Can we please start being realistic

Ecological falsehoods and myths

So many organizations and groups are raising their voices, handing out flyers, raising awareness about the planet's condition, and … getting some key points wrong. So much contradictory information is spewing from media, social networks, politicians, and scientists. So many different strategies based on false premises and inaccurate assumptions.

Climate change

Climate change is the wrong fight.

Bramble Cay melomys, a small rodent that lived only on a single island off Australia, is estimated to be one of the first animal species to become extinct because of climate change. This tragic event didn't happen 50 years ago but in the last decade (officially 2019 ) [1]. So, how to explain the decline of species, believed to be around 68%, between 1970 and 2016 [2]?

The reality is, even without climate change, the ecological situation would already be catastrophic. The exploitation of renewable resources at a rate where they cannot regenerate; unmoderated depletion of non-renewable resources; destructive agriculture and breeding; chemical, plastic, and noise pollution; destruction of soils; deforestation; the disappearance of phytoplankton; slowly growing desertification; depletion of freshwater reserves; ignominious destruction of natural habitats; urbanization; ocean acidification; massacre of wild animals (hunting, poaching); deadly overfishing; annihilation of biodiversity; uncontrolled destruction of ecosystems; nitrogen and phosphorus cycle disruption … are causing so much more damage [3] [4] [5].

The 1972 Meadows Report “Limits to Growth” demonstrated that our thermo-industrial civilization was at risk of collapse between 2020 and 2030. In 1990 and 2004, Denis Meadows confirmed the relevance of their projections. Then in 2008 and 2012, Graham Turner demonstrated that the Meadows Report’s model was still accurate. Each time, it was the worst hypothesis that was confirmed. However, their mathematical model did not even take climate change into account. Our ecological footprint alone (the resources we take, the pollution and waste we release, the damage we inflict) cannot sustainably exceed the Earth’s biocapacity (its capacity to regenerate resources, absorb pollution and waste, and repair damage). For the last 50 years, though, we have been doing just that.

Our civilization does not need climate change and global warming to collapse. It is useless to fight against global warming without questioning our civilization's extractivist, productivist, consumerist dimensions! The climate is a dangerously aggravating factor of the ecological crisis we are experiencing, but it is only one factor among many others. The emergency is not just climatic; it is ecological and systemic!

Clean energy

Clean energy does not exist.

Since the first Earth Day of 1970, the myth of clean energy has been used, preached, and encouraged. According to the World Energy Outlook published by the IEA (International Energy Agency) in 2017, fossil fuels still provide the bulk of humanity’s energy consumption, or 82%: 32% for oil, 28% for coal, and 22% for natural gas. Nuclear power represents 5%, hydroelectricity 2%, biofuels and waste 10%. Renewable energies (mainly solar and wind) only cover 1% of global consumption. The problem is that demand has continued to increase worldwide. Despite their development, the proportion of renewable energies is not changing, and fossil fuels continue to be used in increasing quantities.

Even if we drastically improved the proportion of renewable energies, replacing fossil energies would be challenging. Renewable energies have an energy density infinitely lower than fossil energies. Not only are they intermittent (there is no sun at night, and the wind does not blow constantly), but they also provide a storage problem where the intermittent produced energy is buffered for later use. The storage, among other specificities, requires infrastructures, which are also very energy consuming and polluting in their design. The reality is that there is not enough fossil fuel left to massively develop renewable energies and replace the current production systems to try and compensate for the announced decline of fossil fuels! Aiming for 100% renewable energy in 2050 is simply impossible without changing more than just the energy source! [6]

The sun or the wind is indeed “renewable” and infinite, but this is not the case for the materials, metals, or minerals that go into the composition of photovoltaic panels, wind turbines, or electric car batteries. Even though these “green” energy sources do not emit any pollution or greenhouse gases during their operation, it is easy to forget the implied pollution at the origin and the end of their life cycle. The exploitation of these materials (silicon, copper, glass, and aluminum for photovoltaics; steel, concrete, carbon, or fiberglass for wind turbines; rare metals for electric car batteries, offshore wind, and solar storage, but also thin-film photovoltaic technology) are catastrophic for the environment. Let’s not forget that manufacturing photovoltaic panels, wind turbines, and electric batteries, including their transportation, is very energy-intensive and, therefore, dependent on petroleum and all the associated carbon emissions. [7] [8] Even if we don’t yet suffer from these emissions, they do exist somewhere and actively contribute to the global warming of our tiny planet.

Therefore, it is a dangerous simplification, not to say completely hypocritical, to call these energies “clean”. It is like fighting global warming by replacing thermal cars with electric cars. The new vehicles involve entire new processes, even if, on their own, they are better for the environment. The previous cars have still been manufactured, and replacing them systematically with electric ones simply does not make sense.

Ecological transition

The objective is not the right one.

A transition is a passage from a state A to a state B. In the ecological transition being promoted by so many, state A would be our extractivist-productivist-consumerist, capitalist and globalized system, fueled mainly by fossil fuels. State B, what we are supposed to be aiming for, is only different from state A by its decarbonized character, AKA renewable energies replacing fossil energies. But, as explained above, there are many caveats in this approach. The transition praised by some ecologists or activists is solely based on energy. Their fight is reduced to the fight against global warming.

A transition also requires time. Time we do not have.[9] We should not be aiming to transition by 2050, to a net-zero-emitting society but radically rethink it now. We should question how we want to produce our essential means of subsistence. What are those primary needs?…

Conclusion

Politicians talk about global warming, transition, and clean energy. A few even make it their number one priority. But should it be? Why is it their priority (or at least why tell everyone it is)? It is clearly not out of worry for the planet or the living beings on it. Why talk about 2050 when what is being put forward is factually impossible? Why talk about 2050 at all when the latest IPCC Assessment Report describes a much more pressing matter?

Our society, our material comfort, and our way of life have come at a cost; we have altered the conditions of habitability of the planet. So instead of focusing on global warming and climate change and other ways of avoiding questioning ourselves, we need to address the root problems: our pretentious, self-righteous approach to the planet and our modern society's selfish, irresponsible cost. Of course, climate change is an issue, and it will be even more of a problem in the decades to come, but if we concentrate solely, as most politicians are, on global warming and climate change, we will only remove one symptom and fail miserably at actually solving the crisis.

Sources

[1]: Dell’amore. (2014). Species Extinction Happening 1,000 Times Faster Because of Humans? https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/animals/2019/02/first-mammal-species-recognized-extinct-due-climate-change [2]: World Wildlife Fund’s Living Planet Report 2020 https://livingplanet.panda.org/en-us/ [3]: Kolbert. (2014). The Sixth Extinction. [4]: UN SDG Blog. (2019). UN Report: Nature’s Dangerous Decline https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2019/05/nature-decline-unprecedented-report/ [5]: Andrew J. Watson, Timothy M. Lenton, and Benjamin J. W. Mills https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsta.2016.0318 [6]: IEA Net Zero report https://www.iea.org/reports/net-zero-by-2050 [7]: Life Cycle Costing of PV Generation System, AK Abu-Rumman [8]: An Assessment of the Life Cycle Costs and GHG Emissions for Alternative Generation Technologies, C. Richard Donnelly, Anibal Carias, Michael Morgenroth, Mohammad Ali, Andrew Bridgeman, Nicholas Wood [9]: AR6 https://www.ipcc.ch/reports/