27th December 2011
Naturally a Growing World Population Requires More Energy
We all know the Earth is getting hotter. The Global Panel on Global Warming foresees a worldwide temperature rise of approximately 5C by the end of this century. That is enough for significant changes. Like in rising seawater levels, in food production and rainfall. Understanding why we are in this fix is step one to doing something about it.
There are 4 levels at which to grasp the cause of global temperature increases. * The workings of global temperature rises * What we do * Our convictions and values, and * Natural cycles, concerning the sun The ins and outs of global temperature rises are easy. There’s too much CO2 ( CO2 ) in the atmosphere. But currently the Earth keeps more heat from the sun, about 0.85 per square metre, than it generates into space.
It is typically CO2 that obstructs solar energy into space and this creates the greenhouse effect. Now the atmospheric CO2 content is about 380 ppm ( parts per million ), up from about one thousand years back at a quantity of 280 ppm. Prophecies are that it may go up to 500ppm by the end of this century. And CO2 hangs around for a long period of time. What we do makes a contribution to so much CO2 in the atmosphere. It became there due to big amounts of normal fuels that humanity has been burning since the beginning of the Economic Revolution, some three hundred years back.
Coal and oil are the mainstays in power generation and to power our transport. Naturally a growing world population requires more energy for food, clothing, housing and comforts. But when there are eight bill of us, all desiring a gigantic house, the most recent electronic playthings, an auto, and access to world travel, we are in difficulty. We are in difficulty as the Earth can’t physically support all those needs and as the energy emissions wanted to meet them would choke us. It generated ideas about the seriousness of the individual, about the employment of reason and material welfare. Rene Descartes was one of this period’s foremost thinkers. You know his famous quote : “I think thus I am.” Latterly I saw an advert using that quote like this : “I think, so I shop”. Funny? Yes, and getting to the guts of the difficulty. The way in which we think, about ourselves and about the world is the issue. Does our patron world leave room for nature, for things we will be able to make and maintain ourselves, for “slow” and natural expansion, for one another and our environments? Not too much.
Source: energy management consultants
