I am fascinated with the potential of technology to change the world.
I'll use the tag #thinkbigger to keep track of them, please use this tag if you come across mind blowing innovations .
One of my goals on Steemit.com is talking about the huge changes going on in our world and how we are going to deal with them.
There is a whole host of reasons that the next 5 years are going see more changes than the past 30,
(Steemit.com is just one of them :) )
Over time I will post articles to explain them, rather than talking about disasters, I like to explore with you SOLUTIONS.
For those of us that come outside once in a while, it is clear climate change is happening and action will be needed fast.
I live in Valencia, Spain and frankly I am worried. Taking a look at the landscape you see that things are not improving. California lately is another example that one serious consequence of climate change we'll have to deal with is drought.
Kind of ironic given that we are on a planet 75% water.
Or like Joe Rogan says: "We don't have a water problem, we have a salt problem."
There will probably be water enough for drinkwater. But agriculture needs much, much more water. We are going to be about 9.5 billion people in 2050, those people will have to eat. But because of drought a lot of productive arable land is being lost.
We need fresh water... we call water a scarce resource, but more precisely it's only a resource that is difficult to access.
The difference is quite profound because better technology can make it more accessible.
You can get freshwater from seawater by desalinating it. Basically boiling it off and condensing the vapor. Or by pushing it through a membrane that kinda "filters" the salt molecules (reverse osmosis). Both of these cost a lot of energy (although the price of reverse osmosis is dropping fast).
What if you could get seawater distilled without expending huge amounts of energy?
What if that was actually a surprisingly low-tech solution?
What if it would actually work better in places with a lot of sun and warm weather?
What if such a solution actually can really increase the efficiency of solar electricity generation (turns out you need clean water to wash the solar arrays)
What if your solution instead of pollution could actually regenerate soil around it?
What if it saves huge amounts of CO2 ?
What if such a solution already existed?
Let me introduce you to the work of Charlie Paton : here is a talk about how producing more water can improve a whole host of other problems
There are already commercial projects in operation in Australia, in an area where there is NO agriculture at all because it is too hot and dry: check out http://www.sundropfarms.com/
Or more ambitious? What about turning the Sahara into a forest?
https://www.saharaforestproject.com/
These ideas look like a drop in the ocean but they are potential exponential ideas that can radically change the world for the better.