Consuming The
World's
Fossil Fuels
By Mohammed Mesbahi
24 November, 2004
stwr.net
Ever
since humans lived in the world, we have had an impact on our environment.
Over the centuries we have destroyed four fifths of the worlds
forests and in some parts of the world caused the formation of deserts.
During the last century we have polluted and destroyed the world environment
at an ever increasing rate, through:
· Use of
massive quantities of toxic chemicals in agriculture
· Nuclear
power, nuclear reprocessing, nuclear bombs and nuclear waste
· Depletion
of the ozone layer
· Pollution
of rivers
· Pollution
of seas with heavy metals, radioactive waste insecticides etc
· War: every
war is massively destructive to the environment, both locally and globally
The list goes on
and on, including GMOs, over-fishing, etc.
But the greatest
threat to the environment is human-driven climate change. There are
two main factors involved: the production of greenhouse gasses, such
as carbon dioxide, and the destruction of forests. We have been destroying
forests slowly ever since prehistoric times, but it was not until the
Industrial Revolution in eighteenth century Britain that vast quantities
of fossil fuels began to be burned. Coal was subsidised in order to
produce goods for export, making Britain a rich and powerful nation,
but also making it a highly polluted one. By 1888 the Swedish scientist
Svante Arrhenius already predicted that carbon dioxide emissions would
eventually cause climate change.
After the discovery
of petroleum, fossil fuel consumption increased and continued to increase
worldwide, even after clean renewable energy technology was discovered.
But it was not until 1988 that James Hansen, NASA scientist at the Goddard
Institute, warned a meeting in Washington that the continuing increase
in carbon dioxide emissions would cause a rise in global temperatures,
with catastrophic effects. This is called the greenhouse effect.
There are several
greenhouse gasses:
· methane
methane levels have
risen a hundred percent since the industrial revolution. Deforestation,
decomposition of waste, rice fields and cattle production all produce
methane. It is a twenty times more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon
dioxide.
· nitrous
oxide
Excessive use of
chemical fertilizers and the exhaust from vehicles produce nitrous oxide,
which is a two hundred times more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon
dioxide
· chlorofluorocarbons
(CFCs)
Chlorofluorocarbons
are used in refrigeration and air conditioning and are a thousand times
more powerful greenhouse gasses than carbon dioxide. They also destroy
the ozone layer. They take thousands of years to break down.
· carbon
dioxide
The world today
produces more carbon dioxide than all the other greenhouse gasses combined.
Geological records show that there are higher levels of carbon dioxide
in the atmosphere today than there have been for 200,000 years. It takes
200 years to break down.
As a result of James
Hansens speech the UN decided to set up an Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC) and 2,500 top world scientists were selected
to take part in this initiative. Seven years later the IPCC group reported
that they had found a discernable human effect on the global climate.
They recommended that the world should stop relying on fossil fuels.
The oil and coal
industries fiercely opposed the findings of the IPCC. But the worlds
governments took the IPCCs recommendations seriously enough to decide
to meet in 1997 in Kyoto, Japan to discuss climate change and how to
prevent it by reducing harmful emissions. IPCC scientists suggested
that the world should aim to reduce greenhouse gasses by 60-70%, but
world leaders eventually agreed on a 5.2% reduction, not sufficient
to halt the greenhouse effect. The US has not ratified this treaty.
Today the consensus
of the scientific community is that global warming is an indisputable
fact. The world said the American Association for the Advancement
of Science at a Conference called The Reality of Global Warming
is significantly warmer today than it was a century ago and its
getting warmer. Without action now, the impact could be devastating.
In many parts of
the world climate change has already affected the environment. Glaciers
have disappeared, sea levels have risen, drowning islands, and massive
areas of the world have been affected by desertification. In China,
for example, 1.7 million square km (18.2% of the mainland) is now classified
as desert and this area is expanding by 3,464 square km per year. All
these environmental disasters have been caused by the rise in temperature
during the last twenty years.
The reason why we
have been consuming the worlds fossil fuels at such an alarming
rate is because the industrialised world has subsidised and supported
them. The World Bank, which funds energy research, devotes 86% of their
funding to fossil fuel research projects, while only 14% goes to renewable
energy research projects. Yet renewable energy is abundant and will
never run out, whereas fossil fuels are limited and will come to an
end. Carbon is locked up in all life forms, especially in trees, which
absorb huge amounts of carbon dioxide. When carbon is released as carbon
dioxide, it traps the suns heat. Burning fossil fuels releases
six billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year. Cutting
down trees prevents them from absorbing carbon dioxide and producing
oxygen. By the 1990s an area of tropical forest equivalent to nearly
half the area of England was being destroyed each year. Since all forests,
but especially tropical forests, absorb carbon dioxide, this forest
destruction increases the rate of climate change. Corporate interests
are now destroying the last remaining mature forests in the world.
As greenhouse gasses
build up, the average world temperature rises. Since 1988 it has risen
by 0.65 degrees. This seems like a very small rise in temperature, but
it has not risen evenly throughout the world. There have been massive
swings in temperature, with some of the coldest winters in parts of
the world and some of the hottest summers in other parts, while the
north and south poles have risen by 5 degrees, causing massive chunks
of ice to break off and melt into the sea.
The IPCC scientists,
and ecologists long before them, have been predicting that a rise in
global temperature, together with the depletion of ozone levels in the
stratosphere, would result in more unpredictable and violent weather.
They have predicted more floods, hurricanes, more intense storms, dryer
interiors of continents, hotter summers, winters that would sometimes
be milder and sometimes more severe. And everything that they predicted
is happening, but alarmingly, it is happening sooner and faster than
expected.
They predicted species
extinctions. These have already begun. Eighty percent of the worlds
coral reefs have been bleached, alpine plants are disappearing and tropical
fish are moving to the Mediterranean.
They predicted the
spread of disease. Mosquitoes are moving to higher terrain, causing
malaria in areas which were free from the disease before.
They predicted that
Africa would suffer the most drought and desertification, and this is
indeed happening, with resultant famine.
They predicted that
islands would disappear under the rising sea. Several small islands
have already disappeared.
They also predicted
that as global temperatures rose, the worlds peat bogs would release
their stored carbon dioxide. The bogs of Europe, Siberia and North America
hold the equivalent of 70 years of global industrial emissions, so if
global temperatures reach the point at which the frozen peat bogs of
Siberia and North America thaw out and begin to release their carbon
dioxide, the greenhouse effect will accelerate out of control. Alarmingly,
scientists at the University of Wales have found that peat bogs in Wales
are already releasing their carbon dioxide at an increased rate. This,
they suspect, is due to the increased levels of carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere.
Climate change affects
the poorest people in the poorest countries. 96% of all deaths from
natural disasters happen in poor parts of the world, where people live
crowded together in insecure houses, often built in vulnerable positions.
25 million refugees have fled from countries hit by environmental disasters.
Renewable energy
could improve the lives of people in the third world immeasurably, providing
clean, cheap fuel and preventing deforestation. But these people need
to be provided with the technology that would allow them to benefit
from renewable energy. IPCC scientists argue that the rich nations need
to make poverty reduction a priority, since poor people are often forced
into degrading their environment in order to survive. IPCC scientists
recommend that the rich nations should supply renewable energy technology
to the poor nations.
350 participants
from 80 countries took the IPCC recommendations seriously, meeting together
on June 3rd 2004 for an International Parliamentary Forum on Renewable
Energy in Bonn. Dr Hermann Scheer, MP presented the conclusions of this
forum at the International Conference for Renewable Energy, also held
in Bonn on June the 9th 2004. He spoke of the urgency of the current
world situation.
Renewable energy:
sun, wind, wave, hydro and biogas, exists everywhere. It cannot be privatised.
The cost of fossil fuels will rise and rise. Third world countries already
struggle to pay their fossil fuel bill, and as costs rise they will
be unable to do so. Where the infrastructure for the delivery of conventional
power sources does not exist, it will be increasingly expensive to provide.
Renewable energy is a realistic option to meet the energy needs of the
third world and it should be developed and promoted by organisations
such as the World Bank.
Hermann Scheer called
for the formation of an International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).
This recommendation has not yet been adopted but the 350 representatives
of 80 countries agreed to meet regularly and to collaborate on the development
of renewable energy technologies worldwide.
Chancellor Schroeder
emphasised that since 1990 Germany had reduced its greenhouse gas emissions
by 19% and currently invests six billion euros per year in renewable
energy technology development. 120,000 people are employed in the renewable
energy industries in Germany today. It is only when we are able
to bring about a significant reduction in the cost of renewable energies
that we will have improved opportunities to promote their use in poorer
countries. Increasing their use will be a means of providing environmental
security and protecting the lives of millions of peoples he said.
In the rich, industrialised
world we need to follow the lead of Chancellor Schroeder and increase
funding of renewable energy projects massively, subsidise renewable
energy technology and encourage withdrawal from fossil fuels, so that
what is left can be used for the production of valuable products such
as specialised plastics, computers etc. We need to promote the use of
renewable energy in the third world and support the formation of an
International Renewable Energy Agency. Each year the earth receives
energy equivalent to a thousand trillion barrels of oil in the form
of sunlight. Currently solar power is not perceived to be economical
due to the cost of photovoltaic solar cells and due to their low efficiency.
But a new technology, nanotechnology, has the potential to manufacture
solar cells inexpensively, thus moving solar power into the mainstream.
Already in the third
world a few renewable energy projects have begun. For example Tamil
Nadu, in South India has the second biggest wind farm in the world.
In Kenya more rural households get electricity from solar energy than
from the national grid. In Vietnam farmers are producing biogas from
farm waste. These are just a few examples of what could be done throughout
the world.
If we do not switch
to renewable energy sources sun, wind, wave, geothermal and hydro,
demand for fossil fuel will increase, in tandem with a decline in supplies,
resulting in global economic chaos and an uncontrollable runaway greenhouse
effect. Our world could be reduced to a hot, Venus-like desert within
the lifetime of our grand children. We need to recognise that not only
does the burning of fossil fuels damage the environment, but petroleum
is too valuable as a starting material to be merely consumed as a fuel.
Mohammed Mesbahi is the Chair and Founder of STWR
P.O. Box 34275
London NW5 1XT
www.stwr.net
E-mail : [email protected] /
[email protected]