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Could Snowpiercer Actually Happen?

Could Snowpiercer Actually Happen?
SubjectToClimate

Written By Teacher: Elaine Makarevich

Elaine is a New Jersey educator with 30 years of teaching experience in grades K-6. The earth and the natural world have always been a focus of her life and throughout her career as her students learned critical lessons about their planet when visiting her indoor or outdoor classrooms.

The concept behind Snowpiercer—a world locked in a perpetual, frozen wasteland—might feel like pure science fiction, but it raises real questions about geoengineering and its risks. Geoengineering refers to deliberate actions humans might take to change the Earth's climate, as opposed to the unintended climate change we see today caused by activities like burning coal for energy. By intentionally trying to cool the planet to counteract global warming, geoengineering introduces both promise and peril. Teaching this topic in high school classrooms is complex, as it combines climate science, ethics, and the unpredictability of human intervention in natural systems. Resources like MIT’s analysis of Snowpiercer’s plausibility, SubjectToClimate’s Geoengineering and Climate Change Resource, and the video “The Problem with Geoengineering” provide engaging and accessible ways to help students critically explore the potential benefits and dangers of geoengineering.

MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative

Written By: MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative

The MIT Climate Change Engagement Program, a part of MIT Climate HQ, provides the public with nonpartisan, easy-to-understand, and scientifically-grounded information on climate change and its solutions.

In the 2013 movie Snowpiercer, a train travels on a track around the world carrying all of humanity because the Earth has turned into a giant snowball. The cause? Scientists tried to use geoengineering, also known as climate engineering or climate intervention, to reverse global warming.

Geoengineering is defined as actions we take on purpose to change the Earth’s climate. This is different from current human-caused climate change, which is not happening on purpose: it’s a side effect of other activities, like using coal power to get energy. With geoengineering, humans would deliberately try to cool the Earth, to counter the accidental warming we’re causing today.

Snowpiercer shows one of the best-known geoengineering ideas, called “solar radiation management,” which involves changing how much sunlight the Earth reflects. The most frequently-proposed way to do this is by adding aerosols (fine particles or droplets suspended in gas) to the atmosphere. Dr. Douglas MacMartin, a climate engineering senior research associate at Cornell University, says, “that is the main idea in Snowpiercer. You could in principle fly up to the stratosphere and release aerosols such as sulfate, which would cool the planet.” These aerosols reflect the sun’s light back into space, leaving less sunlight to warm the Earth, and thus reducing some of the impacts of climate change.


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