The real climate activist
From 21 to 24 January 2020, 50th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum(WEF) happened in Davos, Switzerland. This meeting theme was 'Stakeholder for a cohesive and sustainable world'. This meeting mainly focused on tracking and improving global progress on climate change and sustainable economic growth.
Greta had an opportunity to make opening remarks on session averting 'climate apocalypse' in WEF. She in her speech criticized government and policymakers on lenient policy regarding harmful emission. She urged governments to immediately halt any investment in fossil fuel exploration and extraction. She proposed real zero-emission economies rather than net carbon-neutral ones. The economic growth of the world should be completely diversified from fossil fuels she added.
On the other side, we have people like Boyan slat who are the real climate activist. Boyan Slat is a Dutch inventor and entrepreneur who is the CEO of The Ocean Cleanup, a non-profit entity. At age 16, he became curious about the garbage that ended up in the world oceans. He came up with the device that could clean up the big 5 garbage patches. So, he developed a machine that tackles this problem. Through his research, he predicted that The Great Pacific Garbage Patch(GPGP) held 1.8 trillion individual pieces of waste. Currently, The Ocean Cleanup came up with the device called The Interceptor. This device targets major rivers sources of pollution. Just 1000 river system carries 80% of plastic waste to the oceans. In this article we breakdown different approaches and its achievability.
Greta urged the government to cease investment in fossil fuel exploration and extraction. Carbon Tracker, a London-based think tank researching the impacts of climate change on financial markets, issued its findings that 80% on the world's proven fossil fuel resources cannot be consumed if we want to limit global warming within 2°C above pre-industrial levels. Currently, the fossil fuel industry is set to spend $5 trillion in exploration and extraction over the next decade. It a reliable option to cease investment in fossil fuel as it has become evident since 2016 that the investments in oil and gas are ultimately going out of global investment trend(IEA- World energy investment 2019). But immediate transition without the reliable option can be ultimately catastrophic.
Let's take an example of the German energy transition plan, Energiewende. Many environmental enthusiasts and journalists made an argument that Germany’s renewable energy transition, the Energiewende, was a reliable pathway to follow. Germany passed this ambitious plan to completely diversify from nuclear resources that supplied about 30% of energy requirement in Germany. This plan was a disaster. Germany transition was unplanned and poorly managed. They used to transition to solar and wind in the day but at night they had to reopen the coal factories to manage energy needs. The plan basically did more harm than good. And the political divergence made things worse.
Then she proposes a zero-emission economy. Let's take an example of crude oil which is the industry that produces the most carbon emission. The total estimated production of crude oil in the world has increased from about 4002.3 MT in 2008-09 to about 4127.0 MT during 2013-14, and further increased to 4389.4MT during 2017-18. The production increase by 0.24 percentage from 2016-17 to 2017-18(According to the Ministry of statistics and programme implementation government of India). She is proposing that we do not need to minimize our emissions to match or lower than earlier but to ultimately eliminate and become a carbon zero economy. That would mean we need to find a source of energy that is equal to 4389.4MT crude oil. This is a highly ambitious and virtually unachievable plan as the current technology will be unable to cope up with such a massive energy demand. And crude oil is just a part of bigger carbon-emitting industries.
She has also given a time frame to achieve such an ambitious plan and that is now. On minimal examination, all the lowering emission plans given by her seem to collapse. Such a huge plan without relevant literature to back it up is ultimately an extremely dreadful. This plan might tremendously help the future generation but we cannot privilege them at the cost of present ones.
Then we have Boyan Slat, a Dutch inventor, entrepreneurs and CEO of the Ocean Cleanup. This company is proposing a solution to cleaning up the world's five biggest garbage patches. At 19 he developed a machine that attempted to clean up these great oceanic patches. His company attempts to clean up 90% of ocean plastic pollution. Earlier the approach was based on prevention. For example an education-based approach of spreading awareness rather than attempting a cleanup programme. That is because we had to deal with 5 colossal areas each moving around. But his company attempted an economically feasible cleanup project.
This project came with its own concerns. Miriam Goldstein wrote her PhD. thesis in oceanography on the Pacific garbage patch. "The ocean is a strong force and mostly like to rip things apart" she explains "major concern is the device trapping sea creatures particularly jellyfish and slugs. A 2,000-foot long screen was ripped apart just before 2019 New Year as predicted. It is cleary difficult environment to fix rips in the middle of the ocean that is why normally you do things closer to the shore explains Miriam. Critics believe or want to believe the Ocean Cleanup will ultimately fail as the oceanic currents are a too complex thing to understand and predict.
So in the year 2019, the Ocean Cleanup came up with the device called interceptor. This device cuts the lifeline of the colossal garbage patches, the rivers. Most plastic in the ocean originates from the rivers. About 1000 rivers contribute to 80% of the plastic in the ocean(the Ocean cleanup study). An interceptor is a solar-powered machine strategically located in the river that still allows boats to pass while working. This is the first scalable solution to prevent river plastic from entering the ocean. It is also a feasible option being at a profitable distance from the local operator. At the top performance, it can extract about 100,000kg trash per day. There are still concerns regarding the safety of sea creatures. This seems to be the most reliable option in the ocean cleanup currently. It is still a long way in achieving a plastic-free ocean.
We need to understand that whenever we are formulating opinions on complex issues like climate change, we need to do thorough research and not being influenced by pseudo climate activists. We need to examine and cross-check the solutions proposed by these individuals and then formulate opinions based on our own research. The solutions proposed should also take into consideration the complexities of the problem and propose the most effective solution with the least amount of effort. In no way is this article undervalues the awareness done by Greta about a complex problem, but the solutions proposed by her should be examined properly and perhaps include a feasibility test. "But when somebody uses children and teenagers in their own interest, is deserved only to condemned" Putin explains "People in Africa and many Asian countries want to be as wealthy as people in Sweden. How can it be done? By making them use solar energy, which is plentiful in Africa?" He further explains that African people cannot be stopped in achieving the same standard of living as people living in Sweden. "Just try explaining the Africans that they would spend next 20-30 years in poverty and their children will live in poverty".
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