Global warming and COP21

[Did67]

I am surprised, on reflection, how little space the issue of global warming occupies on this forum !

I invite you to watch this recording by Jean-Louis Etienne on the occasion of COP21. I don't know how long it will stay online:

http://www.lemonde.fr/sciences/video/20 ... 50684.html

I have not found a truly adequate thread ... But if someone finds, they can "transfer"

[I Citro]

Yes, there is a deafening silence around this subject at the moment when it should invade the media space ...

[Did67]

Violence is of more interest: wars, attacks, political "fights" (blows?) ...

[Did67]

An article from the newspaper Le Monde: http://passeurdesciences.blog.lemonde.f ... explosive/

Demography, energy, climate: the explosive equation

Perhaps we still remember the beautiful unanimity of nations on which ended last December, COP21, the international conference on climate change. Non-binding, the Paris agreement provides for ensuring that the average rise in temperatures on the surface of the globe remains below 2 ° C - or, ideally, 1,5 ° C - compared to pre-industrial values. There was a nice photo, smiles, satisfaction expressed to have managed to get everyone to agree. And then everyone repacked their belongings, went home, returned to their daily life as a political decision-maker or journalist, in the next election, to their presidential campaign, which in France, which in the United States, etc. Because these deadlines seem closer, more urgent, more important, because we have the impression that there is time before the global warming warning signal goes off.

However, this signal is already ringing continuously. This is what has just been recalled, with cold and black cruelty, an American study published in the next issue of the journal Energy Policy. Written by Glenn Jones and Kevin Warner (Texas A&M University), this article examines our ability to solve what is probably one of the greatest challenges of the 1,6st century, a puzzle where three elements collide: the growth of the world population, its energy needs and the need to fight against global warming by drastically reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. Its two authors recall some figures that each of us should have in mind. First, some demographic data: the world population was 1900 billion people in 7,2, against 11 today and it should, according to UN projections, turn around 9 billion people at the end of the century. Every hour of every day there are an average of 300 more humans on Earth than the previous hour.

Next comes the annual energy needs of humanity. In 1900, these amounted to 6 billion kilowatt hours (kWh), compared to just over 400 billion kWh today. If we take into account the evolution of the population during this period, this means that energy consumption per person has more than quintupled in 150 years. The average figure of 000 kWh per person per year should not mask the very large disparities today. Thus, it is estimated that around 115% of the world population does not have access to the electricity network, that a member of the European Union consumes nearly 21 kWh per year against 100 for an average American. Every hour of every day, we extract 20 million barrels of crude oil, 37 tonnes of coal and 000 million cubic meters of natural gas from the bowels of the Earth.

Finally comes the goal of containing global warming below 2 ° C at the end of the century. To keep a 50% chance of achieving this, it requires that humanity must not have emitted more than 2 gigatonnes of CO900 between 2 and 1870. Let us specify here that between 2100 and 1870, nearly 2010 gigatonnes of dioxide carbon from anthropogenic sources have been sent into the atmosphere and the current rate of emissions is only increasing. If human societies even managed to stabilize their consumption of fossil fuels, the bar of 1 gigatonnes of CO900 would in any case be reached in 2, well before 900. Every hour every day, we release 2 , 2038 million tonnes of CO2100.

From these data, Glenn Jones and Kevin Warner established some projections to draw a portrait of the energy transition to a carbon-free world. As the world population will increase considerably by 2100 and as energy consumption per person will also continue to increase, especially in emerging countries, they estimate that in 2100, the annual global production of energy on Earth will have more than doubled compared to today and it should flirt with the 320 000 billion kWh. This is the quantified result of the explosive equation evoked by the title of this post.

If humanity really intends to follow the Treaty of Paris, it must start now to reduce the share of fossil fuels and invest heavily in renewable energies. Producing 320 billion kWh in 000 means having installed by then nearly 2100 million 14 megawatt wind turbines (taking into account the actual number of operating hours and the load factor), 5 square kilometers of photovoltaic panels (the equivalent of the territory of France, overseas departments and regions included), as well as 650 million square kilometers of algae-based biofuel factories ... The calculations of the two researchers show that if we want to stay below 000 ° C, the share of renewables in the energy "mix" must rise to 2% in 2 and this on a global scale! For the record, it is only 50% today, including hydroelectricity. If we focus on wind, solar and biofuels, we must multiply by 2028 the current infrastructure. Yet these estimates do not take into account the energy required to extract the raw materials used in the manufacture of all these installations!

Anyone will have already understood that we are deluding ourselves if we think we can achieve the objectives of the Treaty of Paris, especially when we remember that it was set by people whose environmental convictions are proven often very circumstantial and whose agenda generally does not go beyond the horizon of the next election. So 2028 and 2100 ... The authors of the study consider a scenario at 2,5 or 3 ° C much more likely. Is this a way of joining a current of thought that considers it smarter to adapt to global warming rather than trying to limit it? Not really. Not only do these two researchers see their work as "an alarm bell", as Glenn Jones explained, but they underline, in a very pragmatic way, that our societies, if they do not adapt to the new situation energy under the effect of ecological awareness, will in any case have to do so under the economic constraint of the scarcity of fossil resources. Because in 2100 we will not find the equivalent of 320 billion kWh underground. The cruel reality is that if we do not act, in the end geology wins.

Pierre Barthélémy

[Ahmed]

Of course, this indifference is annoying, but would it be a major concern, as is the case for some, like JL Etienne and others, that it would only reveal, in hollow, our regret that this physical factor exists and nothing more ...
To be more precise, this means that the current way of life is almost unanimous, that nobody wants to question it, with this irritating detail near global warming which comes to thwart the beautiful march of "progress" and our peace of mind. mind.
However, this increase in CO2 only translates our increasingly massive addiction to the use of energy, use which itself is the means to destroy the possibilities of life on earth (climate change being only one of its consequences).
I am not saying that we should ignore it, what I am saying is that by refusing this destruction and making the choice of life, the problem of CO2 also disappears.
The causes of CR are therefore not the excessive use of fossil fuels, as a superficial analysis suggests, but much more the search for an absurd purpose and in contradiction with the survival of humans and many other species.
Certainly, it will be objected to me, an energy transition of great (and very hypothetical!) Magnitude *, would solve this problem, but it would let all the others, just as serious, to which we are even more blind.

* At the cost of a brutal increase in extractivism in terms of fossil fuels and conventional and / or rare raw materials.