How better home insulation could help fight coral bleaching
Ever since NASA developed insulation resistant to the extreme temperatures of space, their technology has been used in homes all over the world to protect them and lower their heating bill. But this invention could help a lot more than just the human population. I'll explain to you how.
As you all know by now, climate change is caused by excessive CO2 being released into the air. This carbon dioxide forms a barrier around the atmosphere which prevents the heat rays from the sun to escape after they've entered. Excess CO2 is created in the world by many things, but the biggest one by FAR is the burning of fossil fuels to make energy.
So where does this tie in with home insulation? Well, the energy created by the burning of fossil fuels is what heats most people's homes. In fact, providing heating for homes, industrial purposes and other applications accounts for around 50% of total energy consumption. Therefore, I believe that by further developing the insulation technology that we are already using, we could make heating more efficient. What I mean by this is that we would not have to heat our homes as much if our insulation was even better at keeping the heat in and cold out (and vice-versa). What if in the future our home insulation will be so good that we would only have to heat our home once a week!
By helping fight climate change, we are also helping to fight the growing problem of coral bleaching. Coral bleaching is the coral's reaction to warmer water temperature, caused by climate change. When the water gets warmer, the coral expels its inner organisms, zooxanthellae, which provide food for the coral. The zooxanthellae are also what gives the coral its colour. Now that the coral cannot provide its own food, it will start to starve and eventually, die. However, if we make a change soon and try to keep our global temperature stable, we can help save the corals.
Click here to learn about other inventions that wouldn't exist if it wasn't for space exploration.
Photo by Charles 🇵🇭 on Unsplash
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