Addressing Confusion and Despondency - a Contribution to Climate Protection

These are the causes of climate change and these are the solutions.

As is well known, everything was better in the past, a supposed wisdom whose dubiousness is clear to most sensible people. That's why it's mainly thought of in silence. But nevertheless and against our better judgement: today's youth, modern music and contemporary art are examples that cause frowns or at least raised eyebrows. Even the weather, we nod in agreement, used to be better. But, "Stop!" - With common sense, any somewhat mature person will conclude that while winters still deserved that name in the past, summers formerly were much cooler and rainier. Here, the glorifying look into the past is misleading, because nowadays much warmer winters and scorching summers point to a phenomenon that has been discussed for more than 30 years [2], but is still not properly understood and completely underestimated in its scope.

Until recently, negligent policies from overseas in this regard contributed to the obfuscation of the inconvenient truth, as did disinformation, ignorance and the popular practice of lying into one's pocket.

Solely a smart, committed and courageous girl from Sweden since recently has been demonstrating almost genius understanding and intuitive foresight and has started a movement that gives hope.

Figure: Prof. Ed Hawkins' global heat streaks from the beginning of current estimation to the year 2019 [3].

The author does not want to be schoolmasterly, but would like to make a contribution in the fight against climate change, because this is the topic. The existential topic, to say the least. A topic that is far too important to be left to the climate researchers and meteorologists in their scientific ivory towers, precisely because some want to lease the deeper understanding for themselves alone. A topic that is far too important to be left to the politicians in their ivory towers of power, precisely because they have so far lacked sagacity and long-term vision to a sufficient degree, even from a high vantage point.

• As a reminder, here is a brief description of the process that is the basis of all life on Earth: the plant takes chlorophyll (leaf green), water from the soil and carbon dioxide from the air and turns them into biomass and oxygen, with the absorbed solar radiation providing the necessary energy. Fortunately, plants normally organise themselves quite autonomously, so that humans do not have to control the complex processes at all, but only occasionally help them along with irrigation.
• All fossil fuels, which we burn in excess of what simultaneously regrows in the form of biomass, lead to a warming of the climate. Exothermic reactions always take place, which can never be used 100% due to fundamental thermodynamic laws. Conversely to combustion, plant growth through photosynthesis in endothermic reactions over millions of years has led to the gradual cooling of Earth's atmosphere. Thus eons ago sea creatures became truly earthly inhabitants when they finally stopped burning their feet when stepping onto land. Decisive in this was the gradual reduction of carbon dioxide concentration in Earth's atmosphere.

• Oxygen, which has accumulated in the atmosphere over millions of years through photosynthesis, is needed for combustion. The fuel has evolved from biomass over similar periods of time. Autumn leaves, wood, humus or turf, which essentially consist of hydrocarbons, have been transformed into coal, crude oil or natural gas through geological processes. No matter whether we drive a car, heat our house in winter or draw energy from the 230-volt power grid for a variety of purposes, if the primary energy source is a fossil fuel, then not only heat is produced, but oxygen is also consumed, or rather: then we lose some of the air we breathe. Everyone knows from childhood that it is extremely frightening when big brother keeps you trapped under the blanket and you can't breathe. Adults seem to have forgotten this, otherwise they wouldn't be able to go on full-throttle motorway chases with such gusto, or brag to their acquaintances about their annual long-distance aviation trips.
• Once in their lives most people have experienced that it is pleasantly warm in a greenhouse even when the outside temperatures are cold and even without any interior heating. The white sunlight with its broad spectrum shines almost completely through the window panes and enables the plants to convert energy by means of photosynthesis. Part of the light is reflected by the plants in the greenhouse, but most of it is absorbed, transformed into biomass and a small part is converted into heat. The long-wave reflected heat radiation, however, no longer passes through the glass unhindered, but is largely absorbed and transformed into heat. The situation is similar with the gas carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere, which is transparent to white sunlight but opaque, i.e. impermeable, to infrared heat radiation. Quite analogous, quite simple and easily demonstrated by simple school physics [1].
• The rainforest cleared in the Amazon is therefore, correctly considered, less missing as a uniform (constant) CO2 reservoir, but rather as a continuous active CO2 absorber or consumer. The same mistakes are being made here as were made centuries ago in Europe, only nowadays the wood is no longer used to build an armada of battleships. However, a look at South America should not obscure the fact that the forest in Europe also makes an important contribution, even the Black Forest and actually every single tree and shrub that stands on our doorstep.

• The higher temperatures in the Earth's atmosphere lead to more extreme weather conditions. The consequences are drought disasters, forest fires and an associated further loss of CO2 absorbers. It rains less from summer-heated air, and only when cluster clouds, so-called cumulonimbus, have formed, reaching up into the finally cool stratosphere, does the condensing water vapour discharge in torrential downpours.
• Due to melting ice surfaces, especially of the Arctic Ocean, but also of the snowfields and glaciers in the mountains, more solar radiation is absorbed and less reflected by the darker surface below. Further heating is the result, as anyone knows who has once swapped a white plastic chair for a black motorbike seat in summer and has had the associated sensitive experience.?

This marks the end of the discussion, anyone would expect, and the start of action. But by now you know your friend’s tricks. They’re reluctant to admit the consequences of the unpleasant findings and don't even want to think about the necessary consequences. This is why there are always ill-informed and incompetent contemporaries who deny the truth of anthropogenic climate responsibility and "lie in their pockets" to themselves and to some grateful fellow human beings, thus giving them a reprieve from their own responsibility. A collective problem is naturally difficult to combat through individual insight. That is human, and the author is of course only one among our peers. "What is to be done?" is the obvious but anxious question. A lot, because we humans are wasteful with energy in many places. However, this does not automatically mean that we have to renounce many possessions, but rather that rapid change is possible and that the unpleasant consequences and the current fearful stagnation can be overcome by an active liberation strike, so that new confidence is gained. The current pandemic has demonstrated the ability of governments to act in a crisis, but the existence of an imminent crisis must no longer be ignored.

The following list is intended as a proposal for an ad hoc action plan:

• The transport sector is largely responsible for the recent increase in CO2 emissions, i.e. there is a need for action here as well as a lot of potential for savings. Individual transport is a major source of carbon dioxide. After the turn of the millennium, the political course in Germany was skillfully set for promising approaches of small and efficient vehicles, but the development has been going in the wrong direction again for some time. The slogan of the environmentalists, "small but mighty" , has given way to the motto of the car enthusiasts, "the bigger, the better" . On this issue, politicians have once again gone 100 per cent along the lines of the German automotive industry. Therefore, the necessary tax incentives for small and economical cars are missing. Therefore, there is also a lack of comprehension into the necessity of speed limits on German motorways. This is why cars are neither advertised with their real fuel consumption figures nor with their drag coefficients. Therefore, completely nonsensical efficiency classes have been defined, which obscures fuel efficiency by dividing absolute consumption with the associated vehicle mass. It would also open consumers' eyes in this respect if the attribute of maximum fuel consumption were attached to a passenger car in advertising. Electrically powered vehicles are efficient, because they can recover part of the kinetic energy during braking and because they are proportionally charged with electricity from renewable sources.

• Aviation is another major source of carbon dioxide. In short-haul air traffic, around eight to ten liters of kerosene are used per passenger and every 100 kilometers; on long journeys this figure drops to around half. Since modern aircraft travel very closely to the speed of sound, the engine power and kerosene consumption are approximately dependent on the speed to the third power. Based on this calculation, a lot could be achieved by reducing the speed of air traffic by 1/3, i.e. from 900 to 600 kilometers per hour. This reduction to 2/3 of the original speed would reduce the fuel consumption to 8/27 (third power), i.e. to 29.6%. Even with a speed limit of 600 km/h, most global travel destinations would still be reached very quickly. With the existing aircraft fleet, whose turbines and wings are optimized to their current maximum speed, the savings are estimated to 50%, but the next generation could save an incredible 70% of the fuel consumed today.

• In addition to traffic, the supply of electrical energy is largely linked to the burning of fossil fuels. Here, German legislation on the promotion of renewable energies is trend-setting worldwide and has meanwhile been adopted in a similar form in dozens of other industrial nations. Since the nineties it broke the monopoly of the energy supply companies and initiated the development in the direction of decentralized electrical energy generation. The share of so-called renewable energies, in which regenerative and non-fossil fuels are burned, i.e. with hydropower, wind energy, geothermal energy or sunlight as the sources, has since increased tenfold. However, in the same period of time, the share of energy from nuclear power in Germany has fallen sharply, so that overall the share of fossil fuels in the total supply has only fallen from around 70 to 55%. That is completely inadequate, i.e. not appropriate to the scope of the impending climate catastrophe, no matter what. A major point of criticism of the Renewable Energy Sources Act is the high electricity costs, which are a burden on consumers and from which many industries are generously excluded.

• Alongside transportation and electricity supply, the consumption of fossil fuels to generate thermal energy for heating public facilities and private households is the last major source of carbon dioxide. Here, the German Energy Conservation in Buildings Act, last reissued in 2005, advocates the minimum standards for efficient heating systems and for the thermal insulation of buildings. Here, there is funding for energy-efficient building renovation from the German Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (Reconstruction Loan Corporation). The political goal should be to expand the subsidies and ensure that everyone in Germany can afford an ecologically heated and warm home.

However, it is fundamentally questionable to cite high costs as an argument against technical solutions to the climate catastrophe threat, caused by greenhouse gases and exothermic combustion. The impending global damage from the foreseeable droughts, crop failures, floods, hurricanes, heat records, etc. is like a sword of Damocles hanging over us. It is an existential threat, and costs must reasonably play only a subordinate role here; after all, the money saved ultimately can be neither eaten nor breathed. A provident and wise policy takes the scientific forecasts seriously and assumes the worst case scenario. The great inertia of the global climatic system, in conjunction with human persistence, makes it necessary to take countermeasures at a very early stage. Any amount of money that we think we can save on climate protection now will have to be spent a hundred or even a thousand times more at a later date to repair the damage. In other words, if we act too late and too timidly, the subsequent costs will seem to be caused not by giants, but by titans. We have had an annual taste of this since the turn of the millennium with the ten hottest years since global climate records began.

Of course, we are dealing with a global problem, and national or Europe-wide legislation and measures are expensive and can be detrimental to competitiveness. Here, politics is called upon to represent the interests of the first world in an appropriate manner within the framework of the climate conferences, i.e. to demand a minimum level of climate protection from the emerging and developing countries without putting too much of a brake on their economic development. However, it must be clear that the fairy-tale luxury in the Western industrialised nations

1. is not possible to be achieved globally in a sustainable way, i.e. with climate neutrality, within a short period of time, and
2. a healthy level has already been exceeded in the western world and one cannot entirely avoid the reproach of being spoiled.

Global emissions trading for carbon dioxide in Europe and worldwide once again must become a sharpened sword and must no longer have an alibi function.

But what can each individual do immediately and with little effort?

• drive less and slower by car and more by bike
• travel less individually and more by public transport
• critically compare long-distance destinations, their travel costs and travel times with nearby cultural and geographical highlights
• prefer to buy local produce and seasonal foods
• separate and recycle glass, paper and recyclables despite negative reports about the recycling system
• use effective light bulbs and turn off lights that are not in use
• switch off electrical devices and computers rather than leaving them idle
• be affectionately concerned about the health and irrigation of nature and trees

The good message is that we humans are many, and every ecological action multiplied billions of times makes a big difference. So let's not lose heart, let's do it!

Useful Sources:?

[1]??Sch?nwiese, Christian-D.: Klimawandel und Mensch – Eine Wechselbeziehung, Universit?t Frankfurt/Main, Institut für Atmosph?re und Umwelt, ver?ffentlicht unter www.uni-frankfurt.de/49406394/, 2014.

[2]??Deutsche Koordinierungsstelle des IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change): Fünfter Sachstandsbericht des IPCC (AR5), 2013-2014, ver?ffentlicht unter www.de-ipcc.de/128.php

[3] Hawkins, Ed.: Climate Lab Book - Open climate science Weblog, ver?ffentlicht unter: www.climate-lab-book.ac.uk/, aktuell.

[4] Koebel, David: Anstelle Verwirrung und Verzagtheit - ein Beitrag zum Thema Klimaschutz. Herbst 2018 (unver?ffentlicht)

Image Credits:

[1] Green leaf - photo by Clay Banks via Unsplash

[2] Autumn leaves - photo by Mathias P. R. Reding via Pexels?

[3] Thunderstorm clouds – photo by J. Plenio via Pixabay

[4] Traffic jam – photo by Alexandr Podvalny via Pexels

[5] Condensation trails - photo by Seven Storm Juhaszimrus via Pexels

[6] Power plant – photo by Monika P. via Pixabay

[7] Chimney smoke backlit – photo by David Karich via Pixabay