GOOD NEWS EVERYONE!
The climate conversation we one day hope to have.
Climate change has been momentarily defeated. Our species’ extinction has been temporarily put on hold, as nations realize they have no choice but to confront the disease that is climate change.
The world breathes a sigh of relief for the first time in nearly two decades, the temperature around the world held steady at +1.75 degrees Celsius. This is not ideal but we have taken the necessary steps to reduce greenhouse gases all over the world with countries great and small doing their part.
IN ONE SUCH POSSIBLE FUTURE:
By 2045, fifteen small footprint nuclear reactors became the core of a power implementation project designed to reduce greenhouse gases and become the hub of a renewable energy system in countries around the world.
A host of other technologies are also providing power in unexpected ways. As Europe’s nations expand their renewables, more than half of the EU have converted their cities, their automobiles, and their mass transit systems to renewable energy.
Geothermal, wave energy converters, and wind power dot the North Atlantic and in particular the North Sea providing power for the United Kingdom, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, and France, whose energy alliance included wave energy converters, compressed air, and gravity-focused power supplementation for the entire region. Their mandate for converting vehicles to hybrid and electrical-only vehicles has reduced their dependency on oil by 60%.
As other inland European nations expand their wind and solar profiles they are supplementing their energy needs with geothermal and pocket nuclear facilities with a new overlay of renewable grid power storage facilities, to organize their transition to totally using renewable energy. More than 40% of Austria, Hungary, Serbia, and Albania have continued their move to an integrated power grid increasing their reliance on each other and non-fossil-based fuels.
The Middle East OPEC nations have continued to gather oil but have slowed their usage as demand for oil has dropped in recent years. The Middle East has some of the largest and most effective solar facilities on the planet and have begun trying to build energy transfer systems to send power to other nations via loss-reduction superconductive technology pioneered in the region. If successful, it could allow nations to move energy with less loss over greater distances.
The Nations of Africa having always maintained a small carbon footprint have developed a variety of renewable energy sources and are building a Unified power grid across the continent which would act as a means of physically connecting a more stable power source to nations which have traditionally used only local energy to bringing in energy which could then be used to create more local sources of power and acting as a relay to the next nation to participate in this continental power grid.
Unfortunately, the United States has lagged in recent years as pocket nuclear facilities, thorium reactors and experimental fusion reactors have been banned from the country due to regressive legislation. The United States continues to lag behind other nations developing alternative power sources but as new governmental programs come online and with the reduction of the military-industrial complex, more renewable energy programs, as well as power-storage facilities, have come online in the last decade.
America has proven to be one of the last holdouts for gas-powered vehicles but many states have their own mandates for hydrogen-powered mass transit and the slow exodus of Americans from coastal cities due to rising sea levels. The new cities further inland are becoming planned cities that utilize nature to protect cities from heat islands, offer vertical farming options and progressive planning has reduced the agricultural footprint of factory farming by 50%, another chance to fight against greenhouse gases.
There are a host of new technologies being developed today from mastering hemp fibers for a host of new applications from paper to clothing. The scarcity of water has caused nations to reconsider how they grow food, create clothes and develop everything because water is used in almost every manufacturing process. However, the amount of water being used has diminished significantly as technology has come into play allowing manufacturers to recapture, clean and reuse water at nearly 90%, a four-fold improvement from a decade ago.
Have we won the race against climate change? No. We have slowed the temperature increases but even with our current efforts, we will see a 2-degree centigrade increase in atmospheric temperatures by the year 2065, twenty years ahead of our first predictions. These gains have not come without a price. Consumer economies have diminished significantly as mandates for recyclability have increased, insisting in the reduction of garbage and wastes produced since methane is a primary source of greenhouse gases and methane is 25 times more efficient in creating global warming.
THIS WOULD ALL BE GOOD NEWS:
If it were happening. Worldwide, we still have quite a ways to go if we are to beat the specter of climate change, which can only be done if we admit the truth of our challenge: It is our hoped-for way of life, it is our expected standard of living we hope to give every person on the planet, which leads to climate change.
WE ARE CLIMATE CHANGE.
But changes ARE happening. Companies are experimenting with reducing their water usage. Others are engaged in recycling both the clothes and the water used to make the clothes in new and unexpected ways.
But water remains one of the most challenging issues of the time, even as we are learning to desalinate ocean water with new diffusion processes, or drawing water directly from the atmosphere in regions far from oceans or rivers. None of this is enough. With our populations expected to reach ten billion in this century, our capacity to find, utilize, manage, store and maintain water supplies is growing harder on every continent in the world.
Food production is being transformed with circular gardening processes and vertical gardens. Controlling the water being used, such facilities are reusing over 80% of the water being used in these revolutionary gardens which use no dirt, LED-based sunlight, natural fertilizers by using fish and the capacity to grow food all year long may lead to the most productive gardening processes we have ever seen, once they are perfected.
Can we turn the tide of climate change?
Yes, it is theoretically possible. Especially if we learn to harness the energies of the oceans which cover three-quarters of the Earth’s surface. Wave Energy technology continues to evolve with test sites all over the world.
The energy density of wave power dwarfs solar or wind power so every nation with an ocean is trying to figure out how to tape into 25kW per cubit meter. (By comparison, photovoltaic or wind energy average 1 kW per cubit meter.) There are currently eight different systems for extracting energy from the ocean and each has their advantages and disadvantages.
Though we talk about the challenges of climate change, there is still reason to be optimistic. Bring your favorite climate good news to the show tonight on:
Though we talk about the challenges of climate change, there is still reason to be optimistic. Bring your favorite climate good news to the show tonight on Climate Change by the Elements with your hosts Thaddeus Howze and Carol Bluestein at 5:00 PM PDT – 8:00 PM EDT.
A live-cast of The Good Men Project
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On a computer or laptop? Join the show the show via your computer at:
https://www.startmeeting.com/wall/934317242
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The IPCC report: Climate Change 2022
Impacts, Adaptability and Vulnerability
Summary for Policymakers | 3676 pages
https://report.ipcc.ch/…/IPCC_AR6_WGII_FinalDraft…
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This post was previously published on Facebook.com.
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