In his poem, “To His Coy Mistress” the 17th Century English poet and politician Andrew Marvell has a young man warning his mistress of the shortness of life: But at my back I always hear/ Time’s winged chariot hurrying near. Recently, the mandated annual report of governmental agencies on climate change was released—it was not good news. It reiterated what scientists have been saying for quite a long time now: we don’t have a lot of time in which to make changes that will slow the rate of increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and—as rapidly as possible—bring the level down to pre-industrial levels.
If Marvell were alive today and a progressive member of the US house or senate, he might well be pressing upon his colleagues the shortness of time with respect to climate change. The increasing extent of public awareness of climate change is encouraging, but it has not progressed to an understanding of what can be done about it, or a political consensus on steps that must be taken. Trump, finally caught in a corner with this latest report, whined that all the other industrial nations of the world were not taking steps, so why should we? We can’t solve the problem on our own, he says. The fact that he pulled the US out of the Paris Accords, coupled with his feeble ability to recognize and remember things he’d rather ignore, accounts in part for his ignorance of facts such as that nations all over the world, including European nations and China, have been moving rapidly to deploy renewable energy sources, reform transportation, and so on. But the world, and the US especially, is not moving fast enough.
In prior blog posts, I’ve called attention to Project Drawdown, a comprehensive plan to reverse global warming by taking many steps, each of which can contribute to a slowing or reversal of the levels of greenhouse gases. The book, Drawdown, available from Amazon, Target or any other online bookseller, is beautiful and inexpensive; I hope you’ll buy a copy. The surprising conclusion one reaches from perusing the book is that many of the most important moves the world can make are not really high tech—education of girls in places where there is poverty; reforming our food production and distribution networks to avoid waste; move toward plant-based diets; restore depleted lands by growing perennials that return carbon dioxide to deep root systems—there are many inventive and feasible ideas to be considered. But all the measures we might imagine employing relate in one way or another to energy. The generation and uses of energy form an interlocking and often interdependent system. Technologies and new science will be necessary components of a successful response to the threats of climate change.
For example, there is so much going on in solar energy as a renewable source of energy! The advances being made exceed anyone’s expectations of only a couple of years ago. For example, First Solar, an American company, has come up with a novel method for depositing cadmium telluride thin films that has led to an entirely new generation of large, highly efficient panels such as the one shown, that produce electricity at a cost of about 20 cents per watt. Only two years ago that was 60 cents per watt. When Congress cut down on the support of startup industries related to energy a few years ago, the solar industry nearly disappeared in the US. We never seem to learn patience to go with level-headed planning and the search for bright new people and ideas. In any case, there is every reason to expect that advances in solar energy generation will produce ever cheaper electricity. But there are no panaceas to be had in these technological finds. Cadmium telluride is costly stuff, and cadmium is toxic. We need to find materials that are great solar grabbers, cheap and readily disposed of when necessary.
Another large challenge is storage of electricity for the time between the moment it is captured and when it is used, probably in some remote location and at a different time of day. An Arthur M. Sackler Colloquium on the Status and Challenges in Decarbonizing our Energy Landscape was recently held at the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center in Irvine, CA. This was a highly technical program, focused heavily on conversion and storage of solar energy. There are promising developments in battery technology, but the way is long. To illustrate where research is headed, here are the titles of two of the talks: Organic-Based Aqueous Flow Batteries for Massive Electrical Energy Storage. Pathways for Carbon Dioxide Transformations Using Sunlight.
One sees opinion pieces here and there proclaiming that the giant technology corporations, with their commitments to fully carbon-neutral operations, could lead the way to massive drawdowns in carbon emissions for world society. But as pointed out in a World Economic Forum paper, it’s not that simple. In the large cities of the world, two-thirds of the carbon emissions arise from consumer choices and their supply chains. And although we might argue for the moral imperative for humans to change their dietary proclivities, it seems unlikely that residents of countries with rapidly growing economies will want to forego a diet rich in meat; just the wrong sentiment if we want to reduce carbon emissions traceable to food production. Here too, however, there is reason for optimism that the rapidly developing technology of cell-based meat production will have a massive effect before too long.
But this much is true: whatever pathways are followed to wean society away from heavy use of greenhouse gases, we must get onto them soon and follow them with vigor. Like Marvell’s young man, we can, if we just listen, hear Time’s chariot drawing near. Is your US Representative and Senator listening?
