The problem is easily stated. In 1950, the global emission of carbon dioxide was 6 billion tons a year. Thanks to population growth, urbanization, the expansion of wealth, and massive industrialization around the world, by 2008 this has increased fivefold to 30 billion tons a year. Assuming that nothing is done to reduce emissions, by 2058, they will be 60 billion tons a year. Thus, to reduce global warming, whose effects are already beginning to be felt, it will be necessary to take drastic measures just to stay at the present level, never mind actually making real progress. For example, to reduce the number of coal-fired generating plants, nuclear capacity in the United States will have to be doubled. To reduce car emissions, either Americans will have to drive half as many miles per year or cars will have to be twice as efficient. Buildings will have to use 25 percent less electricity …
Even assuming that anything at all gets built in the coming economic depression—during the Great Depression of the 1930s, building construction virtually halted—creating new cities and reconfiguring old ones will take many decades. We don’t have that much time.
January 6th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
Or, we could just start geo-engineering. It’s a lot easier to seed the oceans with iron, increasing algae growth and sucking up vast amounts of CO2, than to increase nuclear power by 50% or cut driving in half.
Or do nothing and live with the consequences. That seems to be the path we’re on, Obama’s election notwithstanding. Live with rising sea levels, category 5 hurricanes, droughts, floods, mass extinctions, etc. After all, how many people actually get effected by these things? OK, millions. But compared to the overall population, that’s really nothing.
In all seriousness, if global warming is really the problem, geo-engineering is the only solution that will work, economically. People in China and India are not going to live in severe poverty in perpetuity, and without that, what we in the West do is almost irrelevant.
January 6th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
I’ve posted this before, but I think Paul Hawkins great piece on cities as environmental arcs is relevant. Here’s the key paragraph.
“…Regardless of the myths about living close to the land, cities are where human beings have the lowest ecological footprint. It takes less energy, wood, material, and food to provide a good life for a person in a city than in the country. Rather than perceive the city as an ecological sink sucking up the resources of the countryside, which cities can do, cities can also be a kind of ecological ark, places where humanity gathers while we peak in population and develop ecological intelligence for a new civilization. There is wisdom in this that is rather extraordinary. It was not predicted that cities might be the best strategy for our long-term survival and well-being. Yet that is exactly what is happening.”
here’s the link:
http://www.sustainlane.com/us-city-rankings/articles/introduction-by-paul-hawken/A424DJAXRLANIR1HOAR1PS1A2C9O