Introduction
Everyone should be taking climate change seriously. It’s one of the biggest threats that could ever our planet earth. And with increased abnormal weather activity as extreme heat wave, droughts and wildfires, high winds, rain and flooding becoming more of a norm.
We need to find solutions fast in time. Crown Prince William recognised the issue and designed the five category Prize to repair the planet over the next 10 years, a critical decade for the Earth.
Earthshot Prize to repair the Earth over global warming era
William, the Prince of Wales and Broadcaster naturalist biologist David Attenborough were inspired by the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the world’s blueprint for a better future. Its ambitious goals for 2030 to fix our biggest environmental problems.
For years Crown prince William’s taken advices from Nobel Prize and XPrize foundation(Elon Musk) to launch his Prize and has partnerships with WWF(World wildlife foundation), Greenpeace and JackMa foundation(Alibaba).
https://www.earthshotprize.org
The name and the concept of the Prize takes inspiration from US President John F. Kennedy’s successful Moonshot programme in 1961. Kennedy had the aim of galvanising technological inventions that would put a person on the moon by the end of the decade.
Prince William and Royal foundation believe in the power of human ingenuity to prove to us all that the seemingly impossible is possible in the next ten years by 2030. The Prize is planned to run annually until 2030 making total award money pot by £50million.
Five categories and winners 2022
Earthshot Prize is all about this environmental issue, and exciting work is being done to combat global warming by the groups running to win it since 2021. Winners are selected by Earthshot Prize council including Prince William and David Attenborough.
It’s ultimate prize for the announced winner of the innovative ideas is £1 million so that they can fund and develop their idea into a working real world solution. There are five categories in total, and one ultimate winner in each category.
By 2030, every year the Prize choose to five categories: Product and restore nature, Clean air, revive oceans, Build a waste-free world and Fix climate.
Safe air: Mukuru clean stoves, Kenya
Nairobi, Kenya is the birthplace of Charlot Magayi. Orphaned at the age of 10 years old and gave birth at the age of 16. Everyday she used to cook her food on a stove that used firewood, creating unhealthy indoor air pollution that is responsible for killing over 2million people in the world, every year.
Charlot vowed to create a safer alternative to this cooking method after the stove fell on her daughter when she was aged 2years old. After going to college she was able to apply the knowledge she had leaned to create the idea of a much more stable and efficient stove that used 60% less fuel and also could use smokeless fuel when required.
So the Mukuru clean stove company is responsible for the manufacturer and distribution of the mire environmentally friendly stove option. They use locally sourced metals as manufacturing material, reducing toxic air pollution by 90%, and lowering carbon emissions.
The increased efficiency of the stove also reduces labour hours of the people who collect the firewood to cook for their families.
Climate change adaptation, the Greenhouse in Box, India
Sathya Raghu Mokkapati was 17 years old when he witnessed a farmer in his local village eating mud from the ground, so he asked him why he was doing such a thing, so the farmer replied. “I’m a farmer, mu crops have failed. My stomach doesn’t know that my pocket is empty.”
So Sathya joined force with a local entrepreneur Kaushik Kappagantulu and travelled India for 6 months to meet every local farmer story of hard work being destroyed by unpredictable weather which would ruin their crops and deny them a reliable harvest.
As a result, the farmers would be penniless because they had no produce to sell at market, and leave them without any food to eat causing starvation. Typically over 600 million farmers are responsible for growing nearly one third of the world’s total food supply.
So in order to protect the interests, and crops of these farmers, the Greenhouse in a Box was conceived. Basically it’s a pop up greenhouse which endeavours to protect crops from harsh weather, and can provide much needed irrigation in conditions where lack of water is evident.
His hope is that it will be enough to avert a potential catastrophe for millions of farmers worldwide.
A waste free world, Seaweed Bioplastics, UK
Plastics is a huge problem for our environment as almost 400 million tonnes every year will break down into microplastics, contaminating everything from oceans, rivers, food supplies and even inside blood of our bodies.
So the mission of Pierre Paslier and Rodrigo Garcia Gonzalez was clear. They identified the problem that the world urgently needs to deal with the issue of single use plastics.
Working in their flat, London they looked to produce a biodegradable solution with simple seaweed. It grows incredibly fast and is responsible for absorbing large amount of CO2 from the ecosystem of the Earth.
To manufacture bioplastic from seaweed was their plan to help combat the single use plastic made from fossil fuels that are destroying the ecosystem. The duo have already managed to produce edible liquid sachets, and boxes for takeaway meals.
Reviving the ocean, Indigenous Rangers, Australia
The indigenous people of Australia know all about one Earth. They do not separate such areas as sea and land but recognise them as smaller parts of a bigger whole.
They understand exactly how these ecosystems are connected together. It’s this very knowledge of over 60,000 years of tradition that the Queensland traditional women’s rangers are using to protect and conserve our environment.
The focus of the rangers is the conservation and protection of the Great Barrier Reef, protecting and enhabillitating its wildlife from man made environmental dangers. Sea turtles are rescued from fishing nets, or given medical attention after ingesting plastics.
The rangers also preserve the integrity of seagrass meadows underwater. Such meadows are very effective at absorbing and burying carbon footprints much faster than any Amazon rainforest can.
Fixing the climate, Turning CO2 into Rock, Oman
Talal Hasan from Oman was used to seeing undisturbed beautiful beaches, deserts and coral reefs. He was dismayed however to find a deadzone the size of Florida just off the coast of Oman with apparently little to no oxygen.
The cause of this was increased CO2 emissions, and warming of the Earth’s oceans. He teamed up with Professor Juerg Matter who was from Southampton University.
The idea the pair had was to capture CO2 from the atmosphere, dissolving it in water and to inject it into underground rocks deep blow the surface of the Earth. There it would form a stable mineral after reacting with Peridotite that is a coarse rock found deep below in the Earth and remove the CO2 completely from the atmosphere.
Due to the nature of Oman’s geology, it has some of the world’s largest deposits of Peridotite making it easy to achieve such a process. This solution is also cheaper and safer than trying to store the carbon underground in disused oil wells.
Closure
So there you have it, 5 innovative solutions to some of the problem that contribute massively to climate change on Earth. Every single one of these fantastic initiatives deserved to win the Earthshot Prize money.
We wish them all the best in bringing their ideas to the forefront of the climate change solution.
Source: earthshotprize.org
