15 September 2020: Largest Remaining Arctic Ice Shelf Falling Apart.

Giant floating islands that turn atmospheric CO2 into fuel could prevent climate change, scientists say

If rolled out globally, the islands could offset the total global emissions from fossil fuels.

Scientists in Norway and Switzerland have proposed that “Solar Methanol Islands” could use solar energy to recycle atmospheric CO2 into methanol fuel.

The idea arose when scientists were trying to find a way to provide electricity to future off-shore fish farms without access to power grids. Solar energy could power hydrogen production and CO2 extraction from seawater, which would produce gases that could be reacted to form methanol.

The team of scientists wrote:

“Humankind must cease CO2 emissions from fossil fuel burning if dangerous climate change is to be avoided. However, liquid carbon-based energy carriers are often without practical alternatives for vital mobility applications. The recycling of atmospheric CO2 into synthetic fuels, using renewable energy, offers an energy concept with no net CO2 emission.”

Currently, the team of scientists is working on prototypes for the floating solar islands.

Thanks to @sabre-fish for sending this in! 

By Designlabexperience

More on solarpunk education:

So I made a big post about cooperative, age-appropriate games as a solarpunk education method, but in my ideal solarpunk world that would only be one aspect of education. Here are some other education ideas bouncing around in my head. Like cooperative games, they all require a lot of time, knowledgeable teachers, and community investment, but I think they would lead to healthier, enthusiastic people, fully prepared to live well and be lifelong learners.

Food Science Education: Starting at a young age with simple gardening and cooking, stuff that young kids can get really excited about. As kids age, folding in the complete science of where food comes from, its relationship with the ecosystem, how to preserve it, and how to prepare it.The idea being that by the time you’re an adult you should have the tools to competently feed yourself even if you end up focusing on other things.  

Relationship Education: An improvement on sex ed. Much of the same content, but expanded with more information for all genders and sexualities, and good, non-scare tactic science on the human body, reproduction, contraceptives, stds, and common communicable illnesses. Also, workshops on healthy relationship communication, self-care, meditation/introspection/self-knowledge, basic first aid, how to help friends in the midst of crisis or mental illness, how to recognize predatory/manipulative/abusive behaviors (in sexual situations and otherwise oh my god it’s so important, why aren’t we taught this early and often?), some basic childhood development stuff. 

Artistic Expression & Upcycling: Art classes which would cover art theory and allow for a lot of self-expression, but would also teach young adults to make and repair their own clothing, use basic woodworking tools, work with ceramics, safely fiddle with metals and basic electronics, and other practical “specialty” skills necessary for a world with less waste. 

Rotating Apprenticeships: Starting out as small group field trips for younger kids, and evolving into longer choice-based apprenticeships in areas of interest, maybe taking up one day per week for high school aged kids. The community members involved in this experience wouldn’t necessarily give lessons on their livelihood – for example a farmer with a deep knowledge of medieval history and geology could focus on one of those subjects if they chose. This would give adults in the community a chance to delve deeper into subjects they loved, and kids a chance to learn a subject from someone truly enthusiastic.

Questing/Journeyman years/other travel: I know there are plenty of posts on solarpunk travel, but in an educational context I imagine it as a continuation of rotating apprenticeships. This would be a time for young adults to visit people and places related to their areas of interest. It could be very specific (like meeting and working with 5 scientists on 5 continents while studying food sustainability) or a more general exploration (visiting some great museums, WOOFing, contributing to public art, and journaling about the experience while trying to decide what to do next). 

Independent Project Salons: This would be a way to tie together celebration, community, and education. Informal salon settings would be a great place for young adults doing independent study or in the midst of travel to meet and talk about their experiences and ideas, and maybe show off their work. Possibly hosted by retired folks who could organize food and drink, introduce topics and guests, and add the benefit of their own experiences.

What other kinds of solarpunk educational programs do you love the idea of?

the ideal of “farms everywhere in every garden!!1!” is a huge selling point of the solarpunk and self-sustainablity communities, especially with farmcore/cottagecore and nature aesthetics being more popular nowadays.

however these posts often overlook a few things

1) we already overproduce food, we don’t need more farms we need better farm and food management.

2) not everyone can farm or wants too. Space, the local environment, disabilities, and lack of interest needs to be acknowledged more. I’m awful with plants no matter how much i love them, and i am certain there are plenty more people who would agree.

3) the idea of farms for everyone and the aesthetic of “everyone having their little plot of land” is not community driven, and sadly comes from a place of colonialism. YES a cute lil cottage with a chicken pen out the back and a garden out the front is cute, but this is not possible for everyone on the planet.

4) NATURAL DIVERSITY IS VERY IMPORTANT. instead of making everyones garden into a food forest, we should aim to grow more native plants and help cultivate the natural environment.

5) not every country is the same, we have our own biodiveristy, and often these posts are *very* american/american based

I see a lot of climate change misinformation circulating on this site. I wish I had the mental capacity to write up something eloquent right now, but in short:

Yes, the situation is pretty dire. But the whole “twelve year deadline” thing is a massive oversimplification.

We’re already experiencing climate change and it will get worse the longer we don’t act. It’s not a binary “it happens or it doesn’t” situation. Twelve years an estimate for how soon we need to drastically alter our infrastructure in order to land at or under two degrees of warming, which is an essentially arbitrary marker that we’re trying to avoid. Two degrees will still be Bad, capital B. But it’s better than three, four, five, or more degrees of warming.

Even if we stopped emitting carbon today, we’d continue to see warming for several more years because that kind of lag is built into our climate system. We can’t just stop at any time and have things go “back to normal.”

A lot of these fearmongering articles are based on the IPCC reports, which are excellent sources based on the best research done worldwide. You can read them for yourself here.

Please remember to fact-check for yourself and don’t give in to despair, on this as with all other issues.

I hope all of the adults making fun of a 16 year old girl for giving a shit about her generation’s future know every single one of their words has been recorded, broadcast and archived forever, and that when their apocalypse can no longer be denied people will watch and read what they said and will remember them only as the viscious, pathetic and self-destructive villains that they are, not worthy of the dirt their bodies will be buried in. Billions will scream out in pure hatred and anger and curse your names like nobody ever has before in history. That will be your legacy. I hope you’re fucking proud.

Look, your plastic straws are only a negligible contribution to oceanic plastic pollution. Japan has backed out of all of its clean energy goals since Fukushima and is importing thousands of tons of fossil fuels to make up for it. The lithium mining processes required to make your hybrid car make its environmental benefits basically nonexistent. Food waste has much more to do with governmental regulations on spoilage and consumer demand for cosmetically perfect produce than you forgetting about the kale in your vegetable crisper.

The world is made of complex problems and the simple answer basically only exists to make you feel good about yourself