SENIORS CLIMATE ACTION NETWORK (SCAN)
"The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed" - William Gibson.
According to Wikipedia:
"In planning and policy, a wicked problem is a problem that is difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize. It refers to an idea or problem that cannot be fixed, where there is no single solution to the problem; and "wicked" denotes resistance to resolution, rather than evil. Another definition is "a problem whose social complexity means that it has no determinable stopping point". Moreover, because of complex interdependencies, the effort to solve one aspect of a wicked problem may reveal or create other problems."
After 200 years of unabated growth in populations and consumption per capita enabled by burning fossil fuels, we now face a wicked problem that has no easy solution. We need to immediately reduce our use of fossil fuels in order to mitigate the impact of climate change and avoid the risk of triggering tipping points which would result in an irreversible cascade of climate change leading to a hot-house Earth.
In an industrial society, we are totally reliant on high-grade energy for our survival, so we need to transition from fossil fuels to high-grade renewable energy and infrastructure. Humankind should have used fossil fuels to transition to renewable energy when only 10% of our endowment of reserves had been consumed, but humankind ignored Limits to Growth warnings almost 50 years ago about the possibility of our current predicament. The need to transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy now involves massive investment in new infrastructure which, in turn, involves the burning of fossil fuels (renewables cannot bootstrap itself without the use of fossil fuels) at the very same time that we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while the rate of supply of conventional oil is peaking and the Energy Returned on Energy Invested (EROI) of fossil fuels are declining. We have no choice but to divert use of fossil fuels from unnecessary and frivolous consumption to investments in renewables and infrastructure within a limited and reducing budget of fossil fuels.
What further complicates the choice of pathways we should now adopt during a transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy is the uncertainty as to what level of technology human settlements will be able to utilise in 50 years’ time and beyond. There are strong indications that renewable energy will be unable to provide the same scale of energy per capita that we currently enjoy in the well-developed countries. Photovoltaic panels and wind turbines require the use of increasingly scarce minerals which in turn takes increasingly more energy to mine. We have already mined the low hanging fruit of minerals which are highly concentrated.
Future generations will have fewer energy slaves to work for them, and their life styles will be much simpler. Their quality of life, however, will not necessarily be lower than what we currently enjoy. We will need to learn how to live well on a much-reduced budget of energy during and after a transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy and infrastructure. It is possible to do this because much of our current consumption of energy in the form of goods and services does not necessarily lead to greater well-being. It is as supportive localised communities that we can continue to thrive.
A smooth transition from fossil fuels to renewables will not happen without strife for millions unless we face up to realities and respond to the urgent need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions without delay. Our submission to the New Zealand Ministry for the Environment (MFE) provides a detailed argument to target Net Zero Emissions by 2030 instead of 2050 which is backed up by the most up-to-date peer reviewed publications in top ranking international journals and reputable research organisations such as the International Panel on Climate Change and the United Nations. Download here
"In planning and policy, a wicked problem is a problem that is difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize. It refers to an idea or problem that cannot be fixed, where there is no single solution to the problem; and "wicked" denotes resistance to resolution, rather than evil. Another definition is "a problem whose social complexity means that it has no determinable stopping point". Moreover, because of complex interdependencies, the effort to solve one aspect of a wicked problem may reveal or create other problems."
After 200 years of unabated growth in populations and consumption per capita enabled by burning fossil fuels, we now face a wicked problem that has no easy solution. We need to immediately reduce our use of fossil fuels in order to mitigate the impact of climate change and avoid the risk of triggering tipping points which would result in an irreversible cascade of climate change leading to a hot-house Earth.
In an industrial society, we are totally reliant on high-grade energy for our survival, so we need to transition from fossil fuels to high-grade renewable energy and infrastructure. Humankind should have used fossil fuels to transition to renewable energy when only 10% of our endowment of reserves had been consumed, but humankind ignored Limits to Growth warnings almost 50 years ago about the possibility of our current predicament. The need to transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy now involves massive investment in new infrastructure which, in turn, involves the burning of fossil fuels (renewables cannot bootstrap itself without the use of fossil fuels) at the very same time that we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while the rate of supply of conventional oil is peaking and the Energy Returned on Energy Invested (EROI) of fossil fuels are declining. We have no choice but to divert use of fossil fuels from unnecessary and frivolous consumption to investments in renewables and infrastructure within a limited and reducing budget of fossil fuels.
What further complicates the choice of pathways we should now adopt during a transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy is the uncertainty as to what level of technology human settlements will be able to utilise in 50 years’ time and beyond. There are strong indications that renewable energy will be unable to provide the same scale of energy per capita that we currently enjoy in the well-developed countries. Photovoltaic panels and wind turbines require the use of increasingly scarce minerals which in turn takes increasingly more energy to mine. We have already mined the low hanging fruit of minerals which are highly concentrated.
Future generations will have fewer energy slaves to work for them, and their life styles will be much simpler. Their quality of life, however, will not necessarily be lower than what we currently enjoy. We will need to learn how to live well on a much-reduced budget of energy during and after a transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy and infrastructure. It is possible to do this because much of our current consumption of energy in the form of goods and services does not necessarily lead to greater well-being. It is as supportive localised communities that we can continue to thrive.
A smooth transition from fossil fuels to renewables will not happen without strife for millions unless we face up to realities and respond to the urgent need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions without delay. Our submission to the New Zealand Ministry for the Environment (MFE) provides a detailed argument to target Net Zero Emissions by 2030 instead of 2050 which is backed up by the most up-to-date peer reviewed publications in top ranking international journals and reputable research organisations such as the International Panel on Climate Change and the United Nations. Download here
Our Predicament Explained
The longer we delay in reducing our use of fossil fuels,
the greater will be the accumulations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere
and the subsequent increasing risk of irreversible climate change.
the greater will be the accumulations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere
and the subsequent increasing risk of irreversible climate change.
