Global Warming

I've been reading this book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded by Thomas Friedman (a three time Pulitzer Prize winner journalist with the NY Times, and an author of a handful of books) and since I picked it up, I really have not stopped thinking about the ominous future of our planet.

The book has a handful of flaws. At times he writes with a pretentious tone, occasionally it feels redundant, and I can only read a chapter or two in one sitting. But despite that, the book is an extremely well thought out discussion of the current and unsustainable way we live. The fact is that there are far too many people on earth using FAR too many resources and it can't last.

And the situation really IS dire. And that is the scariest part: that people are unaware, uneducated, unconvinced, in denial, and/or too lazy to make a change. Countries as a whole need to start making changes, but politicians are too weak to do anything drastic because people don't care enough about the issue.

I don't want to preach, but here are a few anecdotes from the book that rang particularly strong with me. I hope that perhaps they will get you to think a little...and maybe start the cogs on this machine rolling:

1. Global Warming...so what. Scientists have the their panties in a twist because the average global temperature has increased by 0.8 C since the 1800's. Point eight... Who cares, right? That's not even one degree! BUT it actually is a HUGE deal. The average global temperature from the last ICE AGE was only ~5 or 6 C colder than the temperature of the past 12,500 years (that's how long it has been since the last ice-age) . If it only took 5 degrees of warming to go from a planet of frozen tundra to the wonderful world we have to day...one degree is HUGE.

2. The combination of population boom and our need for energy/resources turns into an equation of catastrophic proportions. Listen to this:

In the next 12 years, the world's population is expected to swell by another billion people. Now lets just say we give each one of these people just ONE 60watt incandescent lightbulb. And they all turn them on. That is a whoppin' 60,000 megawatts! But let's be realistic since we are looking at the entire world, and some people are awake while others are asleep. So let's just say that they only use the light for 4 hours a day, so at any given moment we only need 10,000 megawatts. Yikes! It looks like we will still need about TWENTY 500-megawatt coal burning power plants, JUST so the next billion people CAN TURN ON A LIGHT! And God knows, they are using more than just a lightbulb...

3. Another factoid I find intriguing is that cow belching and farting is a big contributor to Global Warming. Farting and belching is a natural part of the cows digestive process, but is quite lethal in reality. Their farts and burps are made up of methane gas which goes into the air and traps heat even more effectively than carbon dioxide does. (Meat production contributes 18% of the world's total greenhouse gas emissions...Transportation including cars, trucks, buses, trains, planes, and boats only produce 13.5%...hmm...)

The book was pretty depressing at first, but now I am at the part where he is proposing a solution to the problems...It looks like (drum-roll please) I am the solution. Just Kidding, but really, this is an area I am interested in working after I graduate. We need to FIND clean, renewable, and cost effective sources of energy (insert a lot of innovation and discovery here). We need to make all of our electric devices much more efficient (insert people's demand for more fuel efficient cars, more efficient AC's, more recyclable electronics etc). And we need to start NOW so that our impending doom is manageable and not apocalyptic.

Thomas also throws in some beneficial details about how if America chooses to be a leader on this project, we will probably get pretty wealthy off doing so (and the world will follow our example). Also if we cut our dependence on oil we will weaken the Petro-dictators in the Middle East and without any wars or deaths promote democracy, equality, and opportunity for those oppressed by the system.

So with all that in mind, I ran to the Berkeley Bowl today (4 miles), shopped for food and walked home (another 4 miles). It might not be much but, hey, its 8 pounds of Carbon Dioxide not released into the air.