre, and a lot of the descriptions in general are meant to amuse the readers. However, my description of the introduction does not seem to have much to do with global warming, does it? McEwan certainly takes his time with fleshing out the aspect of Beard's life regarding his impressive physicist background and his motives with global warming. As the story progresses, Beard finds himself in some amusing situations, and he also makes some shady decisions that will have you questioning his morality more and more. As I've stated before, maybe Michael Beard simply represents the decisions that humans have been taking thus far in response to this issue. In a way, we have been similar to Beard in terms of our willingness to commit to such a shift in energy. We are changing fairly slowly and without much urgency.

I thoroughly enjoyed what I read, and the story seems to be relatively simple, because Michael Beard is only trying to pursue some sort of solution to the climate change issue while also dealing with his dysfunctional personal life. For anyone, who is interested, I would highly recommend checking the book out. Click here for one review of Solar.

The Pioneers

My nature book of choice was The Pioneers by James Fenimore Cooper. Published in 1823, the story revolves around Nathaniel "Natty" Bumppo, a more elderly and seemingly heroic type of character than anyone else in the novel. At the beginning of the story, he is hunting a particular buck that happens to be same one that another man is also after, Judge Marmaduke. The two men have a conversation over who fired off the killing shot, due to the spread of Natty's buckshot, and who earns the right to the animal. The setting of the novel is in the frontier of New York, and it seems that Cooper was trying to display a lot of the conflict happening between human civilization and nature, and it is evident in his descriptions of the landscapes compared to the small towns that dot it. Particularly in the beginning chapter, Cooper describes the peaceful nature of the woods at great length, and by the time he introduces the human influence, it feels as though the humans have interrupted a little.

Apparently, this novel is the first in a series called the Leatherstocking Tales. The Pioneers is about 450 pages long, so I still have some more reading to do, but the basic messages of the book are already becoming clear to me. It becomes apparent that Cooper is speaking on the conflicts going on between humans and nature, though it is in a different way than how we might typically view the conflict nowadays. Most of the state of New York was snow ridden frontier land, but at this point in history, America was beginning its movement westward as part of Manifest Destiny; not all of it was glorious, and it depends on perspective. The Native Americans were certainly ones who seemed to embrace nature more than the approaching immigrants, who would seek to expand their influence on their newly discovered land. While the migration was great for America, it meant that much of the untapped wilderness had to pay a price.

From what I have read, the book has moved along at a fairly slow pace, and it mostly begins with the backstories of a few characters. Natty certainly receives the best treatment in terms of his development and dialogue. However, I have enjoyed it thus far, and I've always liked reading literature from long ago, even if the writing may not be all that familiar to me.

Fossil Free

My documentary is called Fossil Free. It focuses on a growing group of people who have lost their trust in politicians to tackle the challenge of climate change and are giving incentives to businesses to stop investing in fossil fuels. All of their goals are financial-oriented because they describe that as the heart of the stubbornness. All of these divestment organizations get their support from 350.org, which is at the forefront of much of the climate change activism. Pension funds, churches, and universities are all being asked to withdraw their investments in fossil fuels, and the movement is growing like wildfire. A few dozen countries are now running in the campaign, many of them being European.

One portion of the documentary that I thought was worth noting was the mayor of Berlin being convinced to divest public money in fossil fuel companies. He was not able to make it to a conference in which activists confronted the politicians on the issue. Instead, they asked someone else of higher authority what was being done to prevent these investments or if coal and nuclear power plants were being shut down. He gave an answer that implied that Berlin was not interested in the movement. Every politician in the mayor's place said that Germany is an industrial country and jobs depend on the affordability of energy. I understand this sentiment to an extent, but it would also help if they at least made some steps toward preparing for a warmer Earth.

I really enjoyed listening to some people in the investment business talk about why they would like funding for unsustainable fuels to stop. To keep climate change under control, carbon dioxide emissions cannot exceed 225 Gigatons. This would approximately equal the 2 degree limit that we face, and it also means that about 2/3 of found fossil fuel reserves must remain untouched. Assets are being put at risk as reserves are found and the price of oil drops. Stock prices for US coal companies have already started to drop significantly as investors realize that these are stranded assets. If a cap on carbon emissions happens, we will be left with a surplus of fossil fuels, because we cannot use them. People want to get to the cheap oil now, not later. Standing on a large reserve, you would not want to wait to use it; it would make more sense for you, economically, to use it now.

Companies seem to have an immoral compass; if there is money to be made, that is where their needle will point. If the demand for greener energy is apparent, then I think you would certainly see more of a push for its abundance. But since their is still oil, there doesn't seem to be much incentive, which is a shame for those currently suffering from global warming's effects. Luckily, these groups provide some beacons of light for those not fortunate enough to do anything about the changes.