It is so easy sometimes to think of Climate Change as an environmental problem, but it goes way beyond that. It is about jobs, social organization, social responsibility, the economy, State Security, the environment and so on. In a nutshell climate change is about everything! When we look at mother earth everything relies on energy from the sun. Weather and climate is created by the differential heating of the earth by the sun, which in turn transfers heat energy through convection, conduction and radiation. Microclimates are created as a result, which are self-organising subsystems (or self-causing) that interact in a complex way to produce unique weather conditions in different parts of the world and ultimately climate.

Fast Tube by Casper

It is not rocket science to figure out that if we interfere with the energy budget by emitting excessive amounts of C0₂ into the atmosphere over and above a threshold that nature can cope with, weather conditions will change and ultimately the climate. What is hard to visualize is the weather patterns that will emerge as a result of the change and how it will interfere with our current way of life.

As it pans out, emissions of CO₂ linked to humans, relate to generating energy. If so, wouldn’t it be a good strategy to start conserving energy at different levels as a stopgap measure such that we use less of it and ultimately emit less C0₂? Where did I get that idea? … From the car industry! Some of you might know that the combustion engine is the biggest problem in vehicle design for controlling fuel efficiency because it converts the chemical energy stored in fuel, into heat energy, and then converts a portion of that heat energy (about a third of it) into mechanical work. Although there is a lot of costly research being undertaken to find an alternative, BMW has been successful at conserving energy for their vehicles through the EfficientDynamics program. This has clearly produced leading edge efficient combustion engines as a good stopgap measure whilst they investigate better and more permanent alternatives.

If one looks at electricity generation, say from coal fired or nuclear power stations, about two-thirds of the power is lost through heat from a centralized power generator. If we could conserve more by moving to a different model of smaller decentralized systems that are closer to sinks (where the power is used), we might use less of it and thus emit less CO₂ (as a stopgap measure) whilst we look for permanent solutions to our energy problems. Maybe we do not need more energy as such, but rather to fix all the major “energy leaks” inherent in our centralized power station designs by switching to smaller decentralized systems that are closer to the sinks.

Would the Kyoto Protocol been more palatable if in its first round it concentrated on governments giving incentives to companies in the form of research grants, low interest rate loan guarantees, and legislation that would prevent piecemeal developments, to switch to energy conserving technologies, and in the second round aim at C0₂ capping targets and the ETS?

Fast Tube by Casper

              

Tags: Climate change, EfficientDynamics, Emissions, Energy, weather