Summary of two articles related to roundtable discussion

The topic assigned to us for our roundtable discussion is “Investigate the status of one climate change mitigation technology adoption and explicate why citizen groups should support, promote, or oppose such technology. “The two articles related to this issue are “Going Underground” and “Warming Signs”.

Summary
“Going underground” is written by Mark Schrope, a freelance science writer based in Florida. He discussed about the basic idea of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology and also reported on a promising new method for monitoring carbon dioxide deep underground.

CCS is considered as a clean technology which holds huge promise. It can effectively strip 80 to 90 percent of carbon dioxide emission from conventional power plants and probably will reduce one third of the global carbon dioxide if it is fully deployed around the world. However, one worry is how to make sure that the carbon dioxide captured can be safely stored under the ground.

Throughout the years, scientists have been trying and testing numerous methods to monitor the carbon dioxide underground, for example, seismic surveys and gravity measurements. Both methods have their advantages and disadvantages. After years and years of measurement, it is concluded that gravity measurement is sufficient for long-term monitoring of carbon dioxide sites. Still, gravity measurement alone cannot fully achieve the job. Other techniques like seismic is needed to ensure carbon dioxide is suitably secure.

As CCS is becoming more and more promising, the next step would be put CCS into large scale. It is believed that CCS will play a significant role in reducing carbon dioxide emission.

The second article, “Warming Signs” from Mohan Munasinghe who is the vice chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and chair of the Munasinghe Institute for Development in Colombo, Sri Lanka. He suggests that the ever-increasing global warming will cause a series of disastrous consequences for the planet that we are living. People from developing countries and poor countries will be mostly affected.

According to Mr. Munasinghe, people can respond by these effects in two ways, namely, adaption and mitigation. He urged developing countries to focus on adaptation whereas the rich countries to put the effort in mitigation and also to assist those poor countries. One promising approach was discussed in the article which is known as ‘sustainomics’. It has three crucial parts: making development more sustainable; balancing the social, economic and environmental dimensions of development; lastly, ensuring any discussions transcend traditional boundaries across space and time, and among academic disciplines or interest groups.

Evaluation
The first article gives a comprehensive explanation of CCS’ monitoring system which provides readers with detailed information to help them understand and clarify their doubts.

The second article analyzes the current condition of global warming and gives some advices to both developed and developing countries to ease and prevent global warming from worsening.

APA citation
Schrope, Mark. (December 2008). Nature report climate change, VOL 2, www.nature.com/reports/climate_change, macmillan publisher limited

Munasinghe. Mohan, A world of Science in the Developing World, macimillan publisher limited.

Revelant vocabulary words
Seismic survey: produce an image of earth’s subsurface using reflected sound waves.
Gravimeter: equipment that can measure changes in gravity through the compression or expansion of a spring with a weight attached to the bottom.
Geology: composition, structure and origin of the rocks.
Sustainomics: balancing environment with social and economic aspects.