GLOBAL MELTDOWN
The catalogue of disasters that are happening right now
Across the planet, rising temperatures are taking their toll
CARBON DIOXIDE
New research has found that levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere - the main cause of global warming - are higher than at any time in the past 625,000 years. HOTTEST EVER
This year is expected to be the warmest ever recorded; 1998 was the hottest so far, but the past three years currently occupy the next three places.
DESERTIFICATION
The giant Kalahari desert, already four times the size of Britain, threatens to become larger still, covering farmland in Namibia, Botswana and South Africa.
EXPANDING OCEANS
The level of the world's seas and oceans is rising twice as fast as in the past, as their waters expand in rising temperatures and glaciers melt.
OCEAN EXILES
The people of the Carteret Islands, a scattering of atolls off Papua New Guinea in the South Pacific, have started to leave as their homes succumb to rising seas.
HURRICANES
Hurricane Epsilon - the 14th of the year - is forming in the Atlantic, even though the worst recorded hurricane season by far formally ended on Wednesday.
GLACIER MELT
Greenland glaciers have suddenly started racing towards the sea and melting. Much the same is beginning to happen to glaciers in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.
WATER SHORTAGE
Areas such as the western USA, which depend on mountain snows for their water supplies, are running short as less snow falls - and what does fall melts earlier.
DISAPPEARING SPECIES
Sealife and birdlife have declined catastrophically this year along America's north-west Pacific coast, after a similar meltdown in the North Sea.
CORAL REEFS
Corals on the Great Barrier Reef are bleaching out and dying as sea temperatures rise and scientists fear that the whole reef may perish by 2050.
Also in this section
The Challenge
- There is a finite amount of fossil fuel (oil, coal and natural gas) on the planet.
- Most of the planet's resources have been found and documented. It is unlikely that we will find more.
- The energy stored in these fossil fuels took the biosphere thousands of years to create and deposit. We have now used up over half of it, mostly within the past one hundred years.
- Energy is stored in these fuels in the form of hydrocarbons, which, when burned as fuel to generate energy, release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, contributing to global warming.
- The fuels we have used up to now were the cheap fuels, which were relatively easy to obtain and cleaner to burn, allowing us to have cheap, abundant energy.
- What remains is harder and more energy intensive to extract (takes more energy to obtain each unit of energy it releases) and less clean. This means it will take longer to produce, be more expensive and will result in greater pollution for less energy output.
- Developing countries would like to follow in our footsteps, driving cars and using energy as they emulate standards of living in developed countries.
- So far, we have not found a solution that will allow us to continue using energy at the level we are now, let alone supply similar levels to developing countries.
The Extent of our Dependence on Fossil Fuels
- Transportation
- Electricity Generation
- Farming
- Eating Fossil Fuels An article about the extent of fossil fuel dependency in modern food production.
- Plastics
The Evidence
External Links
- Peak Oil Primer
- Wolf at the Door: The Beginner's Guide to Peak Oil
- The Energy Bulletin Energy and Peak Oil News
- Articles by Richard Heinberg: Peak Oil and Options for a Post-Carbon World Part 1: Peak Oil, Part 2: Options.
- Green Cities and the End of the Age of Oil - an article by Richard Register published on the internet by Common Ground Magazine.
- As part of its 'Raise Energy Awareness Campaign', The Post Carbon Institute has released The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream in dvd and video formats. The film has been reviewed as the most succinct and effective discussion of the post fossil fuel age...It's imperative that it be seen by as many people as possible, and NOW. A preview can be seen here. A personal commentary on the documentary can be read here.
- America's NPR columnist, Ron Elving, comments on the US Energy Act of 2005 (signed into law on August 8, 2005) in an article titled: Watching Washington: Energy Bill Leaves Conservation on Back Burner
- James Howard Kunstler writes about the 'greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world' in his article The Long Emergency Ahead.
- James Birnbaum interviews James Howard Kunstler about the end of cheap oil and what this will mean to urban/suburban communities.
Toward Sustainability
- Green Energy: Obtaining energy from renewable resources such as wind, solar, and tidal energy.
- Relocalization Post Carbon Institute's call to action: "Relocalization is the process by which communities localize their economies and essential systems, such as food and energy production, water, money, culture, governance, media, and ownership."
- Permaculture
What Can I Do? Personal Responses
- Small Change
- Deconsumption: Shop less, recycle more, use less plastic. Live Simply
What can We Do? Collective Responses
- Here: Standing in the Eye of Oil Depletion and Global Warming: a personal account of community responses in Oakville, Ontario, Canada.
- Self-Reliant Suburbs An article that "offers 31 ideas that people can use to make their lives less car dependent and more self-reliant" in suburban neighbourhoods. From the book "Superbia! 31 Ways to Create Sustainable Neighborhoods" by Dan Chiras & Dave Wann.
- Retrofitting the Suburbs for Sustainability An article by David Holmgren about how sustainable suburbs might look if they were to follow permaculture principles.