e-portfolio 4

Our group discussed about Biodiesel and its role in fighting global warming.

There are a lot of ways to help to alleviate the problem of global warming: carbon capture and storage technology, sulphur particles scheme, biodiesel technology. The carbon capture and storage technology is to capture the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and store them in the deep ocean or the permeable rocks. The disadvantage is that there may be a leakage. The sulphur particles scheme is to emit the sulphur particles into the atmosphere, by doing this it helps to cool the climate in the Earth. However it creates another problem that cause the delay to recover the hole in the ozone layer over the Antarctic. Therefore, the best and most efficient way is to use biodiesel technology. The biodiesel is use in transport that usually mixed with convention diesel fuel and renewable resource such as soya bean and palm. The other kind of biodiesel is purely from the renewable resource.

Our group ends with the likely problem with biodiesel that is farmers worldwide may focus on growing foods for biodiesel and not for human. However, we conclude that the biodiesel technology should be one of the best ways to fight global warming unless the scientists who have a better solution than biodiesel.

Group discussion

Group 2’s discussion is about whether Singapore should adopt green chemistry. Green chemistry has many advantages, such as it is renewable and safe to use. However, there are disadvantages such as green chemistry can be harmful to a person health and it is more expensive. However, they believe that one day green chemistry will be able to replace the plastic bags in Singapore as the norm.

Group 3’s discussion is about genetic engineering. Genetic engineering is a hotly debatable topic within scientists. Some scientists feel that it is unethical to do so, but many feel that the government should proceed with genetic engineering for the sake of research purpose. The people who are against genetic engineering feel that life is given by god and should not be tampered with. However, some feel that if genetic engineering can help to improve the human’s life, why not? For example, genetic engineering can help to alter some harmful genetic cells such as cancer. This is very good. The group also discusses that genetic engineering can be used to choose the sex of the baby. In my opinion, I feel it is very good as it can be implemented in countries like China. In this way, there will not be so many abandoned babies in China.

Group 4’s discussion is about using carbon capture storage to fight global warming. I feel that it is a good idea as anything that fights global warming is good. However, they pointed out that carbon capture storage is expensive and it is debatable how the different countries’ government will share the cost. Should they share the cost by the countries’ population size? Should they share the cost by how much a gauge of how much they pollute the earth?