Where I live in Western Pennsylvania was mostly spared the worst of the soot and smoky skies caused by the recent Canadian wild fires. However it still managed to blanket most of the North East in some of the worst air quality we've ever had.
In some ways it was a taste of our near future.
It's just one more thing that is piling up on the scale leading to an eventual tipping point. It's not all doom and gloom of course...but it is mostly doom as study after study after study are all pointing to a difficult and deadly future.
Now...that being said I'm still an optimist about the future. I don't believe we are going to prevent "the worst" from occurring. I do believe however that we can do what we can to at least delay the worst of it. We are still going to have to deal with global warming and all the consequences it brings; from submerged coastlines to super storms to the forced mass migration of people.
Delaying the worst of it gives us time to prepare for the worst of it.
Well you can never exactly predict what the world is going to be like in 10, 30 or 50 years....you can make a pretty educated guess and the signs that we are making progress are all around us.
For example the EMBER study; which was a study of 78 different countries at various stages of development and regions of the world, found that wind, solar and nuclear power accounted for 12% of the world's energy usage in 2022. That's an increase of 2%. It's only going to grow and in many countries actually surpassed electric production by "traditional" means.
It's predicted that the 2023 numbers will actually show a decrease in production from fossil fuel production. In fact, solar is being credited with the prevention of mass blackouts in the recent Texas heat wave. That, ladies and gentleman, would mean we have turned a significant corner towards green power. However we are all going to have to make sacrifices and compromises moving forward.
We also have to start being serious about integrating other types of renewable energy into the mix in greater amounts, this would include things like green hydrogen, ocean wave power and closed loop bioenergy. Research is ongoing in these areas and it's a mixed bag of results.
Speculative fiction final became a reality with successful testing of the Seawing. The idea dates back to the first sea fairing people who realized that the wind could power your ship from place to place. In this case it's a giant kite (or parafoil) that is released from cargo ship and flown some 300 meters (984 feet) above the ship. It literally drags the ship through the water reducing fossil fuel usage anywhere between 30 - 50%.
While this technology has been used in various forms, including its use for re-supplying the US Navy in 2008, it's being looked at much more seriously then it even has been before. While fuel savings may be the primary motivator in cargo and shipping companies adopting this technology, it is still going to cut back on fossil fuel usage and global warming overall.
There has also been some chatter about solar dimming in the news lately. This is an untested and possibly dangerous way for the politicians to claim they are doing something while actually doing nothing. Well the science on a small scale makes sense; on the scale needed for it to be truly successful just isn't feasible. It is frankly a waste of money and time that could be used for proven methods to combat global warming.
However it's a "quick and easy" solution that politicians love, so expect to hear more about in the future. Personally I say you should call them on their bullshit.
Frankly there is a lot of shady companies and others sucking off the government tit when it comes to the issue of carbon sequestration. The idea is a simple one...you capture large amounts of carbon from the air and store it deep underground.
Don't worry about the details...just give us money. So governments do. For example Project Bison, which was going to be the biggest carbon capture plant in the world was supposed to start operation in 2023, but has yet to open and is still being delayed by the developers of the project.
Bear in mind that they admitted that the technology to do this is either still in the testing stages or hasn't been developed yet.
Which, brings us back to the indivdual and what you can do. Frankly keep the pressure on the powers to be to change directions and demand environmental action. Get involved somehow with the local community. Buy green when and where you can but be wary of greenwashing. Understand that we do live in a capitalist society and that the companies are only going to change if you force them to change with the power of your pocketbook.
Some companies and sport teams are already working towards that. Support them where you can.
Ask about Green initiatives at work and what you can do to support them.
Never stop working towards a better future.
Hello,
ReplyDeleteI like this blog post a lot but I have some thoughts in response. You are arguing for a adaptation and mitigation strategy with clean energy and you point out that there has been a 2% increase in clean energy.
I think it is problematic to think that developing countries are going to switch over to clean energy anytime soon like you seem to be suggesting? There are a lot of practical problems with clean energy. For example peak usage of energy happens at night and what do you do when there is no wind? The answer is to have good batteries but clean energy batteries are very expensive and hard to implement which is a problem for poor developing countries.
More importantly, developing countries usually make two arguments in favor of their continued usage of fossil fuel:
1 Developed countries, such as the USA, have used fossil fuels to help them get to their current level of development. Why is it fair that developed countries got to use fossil fuels to do this and developing countries don't? Developing countries often argue that they should have the right to use fossil fuel to reach their economic growth goals.
2 The vast majority of emissions has come from developed rich countries while poor/developing countries have much less emissions. Given this, why should developing countries bear as much, if not more, of the costs of reducing emissions when they have contributed far less to the problem?
I think these are justified points for both fairness reasons and practical political reasons (see this for a more in depth discussion https://www.brookings.edu/articles/it-is-unfair-to-push-poor-countries-to-reach-zero-carbon-emissions-too-early/). In international negotiations developing countries always point out the fairness points above + developed countries lack of action as the reason why they are not going to take action themselves. If we want them to take climate change action and to switch over to clean energy, developed countries need to go out of their way to switch to clean energy which has not happened. From this viewpoint, while there has been a 2% increase, what really matter is there has not been a big change away from fossil fuels in developed countries.
Also, even if we do start to see a change to clean energy this won't matter if we continue to use fossil fuels along with clean energy. For example from the report " Coal
generation increased by 1.1%, in line with average growth in the last
decade . . . 2022 saw the lowest number of coal plant closures in seven years"
Even governments that have elected politicians who are committed to climate change action are still allowing more fossil fuel to be made (see for example Australia https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jul/26/anthony-albanese-rules-out-banning-fossil-fuel-projects-citing-risk-to-australian-economy)
The point I am trying to make is that just looking at how much clean energy has gone up by itself is not a good indicator of progress. Where the change to clean energy is happening also matters a lot. For a lot of reasons democratic governments with frequent elections have a particularly hard time dealing with climate change while at the same time they are the countries we need most to take action (For why this is the case see A Perfect Moral Storm The Ethical Tragedy of Climate Change By Stephen M. Gardiner. One of Gardiner's key points for why action is so hard for democracies is the asymmetrical costs and benefits of climate change between generations).
Corwin