The Future of Our Beautiful Planet is in the Hands Of…

Entropy. YOLO. “Wall-E”. Global warming. Wildlife extinction. “The Day After Tomorrow”. Cancer. Snow in May? Energy.

What ties all of these concepts together? Read on and you shall see.

This past week, Dr. Riccardo Basosi, University of Siena’s Rector Delegate for Energy and the Director of the PhD School in Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences, lectured our Emory class on “Energy from the Principles of Thermodynamics to the Sustainable Development”. 

During Dr. Basosi’s presentation, not only was I in awe by the pictographs of research he has collected for his next book but also thoroughly saddened as I thought about the future of our world.

Every slide continued to surmise evidence that our worldwide energy consumption can be minimized to deter its many adverse effects.

Annually, the world uses 12000 million equivalent tons of energy. This amount is equivalent to “1/14000 of total annual flux of solar energy”, “1/40 of total annual wind potentiality” or “1/9 of total annual biomass potentiality”, all renewable sources of energy.

But instead of depending on these sustainable methods, approximately 84% of our energy use comes from oil, coal and natural gas—all of which put out approximately 28 times more CO₂ emissions than biomass, hydraulic and electrical energy sources.

Fact: Up to 880 grams of CO₂ can be emitted by producing 1 kilowatt of energy. That’s the output of 16.7 hours of light from a standard 60W bulb, or 66.7 hours of light with an energy efficient 15W LED bulb.

With higher levels of CO₂ in the air come higher global temperatures.

Image from “The Inconvenient Truth”, www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/09/hey-ya-mal/

This is why a few years ago in Georgia it snowed in the month of May. This is also why the spread of weather throughout the year is so unpredictable; the standard deviation of day-to-day temperature changes seems to continually increase. Summers continue to become hotter and winters continue to become colder. The ice caps are melting and global ocean levels are rising.

A change obviously needs to be made to thwart excessive waste seeping into our atmosphere.

Not to mention the wild flora and fauna that are bulldozed out of their homes due to tree choppers who are solely in the business of making profit, not preserving the environment that has given us life and nourishment for millennia.

Global warming is real. Whoever says it’s not is not willing to accept that there are consequences to our nonchalant energy usage.

If you think global warming is not relevant to you, therefore there’s no motivation to worry about it, think again. The rates of cancer are skyrocketing. Skin cancer can be caused by mutations in DNA due to overexposure to UV light from the sun. Internal cancers are becoming more prevalent due to environmental toxins and genetically modified and processed foods whose high demand is further augmented by the rising global population.

The risk of cancer is also dramatically increased by genetic predisposition. (This means that as more people develop cancer, their offspring will be more likely to developing cancer thus substantially increasing the rate of cancer in the population.)

The good news is that Dr. Basosi believes less efficient energy sources will become more expensive because of decreased supply thus pushing us to steer towards cheaper (and, fingers crossed, renewable) sources of energy.

The most promising sources are wind and solar energy. There will obviously be trade-offs in making these changes such as more surface area for solar panels or wind turbines.

However, the future of the planet—the same planet we will hand off to our descendants and leave behind for the remaining creatures inhabiting earth—is in our hands. And I know our homo sapiens sapiens species is prepared to brainstorm, test, and apply the best solutions to this problem.

As our world naturally moves towards disorder according to the theory of entropy, it is our responsibility and duty to nurture and support the future, not live our lives precariously without worry for our future.

                                                                                                                                       

Poignant Facts from Dr. Basosi:

Per Capita Energy Consumption (Toe=Tons of oil equivalent)

USA: 9.15

Italy: 2.80

Rest of the World: 0.68

World average: 1.33

MAJOR WORLDWIDE INEQUALITIES
-Americans, which comprise 6% of the world population, use 62 barrels of energy per head.

-Eastern Europeans, including Russians, which comprise 9% of the population, use 28 barrels.

-Western Europeans, Japanese, Australians, New Zealanders and South Africans, which comprise 14% of the world’s population, use 22 barrels of energy.

-Latin Americans, Africans and Asians (basically the rest of the world), comprising 71% of the world’s population, use 3 barrels of energy per person.

                                                                                                         

The United States is where my home is, but I’ve noticed through my 18-year residence that we’re a highly wasteful society, as confirmed by the data above. My trip to Italy has comforted my conservationist soul because now I know that other parts of the world are already taking actions towards ameliorating this problem. I see huge, multi-material-accepting recycling containers everywhere! Environmental research is given high priority even though the economy of Italy isn’t doing so hot right now. And most importantly, everyone is encouraged to recycle and conserve their resources!

YOLO (You Only Live Once), so enjoy your life. But do it with some awareness. Keep in mind that the world shouldn’t have to forever carry the burden of our careless mistakes.

Start conserving energy from the ground up.

• Make efficient and long lasting machines for human use.
• Save up and invest in objects that not only save money in the long run, but reduce your carbon footprint.
• Construct things that we actually need; don’t waste materials in aims of earning money.
• Insulate your home to reduce temperature fluctuations leading to lower energy bills and usage.
• Ride the bus.
• Research alternatives to possible energy-exhausting activities.
• Follow the saying “If it’s brown, flush it down; if it’s yellow, let it mellow.”
• Take the stairs and use your own energy (oh oh, and you’ll get some exercise too)!
• Turn to natural energy already present (ex. during the day, read a book outdoors).
• And the easiest: turn off lights when unnecessary even if the light is in the same room you’re in (ex. light from the window when you’re using the restroom).

“‘Clean energy’ doesn’t exist. The only clean energy is the one we do not need to use: saved energy.” ~Dr. Riccardo Basosi

It’s all about awareness and just trying to make a difference. Trust me, it’ll add up. 


-Special thanks to Dr. Basosi for his PowerPoint from the presentation from which I retrieved most of my facts.

-http://www.assocarboni.it/index.php/en/the-coal/the-production-of-electricity-and-coal