Our Choice

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Our Choice

• Al Gore

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Assigned Chapters

• Introduction
• Chapter 1 What Goes Up Must Come Down
• Chapter 2 Where Our Energy Comes From and Where
  It GOES
• Chapter 14 Changing The Way We Think
• Chapter 16 Political Obstacles
• Chapter 18 Our Choice

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Introduction

• Serious damage, but we probably still do have
  time for recovery
• The solution to make our choice to act now!
• The book proposes a solution to the climate
  crises

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• Note that the solution is not easy!
• Need will if we choose to solve the climate
  crises
• Positive spillovers for too many countries?
• Associated positive economic outcomes.

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Carbon Dioxide

• Burning of carbon-based fuels since the
  industrial revolution has rapidly increased
  concentrations of carbon dioxide, increasing the
  rate of global warming and causing anthropogenic
  climate change

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• Need joint effort households and businesses
• They add up and they reinforce commitment
• Role of active players
• The signs of the change we need are now beginning
  to appear all around us. Can you name few?
• Dependency on foreign oil!
• Oil Peack?

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• Security crises
• Climate crises
• Economic crises
• our dangerous over-reliance on carbon based
  fuels is at the core of all three of these
  challenges
• Obamas steps toward building a renewable energy
  infrastructure
• Conflict?

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• Need to promote required incentives
• in practical terms, the rescue of future
  generations must start right now

• Next. CH 1

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WHAT GOES UP MUST COME FOWN

• CH. 1

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• Human civilization and environment are colliding!
• Deterioration of out atmosphere
• It is global and affecting every part of the
  earth
• The source of global warming
• The reflective problem

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Main Sources of global warming

• Carbon dioxide (CO2) 43
• Methane (CH4) 27
• Black Carbon 12
• Other sources 19
• All are emitted from many human activities
  transportation, farming, heating

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1. Carbon Dioxide

• The biggest global warming cause
• Mainly from burning of coal (heat and
  electricity), burning of oil-based products
  (gasoline, diesel, jet fuel)
• Most discussions of how to solve the climate
  crises tend to focus on producing energy that do
  not produce CO2
• Another source (comes after fossil fuel) is land
  use changes
• Deforestation, burning of trees,
• Try to reduce burning od fossil fuel and reduce
  deforstation

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• Wild fires

• deforestation

• Soil erosion

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2. Methane

• Although is smaller that CO2, over a 100 period,
  methane is more than 20 times strong as CO2 in
  its ability to trap heat in the atmosphere.
• Watch What Goes Up Greenhouse Gases
• 50 occur in agriculture
• In agriculture most methane comes from livestock,
  livestock waste
• The remaining comes from oil and gas production

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3. Black Carbon
Watch The Menace of the Brown Cloud
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Black Carbon

• Why it causes a particular threat to India and
  China?
• More than 30 of black carbon comes from burring
  of fossil fuels (mainly diesel truck!)
• In areas with long dry seasons with no rainfall,
  black carbon concentration is high
• Watch and read Cleaning the Air after the Great
  Smog of 1952

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• The solution to global warming is as easy to
  describe as it is difficult to put into practice
• Emissions of the 6 kinds of air pollutants
  causing the problem must all be reduced

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Next Ch 2

• Where Our Energy Comes From and Where it Goes