Exploring Climate Change: My Journey with OpenLearn
- Nathalie Gardiner
- Aug 18
- 5 min read
Updated: Sep 2
Why I Chose OpenLearn
Before I start my degree program with OU, I’m making the most of their OpenLearn platform.
OpenLearn is a free resource provided by the Open University. It allows you to study hundreds of different courses, each usually taking around 24 study hours. While these courses are non-accredited, many are “badged.” This means you can prove you completed them and add them to your CV to boost your employability without committing to a full degree program.
I’ve obviously committed to a full degree program already, so I’m using OpenLearn to refresh my study skills. I want to see which learning methods work for me. We didn’t have GoodNotes when I was in uni back in 2014! Plus, I’m eager to learn something new along the way.
My Course Selection
I’ve chosen nine courses—because I’m a hoarder of knowledge! I started off with a Natural Sciences course called “Could we control our climate?”. It focuses on the maths of climate science and the different ways we can tackle the climate crisis through geoengineering methods. It was a truly comprehensive course for being free, and I learned a lot. So, here’s what I discovered today:
Surprising Insights on Climate Change
I consider myself relatively eco-conscious, but I was amazed at how little I truly knew about climate change. We know the climate is changing. There’s an overall uptick in the global mean surface temperature (GMST). Extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and damaging to both human and other lives.
My biggest shock came from an interactive graphic—one you’ll have to do the course to see—that basically told me, “OOPS! All humans.” The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) in 2013 estimated with 95% certainty that half of the warming since 1950 is human-caused. Honestly, that’s quite conservative!
Frustrations and Data Gaps
My frustrations lie mostly within public misunderstandings and a general lack of outrage and passion for the topic. Perhaps that’s due to uneven data coverage. The IPCC ideally desires 30 years’ worth of data to make their predictions. However, some areas just don’t have data for that amount of time.
When looking at model maps, it’s clear there are data gaps that pose challenges for data analytics—like Central Africa and parts of South America. It wasn’t clear to me why. Is it that there isn’t 30 years of data available? Is it because these are less developed countries? Or is it just inaccessible to put a weather station in the deep Amazon jungle, for example?
The Three Flavors of Geoengineering
As I worked through the course, I realized geoengineering ideas come in three flavors: big tech fixes, weird experiments, and controversial chemistry. And this is where my critical thinking really clicked into gear—are you ready for more question marks?
Big Tech Fixes
Some proposals sound like they’re straight out of a sci-fi movie. Take solar shields, for instance—giant reflective sails the size of countries floating in space to filter sunlight and reduce solar radiation. Honestly, they felt more plausible to me than some earthbound ideas already in practice on a small scale, like pumping CO₂ into porous rock and just... hoping it doesn’t leak?
Artificial trees also caught my attention. These huge structures are designed to filter and store carbon. Interesting, yes, but how many would we need to make a dent? And what’s the production offset? Building them requires energy and materials, some of which are rare or ethically questionable. Wind turbines have similar lifecycle quirks. There’s an emissions cost upfront, but over time, they beat fossil fuels. The lesser of two evils, maybe; but still an evil?
Unusual Experiments
Then there are Yuri Izrael’s 2008 experiments. They involved burning firework flares from planes or just letting car exhaust billow into the air to compare which blocked sunlight more effectively. Technically interesting, but burning more fossil fuels to fix climate change feels like trying to put out a fire with a flamethrower.
Controversial Chemistry
And finally, we have sulphates. Writing the phrase “fake volcanoes” in my notes was one of the entertainment peaks of my course. This idea involves injecting sulphates into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight and cool the planet. But while it sounds exotic, it’s not new. Sulphates already caused acid rain in the US in the 70s and ’80s, which was solved by the Clean Air Act. Ironically, cutting those aerosols also removed their cooling effect—known as global dimming—thereby increasing warming from CO₂. According to the IPCC, about a quarter of CO₂’s impact had been offset by sulphates until we cleaned them up. Now THAT’S a fun fact!
The Bigger Picture
There’s a larger issue at hand than just these geoengineering concepts, and it’s people. If I were to suggest the idea of sulphate injection to some folks I know, it would likely solidify some conspiratorial beliefs. You know, the ones about the government putting mind- or population-controlling drugs into the engines of aeroplanes—colloquially known as chemtrails.
If something like sulphate injection were presented to the public as a feasible solution to climate change mitigation, there would likely be a lot of backlash. This could result in political shifts and direct action against the scientists and engineers working on these potential solutions.
The Need for Better Communication
It seems these experiments, models, and incredibly lengthy scientific reports need better press to increase sustainability awareness among the general public. The issue with research in a field like climate science is that papers aren’t written for the average Joe. Misinformation spreads through cherry-picking data.
I think we need more people like Greg Johnson, whose IPCC haikus are a fine example of science communication done creatively.
No Silver Bullet
Overall, it seems there’s no one solution, no silver bullet to fix all the damage humans have done to our planet. There were so many ideas in this course that I hesitate to list them all here. But to me, as a curious student, it seems we must tackle the cause to really beat the heat. We must reduce our emissions before the problem escalates further. Prevention is better than cure.
The Journey Continues
I have more questions about most of these topics, as you may have noticed in my writing here. But that’s the point of learning! Asking questions helps us seek knowledge and solve problems for a better, more well-informed self and world at large.
Although I’m just a student recapping my experience with my first of nine OpenLearn courses, and it’s not as creative as Greg Johnson’s beautiful haikus, I’m proud to contribute to a more accessible world of science communication.
p.s. one beautiful thing I found during my course: If you are interested, you can participate in the citizen science project ‘climateprediction.net ’, which uses the public’s spare computing power to run many different versions of climate models to help us predict what is happening to our planet, and help scientists figure out the best course of action.
P.P.S. As I’m a student and new to these things, any corrections or comments are welcome.
Resources
IPCC (2013) Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, [Stocker, T. F., Qin, D., Plattner, G.-K. et al. (eds)], Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA.
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