Understanding Climate Change: Bite 1.6.1 – There’s hope.
Bites 5 of this series explained the effects we are already seeing as our Climate is Changing which will get significantly worse. Whilst the implications are serious, in this Bite we cite examples of how the world is waking up to the risks and responding with positive action.
The technological revolution of the past 200 years has seen our population grow 8 fold, whilst raising the health and wealth of people by many factors. Average life expectancy has more than doubled and will continue to rise (1). Population will peak around 11 billion before the end of this century (2). But, we have fueled this revolution using fossil fuels, with unintended potentially catastrophic Climate consequences. If we are to continue this extraordinary journey, then we will continue to demand energy. However, it is clear we must transition to sustainable sources. Note: we only use 0.01% of all energy that hits the earth every day.
As long as we avoid some runaway climate catastrophe, our actions that have caused the climate to change can be reversed, by decarbonizing our energy supply and removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. As a result of our ingenuity and capacity to develop, many of the required solutions are already known and economically viable:
- Wind and solar are now the lowest cost energy sources (3)
- Electrical transportation is more efficient, reliable and cost effective than fossil fueled alternatives (4)
- Net-zero carbon buildings are now proven and cost effective (5)
- Regenerative farming at scale is doable, efficient and potentially more profitable (6)
The next Bite looks at the energy consuming sectors that require more progress in technology and cost efficiency before they are embraced as part of our energy transition.
1. https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy
2. https://ourworldindata.org/future-population-growth
3. https://www.resilience.org/stories/2022-11-10/eroi-of-re/...
4. https://cleanenergy.org/.../electrifying-transportation-a...
