Guest post: The war we are fighting this time
From a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Average maximum temperatures.
Dr Forrest said Mr Malinauskas had “experienced the incredible power of zero emission green hydrogen when he drove FFI’s huge haul truck, seeing with his own eyes, how a massive 6mhigh mining truck can operate without using a polluting fuel like diesel”.
Perhaps his irony metre is broken, as the reduced pollution from a hydrogen-powered truck is more than outweighed by the coal in each load it carries.
How much of the process that mkes the hydrogen that goes into the truck is “zero emission?” If it’s only the bit that gets burned in the vehicle that’s “green,” then that’s not quite the solution it claims to be. As Mike B. pointed out above, the real problem is ecological overshoot. Even if we were to change all our energy use to renewables, we’d still be fucked, beacuse we’d still be overconsuming. Energy conversion without energy use reduction (amongst many other things), just puts us on a slightly greener road to hell.
The overall global response to the pandemic gives a very slight cause for hope. If the current ecological/biodiversity/energy crises could be seen and acted upon in a similar manner, with equivalent speed and robustness, we could make more progress than we are currently. Unfortunately, we need to do a good deal more than wear masks and keep farther apart. We would have to reinvent our economies, learn to live with less, and reduce wealth disparities. There is little that we do that would not be touched by the need to restructure and scale back our economies. Ophelia has pointed out a number of times that no government promising to do what needs to be done would ever be elected, and that those inclined to dictatorship would probably accelerate in the opposite direction. Countries have found the will to make sacrifices in times of war, but this time the war we are fighting is against our very way of life. The greatest threat to our way of life is our way of life. We have met the enemy and he is us.
To undertake the transformations required would be painful and expensive; failure to do so will result in even greater pain and expense, on an unimaginable scale, greater than all previous human conflicts combined. It could be slow and gradual, or it could involve massive, abrupt changes to previously reliable, stable systems and processes. Most likely it will be a combination of both. By refusing to choose the lesser of two evils, we ensure the inevitable manifestation of the greater.
We are in uncharted territory, leaving the envelope of conditions within which our civilization arose, and upon which it is based. We are travelling at great speed without a clue as to where we are heading. Cultural inertia makes changing direction on a global scale slow and awkward, if not impossible. There are powerful forces actively working to block any change at all. We are running out of water; we are running out of food. If you think things are bad now, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
The Gaia hypothesis is good in parts. Also we have to bear in mind always not just that we are in totally uncharted and unknown territory with AGW, but that the Earth has known pretty similar stuff in ages past. Though I am not a climatologist, I would suggest that the heat trapped in the atmosphere by the rising greenhouse gas concentrations will make its way via H2O precipitation into streams and rivers and hence to the global ocean. As ocean heat rises, ice will melt, sea level will rise, and so on. But there will be increased oceanic evaporation leading to a more cloudy atmosphere. An English weather pattern will likely spread ‘wider still and wider,’ leading possibly to the Sun disappearing permanently from view: as it has long since for any Venusians hanging around in the backblocks of Venus.
Please don’t get me wrong. I have greatly enjoyed my visits so far to Britain. But I am always glad to get back home here to Australia, where I can find myself a patch of dry ground and relax on a sunny beach.
The nagging question has to be: for how much longer?
While “cultural inertia makes changing direction on a global scale slow and awkward” perhaps it is not fair to say we are “without a clue as to where we are heading”. Predictions continue to be refined. “Maintaining climate warming around 1.5 C or 2 C by 2030 or 2050 appears fairly unrealistic unless worldwide drastic green house gases reduction measures are immediately taken and applied” (unreviewed preprint arXiv:2204.11619 25 Apr 2022) in agreement with “we are travelling at great speed.”
William Rees, Hope Jahren, Emma Marris and others provide realistic understanding of the broad scope.
While the video “https://youtu.be/LxgMdjyw8uw 16:10 We WILL Fix Climate Change! Apr 5, 2022” agrees that the rate of change/transition must increase and circular economy must develop (@10:00), importantly, it emphasizes that we must not fall into the trap of hopelessness (@11:10).
Peter Eisenberger (unreviewed preprint arXiv:2012.14976 29 Dec 2020) reviews the technologies that close the human carbon cycle in harmony with the Earth’s carbon cycle (photosynthesis/respiration).
“Somehow, it seems up to us as individuals to become carbon-neutral, plastic-free and zero-impact. But we can’t win that way. … Transformation happens when enough of us take aim at particular changes, and at the social norms that reinforce those systems. This means pushing politicians to change specific laws and policies to be bold, strategic and coordinated.” (Kai Chan “Climate action needs a reboot”, The Globe and Mail, Mar. 12 2022, O3)
Note that the technologies leading to a circular economy should be based on biomimicry (cf Ellen LaConte) not irreversible geoengineering.
Without a doubt, this is a major crisis, and YNINB has nailed some of the salient points.
The war analogy, however, fails, just like so many of the attempts to move on climate.
When you look at Ukraine, for example, you can see the clear and present danger of war. We admire and cheer on the Ukrainian people as their mouse roars against the Russian Bear.
With the climate, it is more like the mythical frog in a pot of gradually warming water. Our long term view tells us how serious it is, but we are creatures of immediate gratification. If it feels good now, we do it. If it hurts now, we fight it. But when the hurt is too far down the road, it’s shrugged off as a “Somebody Else’s Problem”.
Today I read of another problem that is a potential roadblock to renewables. Sand is being mined at such a rapid rate, that new sources must be found. No sand, no wine bottles. But even more importantly, no sand, no solar panels. No sand, no microchips.
Population increase is a problem, but how do we stop it without war, genocide, eugenics, forced sterilisations, etc? I suspect that, just as when a species breeds to such an extent that it destroys its food supply and then declines, that is all that will slow human population growth. To date, science and technology have put that day off to the future, but comes a time when the natural world will catch up to our technological world.
Oh, well. The rest of the universe should be safe…
In the industry, ‘green hydrogen’ is produced with electrolysis from renewables such as wind, PV or hydroelectric, while ‘blue hydrogen’ is produced with other sources, either electrolysis using conventional electricity, or steam methane reforming, methane pyrolysis, or partial oxidation processes. Green hydrogen is still a tiny percentage of total hydrogen production – all electrolysis is likely to be about 6-7% of the total, up from 4% the last year for which we have good data.
But yeah, to power a coal truck…
Good catch. What I meant by this was the disconnect between our intentions and our actual destination. Like cruise ships, despite our economy’s intended purpose of providing goods, services, comfort, etc., (and making some actors within it obscenely rich) it is taking us somewhere else altogether. The captain is plotting one course but we’re heading in another, one that is new to us.
Many of the impacts are actually here and now and making headlines, though. All these record breaking temperatures, wildfires, retreating glaciers, etc. are not somewhere down the road. They’re here. Many are localized enough that there are enough people outside the immediate danger area that they can shake their heads in pity and move on. By the time the “immediate danger area” becomes big enough to inconvenience or threaten everyone, it will be far too late.
Part of the perceptual problem is that many of these things are happening to people who can’t turn up the AC and go on doing what they always have done. They’re often happening to people who have enjoyed few of the perks that burning fossil fuels have provided. They are happening to people who have not had any choice or voice in the matter. This is often by design. Resource extaction often comes at the expense of the humans and other creatures who have the misfortune to live on top of them.
This is an old article – but much like the valence tables – nothing has changed.
https://phys.org/news/2006-12-hydrogen-economy-doesnt.html
Hydrogen as a fuel is another attemt to centralize control of “energy” and to ensure it remains a commodity. Wind, hydro, and solar are much less susceptible to rampant profiteering, plus each can be harnassed on very local scales to help ensure energy security.
I have colleagues who are keen on a hydrogen economy and are trying to develop hydrogen production by bacteria. One of them gave a talk a couple of years ago, at which I asked her what were current yields compared the yield that would be necessary to produce hydrogen on an industrial scale. She said they at about 0.00000000001% of what was needed. She didn’t seem ready to draw the obvious conclusion.