Pushing the boundaries of existing technologies to find ways to produce energy, reduce the effects of climate change, and make our lives greener, healthier, and more productive is the task of the great thinkers of the world. Here are some of the projects they’ve been working on.

• Not necessarily new, but definitely significant in the fight against climate change, green roofs are super environmental. They help to mitigate stormwater runoff, provide habitat for wildlife and green spaces for humans, are a source of food, filter the air, and reduce the urban heat island effect.
• Electronic paper, which acts much like traditional tree-based paper, is being touted as an eco-friendly replacement. Epaper can be reused over and over again and works via microcapsules filled with particles that carry electric charges.
• Hydrogen power is perhaps one of the most sought-after forms of clean energy. If it can be harnessed safely and efficiently, hydrogen power has the potential to provide abundantly clean, infinitely renewable energy.
• Renewable energy comes in many forms, and scientists and engineers are working on better ways to turn the ocean’s waves into a source for clean energy. Wave energy has the potential to provide a significant portion of the world’s energy if it can be developed sustainably with little impact to ocean ecosystems.
• Another way to fight climate change is to remove heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide from the air. The process called carbon sequestration hopes to do just that by sinking carbon into the deep layers of the earth where it won’t contribute to the greenhouse effect.
• Some scientists hope to add to the renewable energy mix with ocean thermal energy conversion. The ocean absorbs enormous quantities of energy, so by taking advantage of the difference in temperature between the ocean’s surface and depths, they hope to produce electricity.
• The looming water crisis threatens to be even bigger than energy shortages, with the possibility of millions of people being negatively impacted by drought and serious lack of clean water. To combat this problem, many environmentalists and scientists are working on ways to remove salt from seawater, making it potable for the masses in a process called desalination.
• One more potentially positive source of renewable energy is algae. By employing algae to make biofuels, many hope we can generate energy using some of the smallest creatures on the planet.