Page 17 - Managing Global Warming

Why do we have global warming? 11

Table 1.4 World reserves of fossil fuels (OPEC 2016 stats, BP
stats 2016) [31]

Amount Lifetime (year) Present consumption
3
9
Natural gas 200 10 12 m 3 3 10 3 63 10 m per year [18]
6
Oil 1.6 10 12 barrels 17 10 3 96 10 barrels per year [32]
6
Coal 0.9 10 12 110 7876 10 t per year [33]

fuel, but for the sake of the planet, the reserves must stay forever below ground, and
nonfossil fuel sources of energy should be embraced.
This book is largely devoted to suggestions for solving the problem of reducing
the amount of CO 2 we pump into the air by: using renewable energies and other
nonfossil fuel forms of energy; sequestering the CO 2 produced in industrial process;
sequestering the CO 2 in the air and possibly using geoengineering.

1.7 Are we making progress in reducing global warming?

This past year was again one of the hottest on record. In November 2017, the World
Meteorological Organization (WMO) issued the following statement: “from January
to September this year the average global temperatures were approximately 1.1°C
above the pre-industrial era, putting us uncomfortably close to the Paris Agreement
goal of 1.5°C” [34].
In 2016, the World Meteorological Organization confirmed that 2011–15 were the
hottest 5-year period on record; and in 2017 the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA) all stated that 2016 was the hottest year ever recorded, making 16 of the
17 years since 2000 the warmest ever. More recent reports (in 2018) make the claim
the 17 of the past 18 years have been the warmest ever [35].
It shows that we are not doing enough to reduce the amount of CO 2 in the atmo-
sphere. The only way to reduce global warming is to reduce the amount of CO 2 we are
pumping into the air, and if possible, begin removing CO 2 from the atmosphere.
At present, less than 20% of all energy sources are either renewable (wind, solar,
hydropower, biomass tide, and geothermal) or nuclear. Replacing fossil fuel to reduce
significantly our CO 2 emissions is going to be a mammoth task. The solution to this
problem is the raison d’ ^ etre for this book.
It has been estimated that in 2015 human activities contributed to roughly
9
40 10 tof CO 2 through burning coal and other fossil fuels, cement production,
deforestation, and other landscape changes,. It has also been estimated that since
9
the Industrial Revolution, over 2000 10 tof CO 2 have been added to the atmo-
sphere. Human activities emit 60 or more times the amount of carbon dioxide released
by volcanoes each year [36].