Class Supplement (TOEFL Essay, a product you would like to invent)

Topic: Suppose you were an inventor and you had the knowledge and ability to develop a new product. What product would you like to invent?


Essay for ideas and expressions:

If making such a thing were possible, I would make a product which resolves carbon dioxide into oxygen and carbon producing carbohydrate as a by-product of the process at a relatively low cost so that people could tackle the problems related to global warming in two ways: CO2 reduction and food security stabilization.

Reducing the amount of greenhouse gasses, especially CO2, is the first priority in the climate change issue. If there were a machine which can resolve CO2 into two harmless substances like oxygen and carbon, it could safely and directly reduce the amount of CO2 that already exists in the atmosphere and drastically reduce CO2 emissions. We could install the device on top of buildings and rocky mountains, in smokestacks of factories, and exhaust pipes of vehicles.

Carbohydrate is the source of energy. Therefore, making carbohydrate as a by-product of CO2 reduction process could contribute to stabilization of food security. Global warming, combined with population increase and rapidly rising standard of living as a result of globalization, is worsening the problem of food shortage. For example, because of rising temperature, flora and fauna in each area on the planet has been changing and affecting agriculture. Farmers are starting to have difficulty growing the same crops in the same ways as in the past. Studies on new types of crops more suitable to new weather patterns are devastatingly behind the speed of climate change and governments have not seriously started funding these studies. The number of inundated fields due to rising sea level or flood is increasing, and water shortage caused by desertification, extremely rapid thawing of glacier, or drought caused by climate change is expected to happen in a matter of years. It is clear that many parts of the world will have more difficulty providing people with enough food. Carbohydrate made from the air, which may need less water to make and which can be provided on a regular bases, might be a great help when this problem ensues.

I might think of designing the device to make diamonds, also made of carbon, instead of carbohydrate. However, diamonds cannot help counter the imminent threat we face now. Moreover, they could cause conflicts, for human greed has no limit. Although putting in place the measures to stop using fossil fuels is the best thing to do to solve the problem of global warming, reducing CO2 emissions while using fossil fuels is the practical solution so far. Therefore, I would make food from CO2 in the air to help lower the impact if I had the knowledge and ability.