What it’s Going to Take to Solve the Climate Crisis

I’m very interested in the collective human response (or lack of response) to the pending climate disaster that is predicted in the next 30 years. I have been getting depressed reading too many books about it, like Gwynne Dyer’s Climate Wars. In it he outlines his predictions for near future conflicts as weather disasters push people to migrate by any means to the wealthier countries, who will erect military barriers that keep everyone out. (The military is already planning for such scenarios).

So any reading on this topic that is at all hopeful that we can turn things around is of interest. A recent post by Jon Udell points to a talk by Saul Griffith on what it will take to stop temperatures rising. It really depends whether or not we can collectively muster a response such as the following:

100 sq meters of solar voltaic cells per second for the next 25 years (2TW)

50 sq meters of solar thermal mirrors per second for the next 25 years (2TW)

1 100 megawatt wind turbine every 5 minutes for the next 25 years(2TW)

1 3 gigawatt nuclear plant every week for the next 25 years (3TW)

3 100 megawatt geothermal steam turbines every day for the next 25 years (2TW)

1250 sq meters of bio-fuel-producing algae every second for the next 25 years (.5TW)

Read the rest of Jon’s post on how this can be done. Then start to lobby for it to happen. (GW)

A Recipe for Industrial Transformation | Strategies for Internet Citizens | 11 December 2008

Tagged as: Change, Climate