visualizing sustainability

As a kind of summary/overview, I put together a “mashup” of graphs and charts created for previous posts. Each is presented and discussed independently below, but I find this condensed presentation strangely fascinating.

(Note, the links below are to the original posts on Trinifar where the graphs and charts first appeared. See those posts for references to data sources.)

population and sustainability

I find this graph compelling. (See here and here for background.)

Only after the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution did the world’s population reach one billion, but then it really took off, especially after the Green Revolution. Mainstream projections have it cresting or at least leveling off at around nine billion around 2050. (See here for a partial explanation.) With many researchers putting Earth’s carrying-capacity (maximum sustainable population) in the one to three billion range, leveling off at nine is only a good start at sustainability. Just stopping growth is seen as so difficult little is written about how the population might be compassionately reduced to a sustainable level.

The other issue addressed by the graph is climate change. The gold curve is atmospheric CO2 concentration, the poster child for greenhouse gas emissions. The projection to 2100 is based on the business-as-usual scenario. In other words, it’s what happens if we continue to use fossils fuels (oil, coal, and natural gas) in the same unconstrained way we do now.

The horizontal red line at 450 ppm is the CO2 concentration beyond which we cause lasting, serious, world-wide damage to our environment. Because the point at which the red and gold lines cross is only a few years in the future, many people and even some governments are casting aside the business-as-usual approach and encouraging others to do the same.

global warming, your personal contribution

Translating the Kyoto Protocol goals into per capita terms we get a target of 2.9 metric tons of CO2 per person by the year 2012. The graph to the right shows what a challenge that is. While the United States has stopped the increase of emissions per person, its population is growing so total emissions continue to grow. (See the original post.)

(To make this more tangible, 2.9 metric tons of CO2 is the amount produced by using 21 tank-fulls of gasoline assuming a 15 gallon tank. 1 gallon of gasoline produces about 20 pounds of C02.)

In today’s economy CO2 emissions mean wealth (because CO2 emissions come from cheap fossil fuel energy which produces what we call wealth) and the developing world is trying to catch up to the US lifestyle. Look what’s happening in China with it’s 1.3 billion people (the red line). No one is betting the world-wide goal of 2.9 tCO2/person is going to be reached by 2012; few would bet that the current 19.6 tCO2/person in the US will decrease anytime soon; and neither the US nor China have any meaningful plans to reduce emissions.

It’s not that we are addicted to oil, we are addicted to the “cheap” energy which we consume at a prodigious rate to support our modern lifestyles, and the source of that energy is fossil fuels.

energy consumption in the United States

The US is the world leader in energy consumption, in total and per capita. Almost all of our energy is produced from fossil fuels.

The data reflected in this chart comes from the official projections of the US government published in 2007 for which 2005 is the baseline year. (See here and here.) The label “liquid fuels” refers to fuels made from oil — gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, etc. — which are used mostly for transportation. Coal and natural gas are used mainly to produce electricity for business, industry, and private homes. Home heating is another major use of natural gas.

Here is another look at the same data. It’s easier to see the contribution of nuclear and renewable fuel sources which are a small portion of the mix today and projected to remain so in 2030. Renewables are hydro, solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass. The U.S. Department of Energy report (AEO2007, pages 12-13) makes quite clear what this means for CO2 emissions:

Taken together, projected growth in the absolute level of primary energy consumption and a shift toward a fuel mix with slightly higher average carbon content [more use of coal] cause projected energy-related emissions of CO2 to grow by an average of 1.2 percent per year from 2005 to 2030 — slightly higher than the average annual increase in total energy use. [emphasis mine]

And then tries to reframe the problem in positive terms:

At the same time, the economy becomes less carbon intensive: the percentage increase in CO2 emissions is about one-third of the projected increase in GDP, and emissions per capita increase by only 9 percent over the 25-year projection period.

The economy will become less carbon intensive but the United States will continue to emit more CO2 than ever before, year after year. The report itself points to both the problem and its solution:

The projections are business-as-usual trend estimates, given known technology and technological and demographic trends. AEO2007 generally assumes that current laws and regulations are maintained throughout the projections.

We need an alternative to business-as-usual. We need new technology and the will to use it. We need to address population growth at least by tossing out abstinence-only sex education.

benefits and responsibility

The US reaps the benefits of cheap energy from fossil fuels and is unequaled in CO2 production per capita. Some would look at that fact and say the US has a special responsibility to reduce its own CO2 production and help developing nations like China and India evolve their economies with low-carbon technology. Leading the way in coal sequestration R&D is but one suggestion.

This (possibly radical) idea of the wealthy helping the less wealthy plays out within the US as well. There is a cost in moving to a low-carbon economy and in doing the other things necessary to transition to a sustainable way of life. Although everyone has a personal responsibility to contribute to this change and every positive act is a meaningful one, it’s the wealthy who can effectively block large-scale change or hurry it along.

In the United States, the 10% most affluent households

• earn 36% of all household income,
• account for 70% of total net worth, and
• hold 89% of the value of all publicly traded stock and mutual funds. [source]

What percentage of responsibility should that 10% accept when it comes to mitigating climate change and moving to a low-carbon economy? As fuel prices rise due to scarcity (or, perish the thought, carbon taxes) who will most feel the pinch of the rising costs of driving to work, heating and cooling their home, and putting food on the table — the 10% of the most affluent or the other 90%?

An editorial comment:

Ronald Reagan was a champion of supply-side economics, free trade, globalization, and union busting. One of his first acts was to undo or undercut nearly every program instituted by Nixon, Ford, and especially Jimmy Carter that targeted American energy independence, improved energy efficiency, and greater energy conservation.

Yet if Reagan’s theme was “Morning in America,” GWB’s appears to be “Enjoy the Sunset.” Bush was in office for years before even accepting that global warming was caused by human activity. Not only does he continue to resist every effort to reduce CO2 emissions, but in an amazing display of ignorance and myopia he used 9/11 to start a foolish, despicable war for oil wasting both lives and treasure and destabilizing the Middle East for a long time to come.

oil price trends

With hindsight we know that either one of Clinton’s attempts in the 1990’s to establish a carbon tax would have helped ready the US economy for the future by slowing our increasing CO2 emissions and lessening US dependence on fossil fuels in general and Middle East oil in particular. And although any meaningful carbon-tax or other US government intervention to mitigate global warming may still be a long way off, even global warming deniers can’t escape the increasing price of crude oil on the world market.

The rising price of oil is the silver lining in the dark cloud of peak oil. As hard as it is to cope with higher costs in a transitioning economy, at least in this case it pushes us to make changes that are necessary to mitigate climate change.

other sustainability issues

As noted above, population pressure and climate change are only two aspects of sustainability. EO Wilson writes eloquently about the little appreciated importance of biodiversity in sustaining human life. Get a taste of that here. Lester Brown addresses many aspects of sustainability. Read here about effective family planning in a developing country.

credits

The graphs and charts used in this post are my work based on publicly available data. Follow the links above for references to data sources.

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Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

• Thoughts on Fossil Fuel and CO2
• Lamborghini adding solar power to factory, vows to cut range CO2 35% by 2015
• The Big Chill
• Stress-Testing Biofuels: How the Game Was Rigged