Wed, 09/02/2009 - 08:07
...continuation from last week's Part I
What is the difference between sustainable and green?
You can be green without being sustainable. An example of that is the recent case of ethanol from corn fuel calling itself green. We found out that it was neither green nor sustainable. It is a grave misconception to assume that just because a resource such as corn is renewable it is also sustainable or green. In the case of ethanol from corn, and in spite of numerous warnings from scientits and engineers such as Prof. Pimentel at Cornell University, the public finally found out, later rather than sooner, that it was neither sustainable nor green. Ethanol fuel comes from corn and you end up using much more energy in the inputs required for its production than what comes out in the output. In addition, the current agricultural practices used in the production of corn are neither green nor sustainable. Green usually refers to not harming the environment but it does not mean that you are sustainable. Ideally, one should also mean the other.
What are carbon footprint and carbon offsets?
Carbon footprint is a reduced version of the seminal human footprint or ecological footprint research set out by Profs. Rees and Wackernagel at the University of British Columbia around the 1980s. Since then, many other footprints appeared, water footprint, energy footprint, and carbon footprint among them.
It is somewhat misleading to think in those narrow terms because if focus only on one area. The human footprint is a measure of the total impact of the human activity on the planet per capita. It is measured in acres or square meters per capita. It depends on what country you are in. For the entire planet on average it is 4.6 acres of land available per capita to produce everything that we need, clean the air and recycle the water. If you look on how the countries use all those resources, then it varies significantly. At the top of the list is the USA with 26 acres per capita, and at the bottom countries like Bangladesh with 2 or 3 acres per capita. In other words, if everybody consumed at the same rate as we do in the USA, we would need about 7 planets.
Carbon offsets are actions that you can take to offset carbon emissions that you or someone else puts out into the atmosphere by, say, planting trees. Again, it is a very limited concept. If you plant a tree, in the first year, the tree takes more CO2 from the atmosphere, thus sinking more carbon C, than what it releases. In the second year and afterwards, because of soil and foliage falling on the ground and consequent oxidation, the amount of CO2 released to the atmosphere is greater than the amount taken out. The research for this has only recently been published, and the results are yet unclear. Ultimately, more carbon has to sink than what is emitted, but the process is not yet entirely clear.
The natural processes of the planet are non-linear. That requires a cautious and educated approach.
What is the importance of the rainforests to climate change ?
It is dramatic. Rainforests produce a significant amount of the oxygen that we use. Rainforest are called the lungs of the planet and they clean up the air as it has been shown in scientific studies that the leaves of trees play a significant role in cleaning up the air of particulates as small as one micron that otherwise would get into our lungs and these particles are the product of our industrial activity. Indonesia has cut down their rainforest by 90% and only 10% is left. In Brazil it is estimated that the Amazon will be gone in 10 years or less.
How can we stop that?
It is very unlikely that anyone will be able to stop the deforestation of the planet.
What is the importance of biodiversity - and the peril of extinctions - to our planet ?
Biodiversity is critical. We are in the middle of the sixth major extinction of species. It is estimated that 70 species go extinct every day. This is a very conservative estimate because we don't know yet the size of the biosphere and how many species we share the planet with. Biodiversity is crucial to human survival and to maintaining and supporting human life on the planet. Humans do not produce anything, period. Humans use, consume and appropriate the products of other life forms on the planet as it was shown by the seminal work of Prof. Vitousek at Stanford University. Without biodiversity, human life on this planet will become extremely precarious if not totally impossible.
What will be discussed at the Climate Conference in Copenhagen this coming December ?
How we come up with regulations that are accepted by most countries if not all, to reduce carbon emissions and come up with treaties that implement those regulations. All of the treaties that were signed in the past starting with the Kyoto Protocol did not result in the reduction of CO2 emissions. In fact, all of the countries that signed the Kyoto Protocol were unable to meet their agreed upon obligations. In addition, as from what we said before, the reduction of global warming is a reduction of consumption and a change in lifestyle. None of the countries has come up within specific solutions, much less regulations or incentives to implement a change in lifestyle to facilitate the transition to a sustainable world society. Going to Copenhagen in December to putting out several hundred tons of CO2 to 700 to 800 tons of CO2 in the atmosphere per flight for several thousand delegates and tens of thousands of participants is hardly the way of a good beginning for a conference to reduce carbon emissions. In addition to that are all the hotels, taxis, infrastructure, restaurants, food that are totally unsustainable and the result of even more carbon emissions. The goals of the Conference are 'commercial,' 'economic,' and 'political' interests, not real sustainability interests unfortunately. It is very sad.
Which countries are leading the Climate Change reversal and preservation efforts in the world ?
To make a transition to a sustainable society, not a single country has undertaken that challenge. Consumption of all resources around the globe has continued to steadily increase and has not been reduced. The economics of such a reduction for a transition to a sustainable society have neither been proposed nor articulated. A few countries have taken initiatives to significantly reduce their CO2 emissions. One such country is Germany, where they passed and approved legislation for net metering of solar or wind energy at 82 cents a kilowatt/hour. That is 8 to 10 times the amount of of the cost of electricity in the United States that is paid directly to the home owner in Germany if he generates energy from solar or wind sources. With that kind of incentive, the population will respond very quickly. Other types of incentives need to be thought out in order to entice the transition to a sustainable society.
In terms of preservation there are a few examples from individuals, one of them being the work by Dr. Vandana Shiva in Kerala, India. She has been leading a very successful campaign in India to preserve biodiversity and distribute local seeds that are kept under the authority of the local population instead of the commercial multinational interests. In particular, she has helped local farmers to overcome the ravages of the so called "green revolution" that has been sold by the multinational trans-corporations based in the US to the overly corrupt government of India and has led to the suicide of 200,000 Indian farmers in the last 10 years.
Dr. Tony Pereira, UCLA ME PhD, won a prestigious international engineering award for a project submitted to the Mondialogo Engineering Award competition sponsored by the UNESCO - the educational, scientific and cultural arm of the United Nations - Daimler and the United Nations. Tony's project titled 'Global Basic Needs in an Integrated Sustainable Approach' is a radical integral engineering approach that directly addresses the UN's Millenium Development Goals (MGDs) to eradicate poverty and bring about change to sustainability worldwide.
