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There was lots of pushback against critiques of Michael Moore's recent film, saying we missed the its key point about curbing growth.
Today in @CC_Yale I look at the 2 sides - tackling climate w/clean energy vs. growth - using the Kaya Identity. Thread. https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/06/what-planet-of-the-humans-gets-wrong-about-renewable-energy/
Today in @CC_Yale I look at the 2 sides - tackling climate w/clean energy vs. growth - using the Kaya Identity. Thread. https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/06/what-planet-of-the-humans-gets-wrong-about-renewable-energy/
The key here is that if you're focusing on curbing growth in population/consumption/economy, you're only looking at curbing emissions *growth*. We need to get down to zero emissions. You just can't do that through curbing growth. The math doesn't work.
Analogy from the piece: "carbon emissions are the water level in a bathtub that’s filling up. Curbing growth is akin to turning down the water faucet. That’s a start, but not nearly enough to get the water level down to zero; we need to turn off the faucet and unplug the drain."
We all know that, as the IPCC and other groups have shown, to avert a climate crisis we need to get net carbon emissions down to zero ASAP, within a few decades. So if you can't achieve that through curbing growth, how do you do it? Here's where the Kaya Identity comes in handy!
The Kaya identity says that to achieve zero emissions (F), one of human population (P), per-person economic activity (G/P), the energy consumed to power the economy (E/G), or the carbon footprint of energy (F/E) must be zero.
We know it can't be P - that's human extinction (no good!). Nor G/P - that would be a global economic collapse. Energy efficiency is improving, but we'll always need some energy to run the economy, so it can't be E/G either. That leaves one chance: the carbon footprint of energy.
And we're in luck, over time renewable energy can bring the carbon footprint of energy down to zero! Solar, wind, etc - the very technologies attacked in #planetofthehumans - are the key solution to averting a climate crisis. Other measures can help but that's our only real shot.
Curbing excessive consumption and becoming more sustainable will help. But it won't get us to the key zero emissions goal without clean energy. So attacking clean technologies is just about the worst possible thing we can do, and that was the main thrust of the film.
And it just so happens a team @UCBerkeley just came out with a paper showing the US can get to 90% clean electricity by 2035 and 100% by 2045. Read my piece for more details! The End. https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/06/what-planet-of-the-humans-gets-wrong-about-renewable-energy/
