What do you know about the Arctic? You’re probably imagining a lot of ice. If you’ve watched the UK Apprentice, you might know that some think there are penguins in the Arctic. You may have seen documentaries of polar bears lolling around moving around with their white privilege. You’ve probably never been to the Arctic. Unfortunately, Uber or Ola won’t take you there. But, if the Arctic exists as a theoretical construct in your mind, you should be a tad bit worried about what’s going on there.
Many cite climate change, but it’s said that the Arctic is vanishing a bit as if Thanos snapped his fingers. Temperatures have been getting warm and there’s said to be an alarming decline in Arctic sea ice. It’s said that Arctic sea ice is shrinking at a rate of close to 15% per decade and earlier, it was predicted there’d be total ice loss by 2030, but some believe that the Arctic could have an ice-free day as early as 2027. Remember that scene from The Newsroom, where Toby from The Office prophesied that it’s too late to change anything? Is it as dire for the Arctic the same way?
And why should someone from India care? As a cold and distant wilderness, the Arctic is so far away! Sometimes, the cracks in the foundation of a house may not be immediately visible from the living room. Did you know that Arctic sea ice acts like a huge white reflector to bounce some of the rays of the sun back into space? It sounds like a superpower straight from an old-school Superman comic. And by doing that reflecting, it’s said that this keeps the Earth at an even-keeled temperature.
Could Arctic ice loss mean hotter air, which could lead to India bearing the brunt of this?
So, what can we do about this? Is this fixable? Can’t we just order ice from Zepto to remedy the situation? Some entrepreneurs from a startup called Real Ice may be looking to do the impossible: grow some ice and restore the Arctic. All hail Recyclops!
The plan? Drill holes into existing ice and pump seawater to make it freeze and thicken. By adding layers of ice, the idea may be to create a more resilient ice cover and this could, probably, last longer into the summer months. The plan may be to automate the whole process using underwater drones that would melt holes in the ice from below. Some may worry this might not be scalable or whether this could truly alter the trajectory of Arctic ice loss at a global scale. Or could artificially altering the Arctic environment inadvertently harm an ecosystem that might be fragile? Could a large-scale geoengineering project in polar regions be a cool thing or could there be unforeseen circumstances?
There’s an interesting aspect here called “cooling credits”, similar to carbon credits and this is where polluters would pay money from ice refreezing in order to offset their pollution. Could that create a new FinTech category?
Does India have some ice reserves that could help? Or could it melt on the way? Maybe, it could still work.
Should we try to manipulate nature if it’s for fixing problems that we created? Or is this a costly distraction from the real issue: fossil fuel emissions may not be that cool? Where do we go from here? Should we worry or should we, like the Arctic, just chill?
