Climate Change: a reality creating plastic seas. True or false?

Disclaimer: The contents and opinions of this blog post do not represent the views or values of Honours Review as a publication.

Climate change: a topic dominating everyday discussions worldwide. In fact, THE topic of the present day. But first things first: What is Climate Change? Is it real or “fake news”? How will it affect our daily lives? Too many questions, not enough time. As a natural science student, I feel that the perception of this topic is a bit different when compared with ‘normal people’. Here, I propose to lead you through the story of Climate change, through my perspective. We’ll look deep into what it is Climate Change, the real risks on our ecosystems, what has been done to fight it and, lastly, which alternatives to secure the future of our planet could be taken.

Introduction - Hello my name is...

Contrarily to what most think, Global warming and the so feared Greenhouse effect are natural processes occurring throughout the eras. Periods of extreme heat followed by ice ages happened multiple times. However, what makes the present warming period different from all the rest is that this one is aggravated by us, humans. Its inevitability is almost undeniable, but the rate at which it occurs could have been mediated, controlled. 

In essence, Climate Change is a broad concept, not definable per se, but explained by a set of alterations related to the climate. Among them, ozone depletion over Antarctica; increase of the sea level, of the CO2 or methane emissions, of the global mean temperature; mass extinction of several species all over the world and moreover, extreme climatic calamities (hurricanes, fires or floods). 

Naturally, humans in general tend to consider themselves as the most intelligent beings, the ones upper in the food chain, the most powerful ones. Therefore, all resources should always be available to be explored in any way. However, this is not how it works; the planet Earth is the home of countless species: animals, plants, fungi, and infinite bacteria. The coexistence of us all is fundamental for the equilibrium of the ecosystems and the ability to share the same environments for distinct resourced must be achieved.  

What have we done? And mostly, what can we still do?

Regarding the ozone depletion over Antarctica, several measures were taken in the last decade. For instance, efficient use of energy, the 3R’s strategy – reduce, reuse and recycle – and the decrease of aerosols use. Fortunately, the damage of the ozone layer in the stratosphere was partially reversed. On the other hand, all the other consequences are yet to be solved, and by each passing day, the severity of them tends to rise.      

The increase in sea level comes as a direct consequence of the increase in global temperature. The glaciers are melting and species such as polar bears, sea lions, seals are struggling to survive in a changing environment. Not only the lack of physical land to inhabit is a threat to their survival, but also the absence of prey limits their existence. Therefore, there is a need to explore other territories, compromising their own survival. An example is a polar bear found in Siberia in June 2019 [1] which was weak and undernourished. Another perspective of the same side of the coin is the disruption of the balance of salt/freshwater and the accumulation of carbon dioxide within seawater. As known, the sea is the major regulator of the air and its associated characteristics, molecules, temperature, humidity. Most of the toxic compounds released by human activities such as industry, cars, intensive farming, and livestock units are captured to the sea. This is an apparently irrelevant function of the sea, however with catastrophic consequences. Marine life is being highly damaged by this unbalance: part of the existing corals is irreversibly lost and, similarly to what happens inland, the species must adapt to new, more favourable environments, thus, there is a migration process linked with these changes (usually towards the North). When we associate the salt/freshwater disturbance, the accumulation of CO2, and the increase of water temperature with an intense fishing activity and not enough laws or plans to protect the wildlife, it is clear that these ecosystems are being over explored and disturbed in a way which the consequences are yet to be fully understood. 

On top of all, humans still choose to dispose of their waste in the wrong places. Unfortunately, sooner or later, everything ends up in the ocean, and not only fishes but also birds, turtles, and other invertebrates are affected. Activities from illegal washing of oil tanks on the open sea or discarding of untreated residues from factories into rivers to dropping of cigarette tips on the floor or the overuse of non-reusable plastic are avoidable. Currently, there is a plastic island laying on the Pacific Ocean and that is not even the worst problem. The microplastics ‘swimming’ around the ocean are undetectable by the human eye, however, very hazardous to marine life.  

Solutions are needed! In fact, various alternatives are already in place. They can be consumer-directed, such as the use of personal metal straws, the sale of toothpaste without an involving card box, bulk selling or the fee applied for plastics bags in supermarkets. Even changes in the daily diet, by decreasing the ingestion of meat and fish, replacing them by vegetables or other substitutes, already compromises livestock units, which are responsible for the release of methane, a ‘toxic’ molecule, to the atmosphere. But large-scale approaches are also being used worldwide. Recently, a team of students improved a bacterium, Ideonella sakaiensis, reported in 2016, able to turn plastic into water by a two-step reaction [2;3]. Boyan Slat, a Dutch young inventor, who at the age of 18 started the company Ocean Cleanup, aiming to eliminate plastic pollution by 70% on the Pacific Ocean by 2025. Basically, it consists of a pipeline on the surface of the sea, seen from above, moving with the natural currents. Underneath there is a ‘skirt’ that traps the plastic [4]. In Copenhagen, there is a facility that, among several actions, burns out the waste from the city and converts it to electric energy, powering several households – Copenhill [5]. Furthermore, there are numerous brands trying to act sustainably and transforming waste into new products [6-10] or using more sustainable raw materials or biodegradable plastics, for instance, created in massive bioreactors.  

Conclusion - take your own responsibility

It is more and more essential for each of us to take responsibility into our own hands and change the little things in our day-to-day life. A small change by each of us means 7 billion small changes… If we don’t act fast, the ‘blue planet’ maybe a little less colourful. We are still on time to reverse the effects described above, either by valuing waste, i.e. convert waste materials into more useful products including chemicals or fuels, by using ‘greener’ energy sources, by changing our eating and shopping habits, or overall, by being more conscious about our ecological footprint. 

References

1. https://www.publico.pt/2019/06/19/p3/noticia/urso-polar-exausto-avistado-siberia-percorrer-centenas-quilometros-1876921 [Accessed at 06.11.2019]

2. https://www.popsci.com/plastic-eating-bacteria/ [Accessed at 06.11.2019]

3. https://www.ubergizmo.com/2019/06/scientists-bioengineer-bacteria-eat-plastic-turn-to-water/ [Accessed at 06.11.2019]

4. https://time.com/5389782/boyan-slat-plastic-ocean-cleanup/ [Accessed at 06.11.2019]

5. https://www.archdaily.com/925966/copenhill-the-story-of-bigs-iconic-waste-to-energy-plant [Accessed at 06.11.2019]

6. https://www.zouri-shoes.com/

7. https://delphiseco.com/

8. https://www.macrebur.com/

9. https://www.econyl.com/

10. https://www.rizboardshorts.com/

Leadership for the Energy Transition: Developing Socially and Economically Shared Objectives and Contracts to Ensure A Green Future - Part 2: Enabling Successful Collaboration

Disclaimer: The contents and opinions of this blog post do not represent the views or values of Honours Review as a publication.

In the first part I talked about the current challenge we are confronted with regarding the transformation of our economic system to fight climate change. I argued that we have to move from a linear take-make-waste economic model to a circular economy in which as many resources as possible stay within in the cycle, where they are re-used and re-“cycled”. I argued that this system changes will cause a shift in the roles of its actors. Rather than being focused on one single role with a limited set of objectives, private citizens, companies and the government have to widen their perspective and become much more strongly involved in every aspect of energy production and consumption. Glocalization leads to the civil society becoming prosumers – consumers and producers at the same time which requires a much stronger sense of personal autonomy amongst private citizens. In what follows, I want to continue by giving some ideas of why strong collaboration between actors is particularly necessary for moving on to a sustainable energy production system and which implications this might have for individuals, politicians and firms.

A rather simple but vital argument why citizens, businesses and governments must enhance their collaborative ties in order to transform our energy system deals with the necessity and importance of space, which already has been described extensively in energy-related and spatial planning academic literature. In a fossil-fuel based energy system, space is not a critical issue as most of the activity regarding extraction and storage happen underground - think about petrol stations. The new energy system is based on energy sources like solar, wind or hydro power, all of them above the ground, visible and highly space-consuming. To produce the amount of energy we need in a sustainable manner a much bigger area on the surface must be occupied in total by power plants than before, which in turn affects people who live in the surrounding. Solar panels on rooftops or windmills in the field are just two examples. Naturally, this will create controversies and induce public interest. NIMBY – not in my backyard – has become a dictum. Residents fight against energy plants in their backyards, especially when they do not enjoy economic benefit from it but have to bear with its visual effects. Therefore, it is more important than ever to include everybody in the decision-making processes, from private citizens over firms to the government. 

A transformative change of that kind requires participation and shared responsibility of all actors to achieve acceptance and make it successful.  A bundling of resources is necessary. Capital and technological resources are mainly possessed by companies and partly the government, whereas a decentralized production requires the use of space possessed (or controlled) by private citizens. This underpins the importance of a working democratic system. People must have the feeling of being included in the decision-making processes and must have a possibility to induce or prevent changes. Carolyn M. Hendriks from The Crawford School of Economics and Governance, who examined the accessibility of network governance in Dutch energy transition management is a proponent of more inclusion in the system and argues that “[i]nclusion of this kind requires the involvement of both functional representatives from affected groups, as well as descriptive representatives from affected populations. She argues that network governance can become more inclusive by providing “effective opportunities for policy actors, marginalized groups and citizens to participate in issues and decisions that affect them”.  They must feel responsible for their own fate, or as Eyre states it, it is necessary to “reconceptualiz[e] […] the user role as an active shaper of markets “. The government has to juggle between its responsibility to ensure enough freedom for firms to make innovation happen and increasingly involve citizens in decision-making, but it must also have enough power to ensure that unpopular decisions are executed, like the abandonment of subsidies for fossil fuels and the resulting obsolescence of old business models or the construction of large power plants. This shows how difficult good governmental work with regards to the energy transition is and calls for a very strong sense of leadership and persuasiveness amongst political leaders.  As every transition this one will also hurt some people – in every case in the short-term, hopefully not in the long-term. The often-cited coal industry is only one sector where people will have to be trained in different jobs. The government must work closely with the education sector and businesses to put people back to work who lost their job because of the energy transition - they must be trained in different jobs. 

In conclusion, the transition to a sustainable energy system is truly transformative. It will affect everyone, and everyone will affect it. It is part of an even more comprehensive transformation, namely the transformation of our economic system to a circular economy. It will be organized bottom-up and decentralized instead of top-down. It requires different resources than we are used to in the old system which are provided by different actors, especially space. Therefore, it must reach acceptance in all parts of our society and different actors must work together closely. They have do develop shared values and responsibilities and they must be willing to achieve the same objective.  

What does that mean practically? Politicians must show a different leadership style. They must emphasize the need for a renewed sense of self-responsibility of citizens. The extensive expansion of welfare systems in many Western countries over the last century has visibly led to a tremendous improvement of peoples´ lives. However, it appears that in this relatively short period of human history people got too used to being secured by the government in case of distress. As important a working social welfare system is – the transition of our economic system requires a shift in the thinking of all of us and an increased sense of personal autonomy. 

The right education is in this context of utmost importance. People should be educated about the aspects of energy and the energy transition and they must also be trained in a way to be able to respond to instant changes in the economy. Teaching economic and entrepreneurial skills and knowledge in schools would be a fantastic way to do so. 

Local co-organizing of energy projects should be promoted more strongly. A good example for how this can look like in practice is the German crowdfunding start-up Leihdeinerumweltgeld.de (“borrow your environment money”) which offers a financing platform for local energy projects. Citizens can, for example, invest in solar or wind parks in their city or municipality built by private companies. It seems obvious that this helps to achieve acceptance amongst private citizens as they are assigned a certain kind of ownership and benefit from the projects financially in form of an annual interest. 

Lastly, there must be a full commitment of key political and business leaders to reach the necessary energy goals. Unfortunately, election cycles of four to five years often do not make it possible to sustainably execute the kind of responsible governmental leadership urgently needed which would provide guidelines for shared responsibility and inspiration for businesses and citizens. 

References

1. Becker, S., Moss, T., Naumann, M. (2016). The Importance of Space: Towards a Socio- Material and Political Geography of Energy Transitions. In: Gailing, L., Moss, T. (eds.), Conceptualizing Germany’s Energy Transition, Palgrave Macmillan, 93-108.

2. Ellen MacArthur Foundation (2017). Concept. What is a circular economy? A framework for an economy that is restorative and regenerative by design. Accessed: 02.03.2019. Available at:  https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/circular-economy/concept 

3. Eyre, N. (2013). Decentralization of governance in the low-carbon transition. In: Roger Fouquet (ed.) Handbook on Energy and Climate Change, Edward Elgar Publishing, 581-597.

4. Harvey, R. (2016). NIMBYism, co-operatives and Germany’s Energy Transition. Thenews.coop. Accessed: 19.01.2017. Available at: https://www.thenews.coop/108839/sector/energy/nimbyism-co-operatives-germanys-energy-transition/ 

5. Hendriks, C. (2008). On Inclusion and Network Governance: The Democratic Disconnect of Dutch Energy Transitions. Public Administration, 86(4), 1009-103. 

6. Jonker, J. (2012). New business models. An exploratory study of changing transactions creating multiple value(s).  Working Paper, Nijmegen School of Management.

7. Leihdeinerumweltgeld.de (2017). Legen Sie in Ihre Umwelt an | LeihDeinerUmweltGeld. Accessed: 20.12.2017. Available at: http://leihdeinerumweltgeld.de. 

8. Pennink, B. (2014). Dimensions for Local Economic Development: Towards a Multi-level Multi Actor Model. Journal of Business and Economics, 5(1), 249.

9. Rotmans, J. (2014). Sustainability: Jan Rotmans at TEDxMaastricht. Accessed: 19.12.2017 Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9furIv2jg50 

10. Van der Horst, D. (2007). NIMBY or not? Exploring the relevance of location and the politics of voiced opinions in renewable energy siting controversies. Energy Policy, 35, 2705-2714. 

11. Zhao, P. & Pendlebury, J. (2014) Spatial planning and transport energy transition towards a low carbon system, disP - The Planning Review, 50(3), 20-30.