Coal Is on a Roll

While in the United States coal is rapidly being replaced with other fuels, particularly natural gas, globally coal’s share of the world energy market is higher than it has been for the last four decades, reaching 30%. Conversely, the fuel with the largest share of the energy market, oil, has been losing market share and now accounts for 33% of the market, the lowest since 1965. Since burning coal produces about double the greenhouse gas emissions as burning oil, these statistics, which come from the BP Statistical Review of World Energy, are another indication that efforts to address climate change globally are going nowhere. Not only is the burning of coal for energy increasing in China and India, as would be suspected, but surprisingly coal burning has also been increasing in Europe.

Perhaps the most important thing for Americans to take away from this is that when hearing hear about the declining use of coal in the US is to realize that the US is the exception not the rule. Rather than being on its last legs, coal use is surging and continues to be the main driver of globing warming.

Gadget Happy Consumers Threaten Greenhouse Gas Targets

It looks like we may be Twittering and I-Phoning our way out of a chance to limit global warming. The addiction to being connected and entertained via electronic devices on a 24/7 basis has been increasing the consumption of energy around the world just as the need to reduce energy consumption has become critical to the goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. An article in The Guardian says that a study by the International Energy Agency forecasts that the total energy consumed by information, communication, and consumer technologies will triple in only two decades. By the end of this year it is expected that there will be 1,000,000,000 personal computers in the world. As computers continue to advance with more powerful processors, greater memory capacity, etc. they require more energy. There are nearly 2,000,000,000 televisions in the world and the new large plasma-screen TVs are particularly energy hungry. Wind turbines and solar panels will not be able to replace fossil fuels if energy demand keeps rising. The conclusion seems inescapable that the digital lifestyle is on a collision course with nature. The Director of the International Energy Agency, Nobuo Tanaka, is quoted as saying “Despite anticipated improvements in the efficiency of electronic devices, these savings are likely to be overshadowed by the rising demand for technology.” In other words, if we want to have a habitable planet maybe we should consider going back to reading books, listening to the radio, and talking on a corded phone. Okay, that may sound somewhat boring but it beats extinction any day of the week.

Bill McKibben Says Individualism Increased by Fossil Fuels

Writing in the January/February 2007 issue of Sierra magazine, Bill McKibben looks at our global warming predicament and offers some hopeful suggestions for stabilizing the climate. In his analysis he makes the following observation about how fossil fuels has transformed many of us as human beings:

And it's when you start thinking about those kinds of shifts that you understand what fossil fuel, with all its magic, has really produced. Not just wealth and global warming--but also a redefined human being, one far more individualistic than before. One, in the extreme American version, who lives in a big house (twice as big as in 1950) on the far edge of a distant suburb and drives everywhere (usually alone). One who depends very little on neighbors. In fact, one survey found that three-quarters of Americans don't even know their next-door neighbors, a novel condition for any human being at any time in history. (A novel condition, for that matter, for any primate.)

McKibben contrasts Americans with the more community-minded Europeans and points out that the greater emphasis on community results in the average European using only half of the energy that the average American uses. Unfortuately, believing that the trend toward increased individualism in the United States can be reversed quickly enough to combat global warming seems like a stretch. McKibben points to the increase in farmers’ markets with local produce as an example that the first step is being taken, however, the houses in the United States are still getting bigger and the suburbs are still being pushed further and further out from urban cores. If stopping global warming requires Americans to become more community oriented we may be in even bigger trouble than we think.