Author Richard Heinberg on new book “Our Renewable Future: Laying the Path for One Hundred Percent Clean Energy”. Plus plankton expert Dr. Michael Behrenfeld: is the foundation of ocean life in trouble? Radio Ecoshock 160629
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RICHARD HEINBERG – THE DIFFICULT PATHWAY TO A RENEWABLE FUTURE
You want a nice green world full of solar panels and wind machines? So do I, but as we are about to find out, that isn’t going to be easy, if it’s possible at all. Of course, trying to survive in a climate wrecked by fossil fuel emissions may not be possible either.
Richard Heinberg Wikipedia is known around the world as an energy expert. He’s a leader and Senior Fellow at the Post Carbon Institute, author of 13 books, and a returning guest on Radio Ecoshock. So when I got his newest book, written with David Fridley from the Berkeley Lab, I expected a triumphant plan for our transition to renewable energy in that post-carbon world. I was surprised, and we are all in for a big surprise, about how hard this change is going to be. It’s all in the new book “Our Renewable Future: Laying the Path for One Hundred Percent Clean Energy” published in June 2016. Richard Heinberg returns Radio Ecoshock.
Richard Heinberg
I suppose I shouldn’t be shocked. Richard is are known for taking a hard doubtful look at things like oil reserves and coal industry hype. Now he and co-author Fridley dig into the realities of renewables. Just to be clear, David Fridley works at Berkeley Lab, which is part of the U.S. Department of Energy, although the lab is run by the University of California. Lately David has been a key advisor to the government of China about installing renewable energy there, which is being done on a colossal scale. Fridley speaks Mandarin.
David Fridley
MANY MOUNTAINS TO CLIMB FOR TRUE RENEWABLE ENERGY
The whole green-dreaming world felt empowered when Professor Mark Jacobson of Stanford wrote an article in Scientific American in 2009. Jacobson said we can make the switch to alternative energy by 2030. When I interviewed Mark in late 2014, he felt even more certain it’s all possible. I get Richard’s take on the Jacobson plan.
Essentially, Heinberg thinks Mark Jacobson spoke primarily about production, trying to reach levels we use today. Fridley and Heinberg find this may be unrealistic due to a large number of bottlenecks. Fossil fuels are used everywhere, not just to power cars. In this interview, we discuss cement production, which accounts for about 5% of global greenhouse emissions. Our civilization is literally built on concrete.
YOUR FOOD AND FOSSIL FUELS
But it doesn’t end there. Agriculture is the single largest user of fossil fuels, when you add it all up. We’re not just talking about the fuel used by tractors and farm implements. There’s the fertilizers (often made from natural gas), the pesticides and herbicides (usually refined oil products). THEN we refrigerate all kinds of foods, all the way to markets. Some of those markets are overseas, like fruit flown in. But wait, none of those are the biggest part of fossil fuels in the food chain. That comes with industrial food processing, all the machinery and chemicals used to make modern “food”. We talk it through, as Richard points out there are over 10 calories of fossil fuels in every calorie of mass market food!
Other products, like some pharmaceuticals and paints, currently have no known substitute without fossil fuels. These may be the last uses for oil or gas. Some people can’t keep living without them.
Yes we look at the problem of getting renewable energy to produce enough power to replace all those solar panels and wind machines when they expire in 20 or 30 years. Plus there is the sudden jolt of greenhouse gas emissions that will happen when we use fossil fuels to produce the first mass wave of real alternative energy.
Given all that, Heinberg and Fridley’s book goes beyond Jacobson, to look at the demand-side economics. We are going to have to live with less, if we want a climate we can live in.
THE BOOK: TRY IT BEFORE YOU BUY IT
While you may want Richard Heinberg the book to go over, and for reference, the authors think it’s so important they are also making it available free online! The entire book can be found for free at OurRenewableFuture.org There’s also a Facebook discussion Post Carbon Facebook .
Download or listen to this 24 minute Radio Ecoshock interview with Richard Heinberg in Heinberg CD Quality or Heinberg Lo-Fi
You can read Richard Heinberg’s famous long-running blog here at Heinberg his web site.
GIVING STUFF UP
I really wonder if masses of people are willing to reduce their carbon imprint, by giving stuff up, by staying close to home, and having fewer energy slaves. We seem so addicted to the powers fossil fuels give us, like the ability for some to fly anywhere in the world anytime, or for many to visit relatives more than a hundred miles away, or a single farmer to grow food on 1,000 acres with fossil machinery and chemicals. We have a thousand super powers. Who will give that up?
THE PROBLEM OF INTERMITTENCY
Critics complain about intermittent power when the sun doesn’t shine, or the wind doesn’t blow. For years, I have claimed civilization can cope with intermittent power. Hundreds of millions of people with uncertain electric supplies have done it for years (in Lagos, in India or wherever). We can run our washing machine when the sun or wind are available. I think we could even run factories and mass transit the same way. When power is available, the wheels of commerce turn. When it isn’t, we tend our gardens, our families and our lives. Post your own ideas on our renewable future in the comments section below.
MICHAEL BEHRENFELD: PLANKTON FUTURES
Basic life forms of the ocean are the source of most of the oxygen we breathe. Are they in deep trouble? Did you know plankton can affect the development of clouds, another surprise in the climate story.
We’re talking about plankton and climate change, with Dr. Michael Behrenfeld. He’s is a Senior Research Scientist and Professor at Oregon State University. Mike specializes in marine algae research. Behrenfeld is also the principal investigator for a special 5-year NASA project called NAAMES – the North Atlantic Aerosols and Marine Ecosystems Study.
Michael Behrenfeld
Download or listen to this 27 minute Radio Ecoshock interview with Michael Behrenfeld in Behrenfeld CD Quality or Behrenfeld Lo-Fi
That seems like a good place to leave it for this season of Radio Ecoshock. Somewhere out in the ocean, there is still air so pure that human-driven dust cannot be found. Where there is no dust or pollution, there can be no rain – not even steam forms on a hot cup of coffee, as Behrenfeld tells us. It’s wild to think there are rain deserts in some parts of the open ocean.
IS THE PLANKTON DYING OR NOT?
According to Michael Behrenfeld, who is an acknowledged expert on satellite records of plankton, there is no evidence these essential ocean creatures are being killed en masse by climate change. That runs against headlines published in the Independent newspaper on July 28, 2010 titled “The dead sea: Global warming blamed for 40 per cent decline in the ocean’s phytoplankton”. That frightening article was based onPlankton death a study published July 2010 in the journal Nature, by Daniel G. Boyce et al. It’s called “Global phytoplankton decline over the past century.”
However, there has been a re-evaluation in reading satellite data on plankton, based on a point made by Mike Behrenfeld in this interview. Scientists have found that when conditions warrant, phytoplankton have less color, and may have been harder to see.
In September 2015, NASA released a study showing diatoms, the largest phytoplankton algae, have declined by more than 1 percent globally every year from 1998 to 2012. Most of this decline was in the Northern Hemisphere, especially in the northern Pacific Ocean. But Dr. Behrenfeld did tell us that regional declines have been found, even though there is no published evidence, yet, supporting a global decline of all plankton. The balance of types of plankton may also be changing.
Remember, in my show posted January 20, 2016, Russian-trained plankton modeler Sergei Petrovskii said we don’t yet know whether plankton will thrive or die off as the oceans warm. That’s still a topic of scientific study and debate. But Petrovskii also said his models show that in either case, thrive or decline, plankton reaches a crisis point where a massive die-off can occur. Here is a link to the blog for that show.
But for now, I’m going with this picture of an ocean which is struggling, but far from dead. That’s an important part of Radio Ecoshock. We have plenty to worry about. There’s no doubt our future prospects are cloudy, if not dire. I’ve had dozens of scientists on the show already this year who explain why. But not all the bad news on edgy web sites is backed by scientific proof!
ARE WE HOPING FOR THE WORST?
There is also a tendency in the public to expect, almost hope for the worst, and soon. Some of us are tired of the strain. We want to see the end times before our lives end. It’s been that way for thousands of years, at least for Christians, who may die disappointed they didn’t see the terrible battles and Christ returning.
Other thoughtful people realize our civilization is a heat engine, as the Utah scientist Tim Garrett told Radio Ecoshock listeners a few years ago. We eat up ancient forests for throw-away products. We dig up radioactive rocks and make them even more concentrated and poisonous. We burn fossil fuels for entertainment. We hunt and kill rare animals and plants for fun. We can’t go on as we are, and still leave a working ecosystem for our descendants.
There are serious scientists who will tell you, often off the air, that only a severe economic crash can avert a mass extinction event. All the financial signs are flashing that collapse is coming, but then the machine keeps running somehow. Most of us want it to keep going.
ALEX HEADING FOR SUMMER VACATION
After 45 straight shows, peering into the dark future, I’m more than ready for my annual vacation. It’s summer in the northern hemisphere. It will be a working vacation for me, as I harvest our large garden, and put away lots of good food for the coming winter. That’s how I stay sane, and that’s part of the reason I can afford to donate my time for the science and activism that is Radio Ecoshock.
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Of course the podcast and blog only come out after the broadcast by our 94 participating non-profit radio stations. That’s the backbone of the show and by far our largest audience, in the United States, Canada, the UK, and Australia. I deeply appreciate the volunteers and staff who make these radio stations work, mostly advertising free, well out of the corporate lens. Frankly, at this point, only non-corporate media is willing to risk talking about the whole truth of climate change, our energy predicament, and the peril to all creatures.
TWO LAST THINGS
Which leads me back to two last things. As I said, despite the real scientific warnings, we have to be wary of apocalyptic messages that are not based on evidence. Second, as Richard Heinberg reminds us, there may be a way to safety with renewable energy, but it’s not easy. The changes each of us need to make are fundamental and difficult. We have to do a little better with nature every day, and a lot better every year.
I’ll still be watching the world news, and checking new science. I may toss a new tune on Radio Ecoshock Soundcloud, or blast out a short You tube video. You’ll get notice of that from my Twitter feed @ecoshock. If anything extreme blows up, or something just can’t wait, I’ll probably do a new show or two. I hope not.
I’m Alex Smith. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to learn, along with you, from some of the best minds of our generation. I’ll be back with more original interviews at the start of September. Until then, please stay tuned, as the best of Radio Ecoshock comes your way.
Hi Alex.
I do listen/read a variety of sources on our Climate situation. Your show is great. However, I do believe that the “Apocalyptic” orientation, is based on some solid evidence and part of that evidence is that the overall trend in the world today, is to DENY Climate Change… and “THE SYSTEM” to pretty much continue on along the same “business as usual” scenario….. In other words, we have been talking for many years now about CHANGE….. how are we doing with that? … Well, with emissions continuing to climb (yes, I have seen reports that emissions have “stabilized” … but that is due to global economic slowdown)….. we cannot say that anything we have done so far has taken effect. We talk A LOT about ideas …. but as for massive action…there is not much of that. Yes, renewables are growing… but, so is the co2 from making them. IF…. we also cut back on frivolous activities and products…. then, the co2 from massive production of renewable equipment, wouldn’t matter….. but, no one is telling people what they CANNOT DO…. so, there for, no real progress is going to happen. Everyone in rich Western countries still think they can do what ever they want. oh, well, as long as they recycle. …. uh…
So, I do thank you though for your work. There is a part of me that wants to think that we have a tiny glimmer of hope that we can carry on. The thing is, it doesn’t matter if someone is saying we will go extinct, or that “things will be difficult”… because even if we do not go extinct, life will become so outrageously different and “life threatening”… that it won’t be much different than “extinct”… I do not understand the argument about how well, we won’t go extinct so… like it isn’t so bad. When one thinks of the five year olds who won’t be starting school, but will have to be out scrounging for food… teenage girls who won’t have birth control because it won’t be produced anymore, not to the amounts it is now and so…..
or how some people will want to start their own ” little kingdoms” … and some will be “good” while others will be horrid. The governments will be like iron fists… there will be people dying everywhere…. for lots of reasons. Tiny babies to grown adults ….
So, as for how our world will be… it doesn’t matter if some are wrong when they say “We will go extinct”… because no matter how one looks at it…. life will not be any piece of cake. No, life is about to get a whole lot like hell.
Excellent comment!
Thanks for the info today! On the list of items that you and Heinberg mentioned as an ‘individual energy audit,’ unless he mentions in his new book, how about not having kids in the Western world and not eating meat? 2 biggest things I can think of, even if infinitesimally small actions at the individual level
A team of 14 climate scientists say that the tropics will face permanent catastrophic consequences in less than 5 years as this are starts to become uninhabitable.
The temperate zone breadbaskets will face increasing damage from weather extremes. Energy transitions take generations to complete. We don’t have time.
You can’t look at energy transitions in isolation from the rest of the world.
https://lokisrevengeblog.wordpress.com/2016/06/28/green-dystopia/
Like “theinitiate,” I think we have to be a bit careful about being too hysterical, on the one hand, but also of being afraid, to put it one way, of: pulling the Fire Alarm!
I too follow NBL, and other sources, whose outlook is definitively NOT “rosy.” At one level, it comes down to a “game of words” — what do what call what? Is it climate “change,” or do we use more accurate, but less neutral word? And, the related question of: how honest are we about how bad various future scenarios could be?
Yes, actual Near Term Human Extinction is dramatic; we are not socialized to consider such things.. We can be like the politicians (of the Un-Democratic, or worse, variety,) and fudge on the meaning of words — like “near”(!!) The reality of some time even in the next hundred years or two of there being ZERO humans left alive is pretty extreme, definitely dire, etc.
But, before it gets that bad, we have lots of levels of hell to descend through; many, if not all, at least many, of which the show has covered. Levels of ever increasingly negative impact on agriculture, collapse of civilization based on food shortages, corresponding levels of collapse in the economy and the modern technological world — just wait till when the entire electric grid goes down in the U.S., the Internet vanishes, and our “devices” turn into utterly useless rocks. Levels of collapse of governments, and their corporate masters, as an attempt is made to keep going on, making profit, at ALL costs, as usual, no matter what, no mater how many die, so they can profit, until the very, Very, VERY bitter end!
In one sense, we are loath, in the U.S., to even talk about what makes news in Europe. For example, the report that talked about there being a non-trivial likelihood that there will be no civilization left on the planet by 2040. That just 25 years from now!
On a personal level, if you are now 21, you might survive till your middle age — forty something, or so. If you are 5 today, well, … you might well NOT live to anything like even middle age.
The situation is even worse for what WOULD be their children!! Once upon a time the generation sequence was, effectively, infinite; and the wise observed it over intervals of at least seven. Now, it seems that there will, some time too soon, be the last of humans generation who will ever live.
I listen to the show, and the scientists, and find it to be good info. It IS good to get an honest assessment of both what the situation is, and how bad it is, and how much we don’t know. To try to understand each bit of the puzzle. It is NOT heartening that there seems to be a never ending sequence of discoveries of the form: happening faster than we expected! Paints a picture that is indeed stressing, depressing, etc.
In truth, there is a LOT we still do not know. There are a LOT of interactions we do not fully appreciate. The science is still, and in some ways always will be, imperfect.
I am PROFOUNDLY concerned that way too few scientist have the courage to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. They seem to be concerned about not being wrong. If they are based in the U.S., perhaps they are concerned about being attacked; human foolishness and just outright wickedness (of the attackers and deniers and their stooges) really do have no bounds. Both sensible concerns.
Equally sadly, the way science works is it tends to look at a “zillion specific problems, each in isolation.” Namely, who puts together the big picture? Who dares to attempt to do that modeling, that math, to look at that big a picture? And see what it paints? How bad the outlook is from there …
I am left wondering: when are we going to Pull The Fire Alarm? When are we going to quit TALKING, and congratulating ourselves for doing so close to nothing?!? Like the recent Paris accord; deadly close, I fear, to “all talk, no meat.”
I live near Boulder, and detect not much interest in pulling that alarm among the NOAA, et. al. community. It is like a perverse game of “chicken” — they all wait, until it is so very, VERY close to the end, that, then, doing so seems more justifiable. By then, yes, it is clear, beyond doubt; but, by then, you’ve F’d EVERYBODY! including, btw, your own kids, their kids, their kids, …
We seem to think that we can just carry on “business as usual” — Exxon and the Koch brothers are counting on that. Seems like we just implicitly assume that the lifestyle of the U.S. will simply carry on there, and elsewhere, unaltered, even as the human population continues to expand. Talk about delusional!! Your basic mass insanity; fueled by, first and foremost, greed, then
Alex, I think you have it backwards about a couple of things. You called it “the whole truth of climate change, our energy predicament, and the peril to all creatures.” I’d submit how that really ought to read is: the whole truth of climate predicament, our energy [or economic] addiction, and the peril to all creatures, including humans.
The time has come to retire “climate change” to being an expression of 20th century; before a great many things, in the 21st, became so imminently clear …
The whole deal of the “End Times” and Christianity was also brought up. A _whole_ topic in its own right. Ley me offer just one observation: the position that one would be disappointed that he/she did not get to see, in my lifetime, the “End Times,” that strikes me as, well, pretty close to the ultimate obscenity. It is a dandy example of an absolutely perversion of Christ’s actual doctrine! (So typical of the U.S., and the “up is really down; if we say so” mentality that the GOP uses to herd the sheeple.)
How the hell can you “love others as you love yourself” when you are so F’n selfish that you are bummed about not seeing it, meanwhile, your kids, and ALL future generations perish in the blood bath??!!?? Or, I guess, utterly unlimited arrogance that “we’ll be spared/saved/…” prevails, and makes it all OK.
Some day, as we descend into a hell of you own making, we will discovery that not having our current lifestyle is the LEAST of our problems! I won’t much care that my “device” no longer functions on the non-existent Internet, when I’m starving. Some of us may come to experience what the American Indians did: seeing their children die! Only we will have it even worse, we will get to die with them!!
I know, I’m an optimist. 😐
There is an ancient Japanese poem that is about how the grandfather dies, and then the father dies, and then the son dies, and, so, all is right with heaven. (No one gets out of here alive; but, _that_ is NOT the problem, it is just a fact.) What it makes it hellish, is when that natural order is perturbed, and perverted.
We are so polluted by the libertarian, and meritocracy, idea of “for me, it’s all [and only] about me” philosophy, and the B.S. of the “self-made man.” We put our faith in the mirage of a “free market” to solve ALL problems. We ignore the interdependent nature of this reality, and the life on earth — include our own profoundly arrogant, ignorant, selfish, self-absorbed, foolish, omnicidal asses! We are g*damned fools!! Worse, it seems we are more concerned about ourselves, and our lifestyles, than we are about the very existence of future generations!!! To bad all of us can’t perish, and our kids, and their kids, carry on …
What really gets to me is how we, still, too often, look to individual solutions to save us. That is, yet again, a flaw of the “atomized universe” view that is SO a part of the root cause of all of us suffering! And SO much a part of free market B.S., and libertarian crap, and …
That view so completely and UTTERLY prevents us from understanding that the MAJORITY of the problem is not individual, but instead SYSTEMATIC! One aspect of what is wrong is the entire economic system we have created, based on unlimited growth, everywhere, being the ONLY recipe for the “economy”! When we confuse profit for life, we are indeed doomed …
I could go on, and on, and on … barking, howling at whatever was near by, stomping on the ground until all the beings on this planet hear, until I literally split the Earth in two, …
Like I told EDF when I called them about their polar bear “please help me” campaign the other day. What the hell are they ACTUALLY doing to help the bears? It’s simple: the bears are dying, we don’t seem able to change or slow Arctic warming, we don’t seem WILLING to do a damned thing different to help the bears, profit matters more than bears, … Some day, the EDF office in NYC will be, literally, under water; at least the street level of the block will be …
Anyway, Alex, please do have a good summer. Have a great vacation! You _surely_ deserve it!!
To close on a “positive” note let me share a couple of things. First, is the wish, or prayer, if you will, that we get over our collective and individual desire for it to be “all good; all good news.” We now face a time in which being willing to be afraid, to be scared, to be … honest, human will become ever more important. If we hide in our “hope,” there we exactly nonesuch _at all!_
Second, let me note that there is, actually, literally no future, whatsoever. There is not, now, so much as five seconds from now, let alone further into the future. The fundamental problem is: which future?
And therein lies two sub-points. First, make the VERY most of this moment, now! Each now is all we have!! Enough of this childish, foolish fascination with the future!!! and most especially how, then, we will, we hope, be … richer, happier … we sure as hell won’t be younger! and, eventually, we WILL be dead!! so, focus on NOW!!!
Second, if EVER there was a time in human history to stand up and TRY to make a difference, this is IT! We can, each, go down fighting for future generations! The time for that warriorship — both figurative, and perhaps literally –if ever, is now …
Finally, I wish for all of us who follow this at all closely, an abiding sense of, what to call it? Equanimity, perhaps. Of peace that comes from looking it right in the face! Of developing the strength of heart to be neither hopeful, nor of despair; to instead be utterly and completely satisfied to simply live in what is …
Peace!
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Been ruminating on genocide and climate disaster of late.
One aspect of the situation, it would seem, is that is a subset of the Christian world — the Fundamentalists, especially — seeming to be die-hard set AGAINST anything related the climate change, climate disaster, or doing ANYTHING bout any of that! I’m not part of that world, but from those I know who are, they seem to see being Green as being not Christian. I find that position simply insane.
In that view, if there is some kind of genocide, it would seem to be about one group versus another — the Greens trying to do, now quite sure what, according to those opposed to Greens. That whole view is about one group fighting another — IN THE PRESENT, or near future.
It occurs to me that there is indeed genocide going on, but it is of a VERY different structure. Instead of being one group against another, it is, instead about all of us now versus all of the folks in some more distant future. Namely, what essentially all of us, now, are doing, is slaughtering that more distant future. We are ensuring there will be no 7th generation, likely no 5th, perhaps no 3rd.
At some point, people will be born who, if things continue on as “business as usual,” will have ZERO opportunity to have children or grand-children.
That there are whole generations of what would be people — really, an unending sequence of generations — who are, now, already doomed to never have the opportunity to be born …
That’s the true genocide that is ALREADY happening!
So many of Richard Heinberg’s totally sensible suggestions come to grief, I’m afraid, on the reef of that two-letter word, “we.” Over and over he would say “we” have to do this, “we” have to do that. Which, indeed “we” do. Except that this “we” is a fiction. No “we” exists as a coherent cohesive body politic to undertake any of the sweeping solutions he points out are necessary. Government? What government is going to tell corporations what they can and cannot make? Or allocate resources to this use but not that? He rightly takes Mark Jacobson & his acolytes to task for fudging the true difficulty of transitioning fully to renewables, but then makes the same error with his reliance on the fictive”we” as his agency of change.