Environnement : demain et 2100Pour ou contre l'environnement ? le blog de Environnement21002024-02-01T00:38:12+01:00All Rights Reserved blogSpiritHautetforthttp://environnement2100.hautetfort.com/Environnement2100http://environnement2100.hautetfort.com/about.htmlThe Last Fight – Last Resorttag:environnement2100.hautetfort.com,2019-11-02:61874832019-11-02T23:15:23+01:002019-11-02T23:03:00+01:00 When I read Silent Spring by Rachel Carson in 1968, I was a kid; I...
<p>When I read<strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;"> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Spring"><em>Silent Spring</em></a></span> by Rachel Carson</strong> in 1968, I was a kid; I did feel an unpleasant feeling of wrongdoing, but it was not fear; and of course all that was taking place in another country than mine, and<strong> I merely tried to bury the thought.</strong> When the<span style="text-decoration: underline;"> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Club_of_Rome">Club of Rome</a></span> issued their <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth">report</a> in 1972, I did not read it; still, a few newspeople did, and merely laughed at it. I laughed along: I already had rolled over to the mainstream non-thinking. When <a href="https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gro_Harlem_Brundtland">Gro Brundtland</a> issued her <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Common_Future">report</a> in 1987, for the world to read, I did not even notice, nor did I notice the creation of <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Climate_Change">IPCC</a></span>. I was way too busy working hard, obtaining results and keeping everybody happy, <strong>thinking everyone was somehow doing the same</strong>, only a little slower. Already I had put all politicians in the “useless” box, and thought it was not grave, as the people who were really running the show<strong> probably were doing their best, like me.</strong> Probably, eh?<br /><br />And then came the <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Summit">Earth Summit</a></span> in 1992. Then again came this<strong> faint feeling of wrongdoing</strong>; it all sounded very complicated, and the depth of the issues never seemed to fit with the shallowness of the decisions; still, I could see that all nations, <strong>all governments were aware of the problem</strong>. Which problem?</p><p> </p><p>It was only in 2006, when I went back to school for an M. Sc. in environmental sciences, that<strong> I discovered the size, complexity and number of intermingled problems</strong>; and only even later did I discover why we were not even trying to address them. I summed up these problems in <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://environnement2100.hautetfort.com/archive/2019/08/09/the-last-fight-6169245.html">5 categories</a></span>; but <strong>believe me, they are many</strong>. Any single one of these problems will prove difficult to come by; all together, they are lethal. The current civilization is a goner; <strong>the human species may survive, but the odds are poor</strong>.</p><p> </p><p>Then what to do? Our global political system has proved unable to address any problem; it actually worsens them every day. But at least it makes apparent<strong> who really are the decision makers on this planet</strong>. <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.forbes.com/">Forbes</a></span> keeps tags of the <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/#15b98cc2251c">2500 billionaires</a></span> our humanity has created; these guys (and a few girls) really can answer YES to the three questions:</p><p><strong>- Can you make any decision freely?</strong><br /><strong>- Can you make it happen tomorrow morning ?</strong><br /><strong>- Will your decisions impact a large size of humanity?</strong></p><p>None of these people are elected; no-one can fire them. Together, they own 50 % of the world. <strong>They make 99 % of important decisions, those which will have an actuel impact on a large part of humanity. They can do it.</strong><br /><img id="media-6052020" style="float: right; margin: 0.2em 0 1.4em 0.7em;" title="" src="http://environnement2100.hautetfort.com/media/00/00/1983354139.png" alt="CO2 1960-2019.png" /><br />Do what? Bury the CO², that’s what. <strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_capture_and_storage">CCS</a> </span>already is a mature technology</strong>; applying it to all single-source large plants is technically easy, and <strong>we can slash by half all industry-related CO² emissions within 10 years</strong>. Then we can turn all gasoline cars into electric cars in ten years, while we build many more CCS-fitted power plants to feed them, and slash the rest of CO² emissions by half again in another ten years. And yes, <strong>suddenly humanity has a future again</strong>. How do we do this? <strong>Go see these 2500 people and beg, plead, pray</strong> for their contribution. And then things will go in a flash.<br /><br />What if they say no? I cannot write the answer to this question, but I am sure you can guess.<strong> It has to be done in the year 2020.</strong></p>
Environnement2100http://environnement2100.hautetfort.com/about.htmlThe Last Fight, 1: No decisiontag:environnement2100.hautetfort.com,2019-08-09:61692532019-08-09T12:59:57+02:002019-08-09T12:59:57+02:00 Much of what we do depends on some decision, made by us individually,...
<p><br /><br /></p><p>Much of what we do depends on some decision, made by us individually, or by other people applying their decision to us. Decision is the source of action – we have no other way. Now who makes decisions for Mankind? No-one: its fate depends on a very large number of micro-decisions, largely uncoordinated. Now is the time when Mankind faces the final question: Do You Wish to Survive? If Yes, please act accordingly. This question has no target now: no-one can speak for all of us, no researcher is even able to offer a (new) political system that would allow such question to be asked and answered. Then again, we would not have the action relays to implement whatever decision made.</p><p>Survival of this civilization never was a technical subject, nor was it political or financial: we always had the means to change our ways, to reduce our CO2 emissions in large proportions, to reduce our impact on the environment, all of it without reverting to middle-age like life. We always could do it, only we never decided to do it. This, is the reason. And as there is no sign of any change in the political structure of humanity, there is no reason to believe that 7,5 billion people will suddenly veer off to a better heading. Our ill-fated future only depends on that: we just cannot decide.</p><p><em>You</em><em> know nothing, Jon Snow.</em><br /><br /><br /><br /></p>
Environnement2100http://environnement2100.hautetfort.com/about.htmlThe Last Fight, 2: Excessive demographytag:environnement2100.hautetfort.com,2019-08-09:61692522019-08-09T12:58:41+02:002019-08-09T12:58:41+02:00 Excessive demography works twofold. First is the multiplying effect ,...
<p><br /><br /></p><p>Excessive demography works twofold. First is the <strong>multiplying effect</strong>, to feed and house 10 billion people in 2050, we will need twice what we used in 1987 when we were only 5 billions. That means we will need double floor space, double cars and smartphones, double oil, copper, iron, and cereals. And, probably, double CO2 emissions. Run away demography lets every problem grow bigger, not smaller, every day, making the wall come at us while we are running to it.<br /><br />Then again, <strong>do we have a cure to our demography problem?</strong> China did try, for many good reasons, with its single kid plan. China gave it up in 2018, also for many good reasons: cultural choices created a gender imbalance, which is now causing women in neighboring countries to be needed for the excessive men population; elders, culturally accustomed to have their numerous children take care of them at old age, may find themselves alone and without resources; some psychologists add that social relationships between only single children is much more difficult.<br />Japan is experimenting a drop in population, population aging at high speed; Germany is the other OECD country with an eroding population; both countries are associated with high culture, high education youths, and little immigration. This cannot be the scheme for the rest of the world.</p><p>Do we have twice the arable land we had back in 1987? No, the figure is 14 million km², and this figure does not change much from one year to another. Shall we have double crop efficiency? Neither. Do we have twice more fish? <strong>No, we </strong><strong>now </strong><strong>have half the </strong><strong>wild </strong><strong>fish we </strong><strong>used to</strong><strong> ha</strong><strong>ve, </strong><strong>and their figures are still headed down</strong>. <strong>So what is the plan? There is no plan</strong>, merely exchange the current 800 million undernourished people for 1,5 billion.</p><p>This multiplying effect merely is the easy part of the problem. The tough one is the mammal behavior: put a few mammals in a cage with food, they will behave happily with occasional hierarchical skirmishes. Put a load of them in the same small cage with the same amount of food, <strong>and you reach a number when all attack all</strong>, until a “satisfying” number of survivors is obtained. We will have this same reflex; the two world wars of the 20<sup>th</sup> century, which made 100 millions victims, will be nothing compared to what will occur by the end of the 21<sup>st</sup> century, with a possible billion victims. No-one knows how such a horrendous number can be reached; but the “war” will look quite different from what we know, it will be everywhere.</p><p>Globalisation created much wealth, and much inequality, on all continents. Those who have nothing always outnumber those who have a little, who also outnumber those who have much, etc. There is no need for these people to organize a fight, create a party or whatnot: when you have nothing, anything is better. All societies of the 21<sup>st</sup> century will harbor ultra-poor people, who will stop at nothing merely for food. While power and order will always be in the hands of the rich, they may or may not want to use their power only to save the lower classes; the larger fights will take place between the poorest classes, with guns these classes never had in past history; these fights will become commonplace in most countries, creating the bulk of the one billion victims.<br /><br /><br /></p>
Environnement2100http://environnement2100.hautetfort.com/about.htmlThe Last Fight, 3: Environment destructiontag:environnement2100.hautetfort.com,2019-08-09:61692512019-08-09T12:57:34+02:002019-08-09T12:57:34+02:00 Environment science has only just begun; we hardly understand how...
<p> </p><p>Environment science has only just begun; we hardly understand how our environment works, let alone the idea of controlling it. <strong>We instinctively think it is some kind of complex system, balancing hundreds of thousands species at every second</strong>. Many species are similar, they are in charge of the same small <a class="western" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_niche">ecological niche</a>. We say they are in competition, but on the light side, they also are redundant: if one fails, another one is ready to assume the added responsibility, that much we understand.</p><p>Trouble is, not only<strong> we destroy species at a high speed, we </strong><strong>also</strong><strong> destroy them on a systemic basis</strong>. Bees are about to die – good old <em>apis melliferis</em>, which have been with us for so many millenia, giving us honey. Is that important? No, we can derive sugar from so many other sources. But bees are <a class="western" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollinator">pollinators</a>, all over the planet they pollinate plants, allowing plants to reproduce, turning flowers into fruit. Fruit trees are plants; our monster fruit farms are industrially pollinated by… bees, brought every season by whole trains of industrial beekeepers. In the year 2012, following a mayday call from the professional association of US beekeepers, it was discovered that 30 % of their bees had died over the winter, knowing that a 5-10 % mortality is considered natural. Pesticides were pointed at, and neonicotinoids got (partly) banned in Europe and the USA in 2018-2019. Knowing that the downfall in bees survival had been known in Europe since 1998, <strong>it took us 20 years to realize that pesticides kill insects, and bees are insects</strong>. Some other studies show that certain species, which could partly fill the role of bees, such as wasps, flies and butterflies, also are in sharp decline: we are not only killing one species worldwide: we are killing a whole ecological niche. <strong>30% of what mankind eats depend</strong><strong>s</strong><strong> on bees</strong>.</p><p><br /><br /></p><p>Five (known) mass extinctions occurred in the past of Earth; we started the sixth one, as we are currently destroying species at a faster pace than it ever happened. These destructions are occurring in many ways. The most obvious one is deliberately reducing biodiversity. In the nature, there is no occurrence of a single plant in a field one mile long: many different plants actually cohabit, and they harbor many different micro-organisms, etc. When we decided for intensive agriculture, centuries ago, we lost 90 % of living species in these areas. That allowed to feed more humans, and we decided it was good. We never saw <strong>we were actually replacing a rich environment by an extremely poor one</strong>; we had no idea it was the beginning of the end.</p>
Environnement2100http://environnement2100.hautetfort.com/about.htmlThe Last Fight, 5: Depletion of reservestag:environnement2100.hautetfort.com,2019-08-09:61692482019-08-09T12:56:03+02:002019-08-09T12:56:03+02:00 Many of us are familiar with the idea that reserves of raw...
<h1 class="western"> </h1><p>Many of us are familiar with the idea that reserves of raw materials are limited; in France and the UK, the coal that allowed the early start in the industrial race is long gone, and oil will probably be scarce by 2050. This is true of many raw materials: metals, rare earths, even construction sand will no longer be as freely available as they are now. None of these materials will disappear overnight; we will merely see less and less places suitable for mining, with ores proving less and less fruitful, as the best mines will be depleted first. Slowly,<strong> it will all translate into higher prices, including in some cases diplomatic and/or military costs.</strong><br /><br />When most oil is gone, there will be no market disruption, as we know how to make all kinds of fuels from natural gas or coal; still, this will raise the price some more. All these additional costs will be small, but the sum of all of them will be enough to erode the global buying power of humanity. Human economy is uneasy with weakening buying power, albeit a slow one.</p><p><br /><br /></p>
Environnement2100http://environnement2100.hautetfort.com/about.htmlThe Last Fight, 4: Global warmingtag:environnement2100.hautetfort.com,2019-08-09:61692502019-08-09T12:55:28+02:002019-08-09T12:53:00+02:00 While many observers consider global warming a terrible threat, it...
<h1 class="western"> </h1><p>While many observers consider global warming a terrible threat, it only stands at the fourth rank. We all know the most visible part of global warming, which includes <strong>more and stronger storms, more powerful hurricanes, unbalanced weather, heat and cold waves</strong>, as all these have already turned up. We are less familiar with the lesser-known diluvian rainfalls leading to extensive floods and landslides. Many of us will discover that, over formerly temperate weather countries, long and sustained rain leads to destabilizing of many land masses, and even gentle slopes will be enough to turn parts of our cities into catastrophes. Large rivers such as <strong>the Mississippi or the Yang Tse</strong>, currently extremely useful for transportation and commerce, will turn into nightmares, to the point where <strong>their surroundings will have to be deserted</strong>. This translates into abandoning most of Louisiana riverside harbors, Nanjing and Shanghai, and now this means trillion dollars. Landslides will not only affect cities, but also farming territories such as paddy fields.<br /><br />Global warming also raises the level of the seas (slowly), and changes the age-long path of hurricanes (faster): the western coasts of China and the USA will be hit by hurricanes coming stronger and further north. While Miami Beach may be the first officially abandoned city, <strong>Shanghai, threatened by region-w</strong></p><p><img id="media-6020706" style="float: left; margin: 0.2em 1.4em 0.7em 0;" title="" src="http://environnement2100.hautetfort.com/media/02/01/1431085590.jpg" alt="kingtide-floodwaters.jpg" width="352" height="197" /></p><p><strong>ide floods, repeated hurricanes and ocean rise will be the most spectacular, and certainly the costliest abandoned city,</strong> even New York will not come close. All three cities will be abandoned before the end of the century; we might defend them against the fury of the oceans, but moving inside will prove less costly, as oceans will keep raising well into the 22<sup>nd</sup> century.<br /><br />The second aspect of global warming, which we only begin to see (2015), is the <strong>rise of sicknesses </strong><strong>coming </strong><strong>from the tropical areas towards the (currently) temperate </strong><strong>northern</strong><strong> areas</strong>. While Americans already have discovered the West Nile virus and the avian flu,<strong> many other sicknesses will follow</strong>, which have similar vectors (mosquitoes, birds, etc.). When the temperature rises by 3°C, the northern limit of malaria in Europe will be London; we have no cure for most of these not-so-new sicknesses. Adults do not die from malaria, it may happen to babies or old people. Still, <strong>a fit of malaria will have the patient disabled for a week; this will directly impact the cost of working</strong>.</p><p>Animals will face similar problems, with unheard-of epidemics; so much so that in some cases, intensive production of meat will be so problematic that it will have to be banned in southern states, setting suddenly very<strong> high prices to formerly cheap food such as chicken or pork</strong>.<br /><br />The third side of global warming is <strong>positive feedback</strong>. This friendly term hides the most catastrophic consequence of global warming, which is reaching the point where the self regulated weather we currently enjoy loses all balance, and a new geologic or biologic reaction will actually accelerate global warling. We all heard about <strong>the immense permafrost plains in Siberia and Canada</strong>, where large amounts of green effect gases (methane) are currently trapped in ice-like formations. When this permafrost starts thawing, large amounts of methane will be released into the atmosphere, giving an added acceleration to global warming. A <a class="western" href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/18/arctic-permafrost-canada-science-climate-crisis">first report</a> shows that thawing already has started (2019) in the Canadian Arctic, decades in advance over the latest predictions.</p><p><img id="media-6020707" style="float: right; margin: 0.2em 0 1.4em 0.7em;" title="" src="http://environnement2100.hautetfort.com/media/02/02/2671890270.jpg" alt="Derive nord-atlantique.jpg" width="316" height="223" />Europeans enjoy temperate weather in spite of being at the same latitudes as Canada, all thanks to the Gulf Stream, nowadays called the North-Atlantic drift (map: BBC). This drift is made of the warm Gulf of Mexico waters, coming north, bringing their heat to Europe. When reaching the arctic, these waters cool down, becoming more dense, “fall” to the bottom of the sea because of their higher density and return south. This “polar conveyor belt” only exists because of the high temperature difference between tropical and arctic waters, and researchers had computed that the N-A drift might slow down if and when the polar ice cap would disappear, thus letting the Arctic waters to warm up. A recent study (2018) showed that the drift has slowed down indeed already; if this study is confirmed, <strong>Western Europe </strong><strong>will</strong><strong> get a weather similar to the Maine’s by the end of the century</strong>. Its agriculture will be a shambles, and nearly half its housings will need rebuilding.</p><p><br /><br /></p><p><br /><br /></p>
Environnement2100http://environnement2100.hautetfort.com/about.htmlThe Last Fighttag:environnement2100.hautetfort.com,2019-08-09:61692452019-08-09T13:02:38+02:002019-08-09T12:35:00+02:00 The Last Fight Mankind’s Five Plagues Many of us feel...
<p align="center"><span style="font-family: Liberation Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-large;"><strong>The Last Fight</strong></span></span></p><p><br /><br /></p><h1 class="western"><strong>Mankind’s Five Plagues<br /></strong><br /><br /></h1><p>Many of us feel a lot of uncertainties accumulating; they may be serious or superficial, personal or global, but yes, they are many. Still, we (the Occident) live in the most prosperous, free and peaceful period of all our history. <strong>What could be so wrong?</strong></p><p>Risk theory has it that one danger at a time can be tackled, thanks to the many abilities of man; two are more difficult, but then group action kicks in and problems can be beat. Three? We enter into real difficult problem-solving domain, and common knowledge says you have come too far into unpleasant territory, and you should find another route, or even get back. But five? No way.<br /><br />All five plagues will not descend onto Mankind on the same day; still, on a historical scale, they will seem near simultaneous. They will be of very different strength and depth; but <strong>all will hurt us, and all have already begun.</strong></p><p><strong>Today a last means of rescue still remains; I see absolutely no-one, no political leader, no think tank, no great guru nor any layman suggesting it.</strong><strong><br /></strong><br /><br /></p><h1 class="western"><a href="http://environnement2100.hautetfort.com/archive/2019/08/09/5-depletion-of-reserves-6169248.html"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">5: Depletion of reserves</span></a></h1><h1 class="western"><a href="http://environnement2100.hautetfort.com/archive/2019/08/09/4-global-warming-6169250.html"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">4: Global warming</span></a></h1><h1 class="western"><a href="http://environnement2100.hautetfort.com/archive/2019/08/09/the-last-fight-3-environment-destruction-6169251.html"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">3: Environment destruction</span></a></h1><h1 class="western"><a href="http://environnement2100.hautetfort.com/archive/2019/08/09/the-last-fight-2-excessive-demography-6169252.html"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">2: Excessive demography</span></a></h1><h1 class="western"><a href="http://environnement2100.hautetfort.com/archive/2019/08/09/the-last-fight-1-no-decision-6169253.html"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">1: No decision</span></a></h1><p><br /><br /></p>