combatting climate change without structural change?:
Most climate experts accept that, in order to avoid catastrophic effects of global warming, greenhouse gas emissions (mostly CO2) must be cut by 60-80% by 2050 (though the figure may need to be a 95% cut in the US). The belief that replacing fossil fuels with solar and wind technology can accomplish this reduction tends to overlook several factors:
1. Corporations bombard the world with the message that everyone should consume like Americans do;
2. Corporations tell those in the US that they should ape after the playthings of the rich;
3. Population is growing;
4. Market economics force pathological expansion; and,
5. Solar and wind comprise a minute fraction of current energy.
Let’s combine these to get an idea of how much solar and wind would need to expand to replace coal, oil, nukes and gas by 2050.First, the US consumes about 25% of the world’s energy while having only 5% of the world’s population. For the rest of the world to consume at the rate of the US would require global production to increase by a factor of 6.33. People in the US constantly hear the message that they do not consume nearly enough. The rest of the world does see skid row as their model for consumption — they also look at the wealthiest in the US. If we use the 5% wealthiest for the standard of comparison, the value of 6.33 should be squared to give 40.0 as the amount that world production would have to increase for everyone to consume at the level of the most affluent in the US. [calculations follow] If there is no challenge to the US being a model of consumerism, there would need to be a roughly nine million percent increase in solar/wind power for them to replace other forms of energy in 43 years.
Total energy use in the US is currently about 100 quads. A quad is equivalent to a quadrillion (a one followed by 15 zeroes) Btu. In his classic The Party’s Over, Richard Heinberg observes that “to produce 18 quads of wind power in the US by 2030 would require the installation of something like half a million state-of-the-art turbines…That is five times the present world production capacity for turbines...most of the energy needed for that undertaking would have to come from dwindling fossil fuels.” People would be consuming voraciously at the same time they were constructing a massive new energy infrastructure. Where would the energy for this gargantuan orgy of consumption/construction come from? Would it mean pumping every drop of oil out of the ground to move the new equipment across the globe? Would it require blowing the top off of every sacred mountain that had coal in it? Would it demand mining enough uranium to melt down nukes in every country? Would it mean extracting every cubic foot of natural gas so there was none left for heating by the time 2050 arrives? Switching to solar/wind by 2050 might require the greatest use of fossil and nuclear fuel the world has ever seen. That’s not a good way to prevent global warming.
(...) This is not to deny that solar panels are absolutely essential for a sustainable energy policy. It is to say that fanaticism about solar power which blinds people to its limitations can also blind them from seeing the need to reduce the total quantity of energy produced in Western countries.
(...) The energy crisis and rising CO2 levels are crises of market economics and the question we must ask is: How do we change society to make it sustainable?
(...) People starve not because there is not enough food, but because available food is not distributed to those who need it. It is more profitable to process food and send it to those who overconsume in rich countries than it is to sell it to those in poor countries who can pay less for it. Local food production for need, combined with aid during times of crisis, could feed everyone. But increased corporate control of food means more production for the international market and food drained away from those who need it the most. Corn for people to eat locally is transformed to corn to feed cattle for international hamburger chains. Less corn is available to solve hunger as American obesity skyrockets. A thousand food commodities and diabetes follow the same path. Just as an increase in the quantity of food can be followed by an increase in starvation, an increase in the quantity of energy available can accompany an energy shortage. If people controlled their energy locally, they could decide how much to produce and, more important, what types of energy-draining activities need to be limited.