Greenhouse gas emission crisis warrants lifestyle change
By Lethbridge Herald on August 30, 2023.
Editor:
Humans with their industrial achievements must make decisions which are in the long term interest of life for all species. Humans are adding more greenhouse gases (GHG) mainly carbon dioxide and methane to the atmosphere than ever before. The best data- based studies indicate that these emissions are impacting climate and life on the globe.
The Paris agreement signed in 2015 within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, committed signatories to maintaining global warming to well below 2.0 C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit this increase to 1.5 C. Water supply and food production are the issues. A reduction of some 30 billion tons of GHGs emissions is required in the next 10 years. There are 195 country members of this Framework that are parties to the agreement.
To achieve this climate control we need to create an infrastructure which replaces coal, oil and natural gas with energy produced with wind, sun, hydro, nuclear, hydrogen, heat pumps and batteries. In 2022 87 per cent of Alberta’s total electricity production was derived from fossil fuels as was all the energy for transport, heating and farming.
To construct this infrastructure for renewables, nuclear energy, transmission lines and mining for source materials will require massive amount of energy.
This amount of energy cannot be provided by “green eEnergy” (solar, wind, hydro), nor by nuclear power within the next 40 years (communicated by Cosmos Voutsinos).
How do we meet our energy demand and reduce fossil fuels? Our lifestyle options have to change quickly. We know what we have to do. Can we globally cooperate and act on it?
We are left with two choices:
1. Emit even more GHGs with fossil fuel to produce the required alternative energy within 40 years. This will have predictable negative consequences to the climate, life and our lifestyle. What will be the effect on water and food production?
2. Speed up the reduction of the use of fossil fuels and GHG emissions with drastic negative impacts on our lifestyle.
We got only a taste of that in the COVID-19 year, 2020. We have created a GHG crisis which cannot be countered without impacting our lifestyle. GHG emission is a crisis if we do not respond to it.
The future has arrived. Good news: We will just come down from our high lifestyle to meet the conditions we have created: More good local living.
Klaus Jericho
Lethbridge
15-14
Talk to China. India. They want what we have, don’t think they will slow down the coal train as we virtue signal our way back to the 30’s.
Your personal emissions are greater than 8 billion people on the planet. Tell me, my Boomer friend, that you have no room to improve.
while your post is not entirely off base, surely you are more astute than to believe that our issues only boil down to boomers, white people, males and so forth? hate, ignorance, consumption, self service, tribalism…it transcends every demographic. for example, let us examine the dumb-phone culture, who turn over their idiot devices every couple years…does anyone give a thought to the damage to the planet with both the manufacture and disposal of those needless things (yes, it seems they are necessary, but of course, they are not…one’s buying into them is only what makes them seem needed). is it boomers running off road bikes, atvs and the likes through our natural areas with regularity…hardly. ditto the clowns with their power boats ruining it for fresh water spaces and the aquatic eco-systems. the list of waste and plundering activities and consumerism is, sadly, long and wide. if only the issues just came down to white male boomers…the planet would be saved within 20 years or so. but, it ain’t that niche group pitching smoke butts from their trucks, or helping create a massive pile of waste and mining/manufacture created degradation with vaping dependency. so much garbage around fast food and packaged prepared foods – hardly the boomers sustaining those industries…and so on. i sure hope you open to examining the grand picture, rather than being one of those that use issues as a basis to justify one’s own judgement and hater issues. i am not saying that you are such a soul, sophie; just hoping that you are vigilant about catching yourself should you have a judgement/hater moment.
Certainly, it was a provocation.
But not one without some justification:
OK Boomer: A decade of generational differences in feelings about climate change (2022). Climate worry increased from 2010 to 2019, chiefly for iGens and Millenials (that is, not Boomers); Only younger generations increased climate guilt and anger over the decade; ounger generations increased climate discussions more than other generations.
https://studyfinds.org/baby-boomers-climate-change/ “A new study says older adults are responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than any other age group now. In fact, researchers from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology found that people over 60 accounted for 25 percent of these emissions in 2005. However, that number jumped to 33 percent in 2015.”
And, so on. Most of this has to do with disposable income & retirement wealth. This also correlates well with ‘Western’ or ‘European’ consumption habits.
As you suggest, these emissions could easily be solved by taking away the spending ability of a van-full of people worldwide. https://www.wate.com/news/nexstar-media-wire/40-percent-of-us-climate-emissions-attributed-to-richest-households-study/
thank you, sophie, for taking time to share out thoughts. i feel the crux of our issues arose long before boomers. we are suckered in by ever increasingly savvy marketing, propaganda, and of course, our approach to economy/lifestyle that is stoked by marketing and propaganda. the two greatest industries that are screwing us over are the industrial military complex, and banking/finance. however, mining and multinational controlled agriculture/fisheries further cement our demise. stir in ongoing doses of suspicion and hate about “others” and, voila!, we are being twisted and screwed. and, the only way any of this hurts us is because the far too many are buying it all on one level, and trying to buy it all on the other level.
Agreed. Neoliberalism and the massive shift in wealth from workers to corporations, and the assault on the earth (externalities) began mainly after WWII – Mt. Pelerin Society, etc.
It is really this well-funded indoctrination of society that has lead us to our current state.
China has more installed solar panels than the rest of the world combined and they’re on track to beat their targets by 5 years. Plus much of their emissions come from building the cheap crap that people in the rest of the world buy. Sadly you’ll need a new excuse for doing nothing.
great – someone/somewhere else is doing it, so i can, too. kind of childish, no? maybe it is better to push our govts to move away from using the likes of china for pretty much everything? and, maybe best to start moving away from an unlimited wants based approach to life toward one more needs based? one that would prove respectful of the planet’s needs, sustainability, and future generations.
i’ll keep on saying the obvious: we could uncover the cleanest and an entirely sustainable form of energy, but that will not solve our most pressing issues, which stem from greed/self service/unlimited wants approaches to life.
Their actions do not justify an attitude of, “If they do it so can we”.
That’s school yard level childish.
Is anyone surprised?
Climate is an average of weather over a mutli-decade period. Based on those averages, we can calculate norms (think things like average August highs and lows, or average winter snowfall) as well as extremes (think things like 100 year storm events, heat waves, cold snaps). The extremes will happen, occasionally, within the norms.
Climate change means that both the norms over long periods will shift, and extremes may happen more frequently. This change varies from place to place based on geography. Some areas may see more frequent heat waves, others more cold snaps. Some places may see annual precipitation rise or fall, and even the pattern of that precipitation could change.
So, in essence, everything you see, day by day, is weather. Weather events outside of the norms happening more often is evidence of climate change.
A good letter, saying what has to be said.
With one of the highest per capita emissions on the planet, we are required to dial back our luxury consumption to a sustainable level.
quite right
Is it possible the climate “crisis” is just an exaggerated creation of the mainstream media, Klaus? Time to read “Fossil Future” by Alex Epstein?
perhaps climate crisis is not the best caption for our issues? perhaps something more broad, that helps us examine our penchant for degrading and plundering necessary diversity and cleanliness, and our utter lack of respect for the natural world and one another.
Having read that ponderous salute to circular thinking, I’ll say this:
It’s proof that Climate Change denial has entered a new phase.
And that is based on the premise of “As long as people in rich western societies continue to profit from it, who cares about everyone else? And who cares about mass extinction and habitat loss?
We’re still getting rich from it at this time. Let the future worry about itself”
Or to put it in simpler terms: Sheer lunacy.
When I was a student at the University of Southern North Dakota, at Hoople, one of my profs told us that the increase in global temperatures were because the climate folks were using new thermometers. Apparently, the new thermometers were developed by a Professor Lebowski. You can look it up.
is that the big lebowski
Fake news. Greenhouse gas emissions from volcanos and forest fires are hundreds of times worse than those caused by us trying to heat our homes. Get real, quit blaming humans for this. You are all starting to sound like Suzuki.
Could you please back this up with some sort of science or reference? Gawd!
Anyone who is told they sound like David Suzuki should take it as a compliment.
The man (amongst others) has been more right than wrong.
I believe he meant the motorcycle. lol
On a global scale, wildfires are getting worse. They are more intense, affect larger areas, burn longer and are increasing in number. Each of these measures is consistent with projections found the scientific literature on climate-change impacts.
this type of truth is too hot to handle for the “i want all that i can buy, and i deserve all that i want and can buy” folk.