Kevin Luu

Hurricane Irma and Harvey were bad enough, right? Well, Hurricane Maria was a Category 5 hurricane that destroyed the British Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, and Montserrat. Who is going to help? 

There was lots of flooding causing incredible damage. According to CNN “Puerto Rico suffering a humanitarian crisis.” The hurricane even destroyed Puerto Rico’s buildings such as their radio tower. The Washington Post states, “Hurricane Maria destroyed Puerto Rico’s radar, a critical tool for forecasting.” In CNNMoney, it states, “Hurricane Maria is a nightmare for Puerto Rico’s economy.”

The solution? Many say it will take cutting greenhouse gas emissions to get climate change under control. According to Business Insider, “researchers now believe there’s a way to stop hurricanes. Pumping billions of tons of a dense gas into the atmosphere could create a “sunglasses effect,” which they say would absorb some sunlight and cool down warm ocean water, the engines of hurricanes.”

Also from Business Insider, “Researchers say if we pumped sulfate gases into our planet’s upper atmosphere, we could cool down our oceans enough to cut the number of Katrina-force hurricanes in half over the next 50 years. It’d require about 10 billion tons of sulfates to get the job done, which is tens or hundreds of times the sulfates a typical volcanic eruption can form.”