Global Warming and Recession seem to
be the two large black clouds looming over the world today. My cousin, a
microbiologist who lives in Chile and I were, the other day, chatting online
about the climate changes that were taking place all over the world. She feels
that global warming, while being an issue of importance, tends to have become a
bit too hyped up somewhere along the way, being hijacked as it were as a
platform or soapbox for politicians to come into the public eye. (Her hub)
I was pondering over this when a few
days later, a news item caught my eye. In a city in India, a group of
researchers had discovered an organism that can devour carbon dioxide and spew
it out as harmless calcium carbonate. Now that might seem like something out of
a cartoon strip or a sci-fi movie but the fact is, it’s real life. It’s
probably Nature’s wonderful way to keep the balance in spite of her wayward
human children and the devastating damage they do to everything around them.
Suddenly, there seems to be a
glimmer of hope in what seemed to be a hopeless situation. Would growing the
bacteria in areas that were known to be contributing actively to global warming
reverse the effects of global warming? Could we, once we’ve tried to accelerate
this process, be able to control it – or would there be so much of a reverse
trend that we lean dangerously to the opposite end?
At this point in time, one cannot
really foresee how it is going to work and whether a lab situation can be
replicated on a mammoth scale all over the world. Today, the
pollution-devouring biological bacteria have, in the laboratory, been purified
to a great degree with high titration, and what is in progress is the
expression, the cloning and the purification in bio-reactors. What is also
being actively looked at is the economic viability of the process. The
scientists who are involved in this programme feel that the bacteria could be
used at the point of emission in order to filter the waste carbon dioxide and
ensure that it does not enter the atmosphere. All this, and a by-product like
calcium carbonate which has value.
All said and done, this is the wedge
in the door where before there seemed to be none. It’s early days yet and this
progress can be seen as a pointer in the right direction. Not as a cure for all
global warming ills but as something that will help when the efforts that we
otherwise need to take are not enough. When we consciously try and reverse the
effects of global warming by taking informed decisions – and keeping this as a
buffer – the just-in-case factor.
We need to try and make the world a
better place for our children. We’ve raped and ravaged the earth and all she
has to offer. It’s time for reparation and the time is now. Here’s Nature
opening a door to let us see how she can lend a helping hand. Instead of seeing
it as a fix-it, we need to see it as a part of an ongoing heal-the-earth
process.
