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• W4313446524 abstract "How the World Really Works: the Science Behind How We Got Here and Where We’re Going. Smil, V. 2022. Viking Penguin, London, U.K. 326 pp. US$28.00 (hardcover) ISBN 978-0-593-29706-3. How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: the Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need. Gates, B. 2021. A. Knopf, New York, NY, U.S.A. 288 pp. US$14.79 (paperback) ISBN 978-0-385-54613-3. How much computer power is required to calculate the models needed for a country to commit to carbon neutrality by 2050? None at all, you might think, given the scant data on the pathways that lead to many such bold commitments. Smil and Gates’ books provide such sober assessments of our options for reducing carbon emissions in the real world. They are not optimistic reads. Smil is a technocrat who refuses to engage in the politics of climate change or ideology, or even to make value judgments, apart from his belief that on balance it would be preferable if climate catastrophe did not occur. Smil is also a favorite author of Bill Gates, who drew on Smil's previous books in writing How to Avoid a Climate Disaster. The entrepreneur turned jet-setting philanthropist adds his considerable experience in world politics to Smil's laws of physics and chemistry, so the two books complement each other. They both look at the problem of decarbonization from a global perspective, taking into account the situation and aspirations of the Global South in addition to the Tesla-driving Californians and Energiewende-enthusiastic Germans who dominate media coverage as well as setting the agenda for decarbonization efforts. Smil begins with the unsurprising statement that “we are a fossil-fuelled civilization” and then demonstrates how every aspect of our lives depends on burning large quantities of fossil fuels. He concludes that “we cannot simply walk away from this critical determinant of our fortunes in a few decades.” This analysis leads to his book's central assertion that “We can have complete decarbonization of the global economy by 2050 only at the cost of unthinkable global economic retreat or as a result of extraordinarily rapid transformations relying on near-miraculous technical advances.” Voting for a serious economic decline is not likely in democratic societies. Smil is also rather skeptical of the prospects for miraculous technological improvements. In particular, he contrasts rapid technological advances in computer technology with much slower progress in the more mature fields of energy generation and the production of essential components of civilization, such as cement, steel, plastics, and ammonia (necessary for the production of industrial fertilizers). Smil calls these products “the four pillars of modern civilization.” His somewhat arbitrary list includes key materials that are used in large quantities, require 17% of our total energy to produce, and account for 25% of our total carbon emissions. They are difficult to decarbonize or replace, as the aptly titled chapter Inertia, Scale, Mass shows. Smil notes that while we have made it to a reasonably prosperous civilization without semiconductors or computers, this would not have been possible without these four materials. For example, industrial fertilizers allowed agricultural land to increase by only 40% between 1900 and 2000, while the world's population grew 3.7 times. Fertilizers thus prevented a massive 19th-century expansion of cropland to continue and can, therefore, be indirectly credited with the preservation of much of the surviving biodiversity. Decarbonization has been slower than the pace of the earlier energy transition from biomass to fossil fuels. Although renewables have increased 50-fold over the 2000–2020 period, the world's dependence on fossil fuels has declined only slightly, from 87% to 85%. Smil is particularly skeptical of “technological super solutions” and assumes that “the fundamentals of our lives will not change drastically in the coming 20–30 years.” However, technological progress has been both underestimated and overestimated in the past. For example, “we do not have a civilization envisioned in the early 1970s - one of worsening planetary hunger or one energized by cost-free nuclear power.” Some power generation technologies, including solar panels, followed Moore's famous law, cutting their costs in half every few years; others, like nuclear power, did not. Gates is somewhat more optimistic, but that position is based on his implicit faith in science to provide us with much-needed technological solutions, not hard numbers on carbon emissions. Gates points out that the economic turmoil during the COVID pandemic led to a reduction in carbon emissions of only 5%. To him, this suggests that, as with the fight against the coronavirus, we need new technologies, not just behavioral changes. Gates quite reasonably recommends that clean energy and climate research be quintupled over the next decade. This should be, in part, a high-priority government-led Apollo-style project, combined with private investment. Energy companies spend only 0.3% of their revenues on research and development. We need to create a market environment where investment in research is as profitable as it is for pharmaceutical companies, for example. This requires a proper costing of carbon emissions that takes into account the cost of the climate change they cause. A carbon tax is one solution that could achieve this. For Gates, the solution has to be threefold, including technology, market, and policy. He is aware that a $5 trillion energy industry has inertia, resists change, and has great lobbying power. Global fossil fuel subsidies still totaled $400 billion in 2018. However, it is also an industry that the world still needs, so divesting from it may be a good virtue-signaling strategy, but not a rational policy. Neither author thinks much of the idea of degrowth on a global scale. On the contrary, they acknowledge the enormous aspirations of the Global South for economic progress, particularly after the example of China, which has lifted historically unprecedented numbers of people out of poverty. In the process, the country has also become the world's largest emitter of carbon. Much of the planet's eight billion people want to emulate China's economic progress. The scale of expected industrial development is often breathtaking. China consumed six times more cement in 2001–2016 than the United States did in the entire 20th century. By 2060, the world's building stock will double, adding a new New York City every month for the next 40 years. Demand for electricity could triple by 2050. The global population growing and getting richer will pose a serious challenge to decarbonization, even if rich countries achieve carbon neutrality as promised. Neither book emphasizes the popular exercise of counting the carbon footprint of every action, from a Google search to feeding your pet, as a guiding principle for everyone's lifestyle. Our personal choices matter less as long as our lives are embedded in the energy-based civilization that primarily uses fossil fuels to generate energy. In such a case, everything has a carbon footprint. Both books are conservative in the sense that they work within current technological and social frameworks, rather than envisioning revolutions in technology or the economic system. Neither Smil nor Gates advocate dismantling democracy or the market economy to create Utopia. These books are invaluable guides to the real-world challenges of rapid decarbonization because they identify problems and point in the directions we must look for solutions. Their less than optimistic tone unfortunately reflects the situation we face in combating climate change." @default.
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• W4313446524 date "2023-01-03" @default.
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• W4313446524 title "Two doses of carbon budget realism" @default.
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