I came across this article in a magazine. The guy did some calculations and concluded that CO2 atmospheric concentration is closely correlated to the number of people on earth. He also concluded that it doesn’t really matter if you are a middle class white collar living in a 1st world country or a farmer in Africa. The total CO2 footprint (heating, transportation, growing food etc.) is going to be roughly the same. To be more precise, he calculated that people living in 18th century contributed 14,7 ppm of CO2 per one billion of people to the atmosphere, while the number for the late 20th century - early 21st is 16ppm per billion of people.
So according to this guy, even if we could go back to 18th century living conditions we would still have roughly the same concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. The only effective way to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere is to reduce population.
Is this elitistic or as he concludes his article “the true Inconvenient Truth”?
I don’t buy it for a second. First I don’t see any reason to believe the claim that a guy living a lifestyle supported by CO2 producing power plants and machinery produces as much CO2 as someone who isn’t. And second,if we replace as much of our technology with nuclear, solar and so on powered equipment where’s that CO2 going to come from ? Magic ?
It sounds like someone who is lying, in order to demonize people who support doing something about CO2.
That’s what I too found strange with his claim, but I would like to see a comparison with some hard numbers. For example, what releases less CO2, heating your house with electricity or heating with a wood stove (and cutting down trees to get that wood)?
Electricity beyond any doubt or question. Wood stoves are ridiculously inefficient.
It’s quite plausible that we don’t consume any more CO2 now than we used to, for reasons like that - we used to burn wood all willy nilly, for instance. I don’t understand why Der Trihs finds it hard to beleive; it’s quite plausible, when you consider that while we may use more energy now we use it in vastly more efficient ways (and most of the world’s people don’t live Western consumptive lifestyles.)
**But that does not mean we can’t use LESS CO2 in the future. ** The fact that the number has stayed the same for awhile does not prove it must stay the same indefinitely.
Heating your house by cutting down trees is at absolute worst carbon neutral, and in most cases is actually carbon negative. In simple terms it doesn’t add any CO2 at all to the atmosphere, and in most cases it removes carbon from the atmosphere.
In contrast using fossil fuel generated electricity is definitely carbon positive. There’s no doubt it adds carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.
So using wood releases infinitely less carbon.
Not even close to being true.
It doesn’t matter on whit how inefficient they are. The question was how much carbon they produce. And the answer is either none, or a negative amount. Regardless of how efficient they are that is still infinitely less carbon than an electric or oil heater, which releases some carbon.
There’s no need for detailed figures here. The mathematics is as simple as:
None or negative < some. Always. Without exception. Regardless of efficiency.
Your don’t understand the question. The question wasn’t which method uses less energy, nor was it which method was more energy efficient. The question was which method produced less carbon.
That is the only metric relevant to this thread, and the answer is in no doubt whatsoever.
Remember: energy efficiency =/= carbon efficiency. That is an equivalence you can only make when you are comparing the same ultimate energy source. Timber and coal are not in any way equivalent energy sources.
I’m sorry, but are you saying that burning wood doesn’t put carbon into the atmosphere?
You can certainly make the argument that burning wood doesn’t release more carbon than allowing trees to die and degrade over time… but that’s not the only factor at play.
Of course, old-time stoves weren’t all wood-burning, either. In one of James Fenimore Cooper’s books, the leader of a small town is eager to find a coal deposit nearby, since eventually they’d run out of the trees they’re currently using for fuel, but a coal deposit would last them forever. Which just goes to show that environmental thinking has advanced some over the centuries.
This carbon budgeting can be a bit tricky, but one important point you need to understand that your time period for flux measurements is all important. It has to be sensible for your statements to make any sense. Over any sensible time burning wood doesn’t put carbon into the atmosphere?
Yes, it is the only factor at play here: time.
Lots of things produce carbon fluxes. The Amazon rainforest puts gigatonnes of carbon into the atmosphere every night. Does that mean that destroying the Amazon will lead to a decrease in carbon emission of gigatonnes daily? Of course it doesn’t. that;s because a time period of 12 hours is just too short to be useful when measuring fluxes.
When you are discussing climate the only acceptable time frame is centuries. Measuring fluxes over shorter timescales is meaningless and will lead to the conclusion that nuking the Amazon will halt global warming instantly.
The fact that using wood as a fuel source puts carbon into the atmosphere for the next hour or the next decade is quite irrelevant when discussing carbon budgets. The only real question is what does it do over the next century, And over the next century it either adds no carbon at all or actually reduces the amount of carbon.
As I said, using wood as fuel source is either carbon neutral or carbon negative.
I think you need to look at where that carbon comes from. Wood is built from carbon it took out of the atmosphere. Carbon that has been cycling through plants and air for hundreds of millions of years. It’s part of the air already. The only way it won’t return the carbon is if you bury it. It adds zilch Anthropological Global Warming causing Carbon Dioxide, because humans have nothing to do with it being there.
Now when you use electric chances are it comes from a coal or oil based plant. That carbon has been in the ground and not a part of the atmosphere for millions of years. It being burned and released is a direct result of human actions.
To count wood carbon emissions and coal/oil emissions as the same kind of thing is disingenuous. Sure they’re both emissions but one is upsetting a natural balance and the other is a part of that balance.
Who are these people who are saying we should worry about AGW but not about population? Most people who are worried about AGW are also in favor of people having fewer kids. The Julian Simon types who think a larger population would be a good thing for the environment are definitely in the minority of people concerned about these things.
You’re assuming that deforestation doesn’t exist. Sub Saharan Africa in particular burns a lot of wood for fuel that doesn’t get replenished. Upsetting a natural balance, as it were.
I’m not arguing with your larger point, that wood growth and burning cycles existing atmospheric carbon while fossil fuels inject additional carbon.
I don’t buy it. Even with lower population levels and increased industrialization in the 18th century I don’t see how the figures would balance out…so, I’d need to see the actual numbers. If you have a link to the magazine or just the name and date for it that might be helpful.
But just think about it for a moment. Burning wood is not going to put more carbon into the atmosphere, so it’s a net wash. Coal of course would…but even with increased industrialization and use of coal throughout the 18th century it is not even remotely comparable to today’s usages (and we still use coal…in fact, more people from both a raw numerical as well as percentage of the overall population use coal or products or energy derived from coal). And we are using other FF at a higher rate too, again both from a raw numbers and percentage of the overall population perspective.
