A brief story of global warming- global warming skepticism
Of all the
forecasts of global environmental disasters made from time to time, the one
which aroused the most widespread skepticism was about global warming. Even as
several well-meaning people took it seriously- some rather too seriously- a
whole lot of other scientists and policy-makers dismissed it as
over-exaggeration. During 1970s through 1990s, those who believed in global
warming talked of it as soon as they felt a day was hotter than the previous
one. Others believed that even if the world continued to produce gases which
cause greenhouse effect, our oceans would keep assimilating them and no
long-term global warming will ensue. They dismissed episodes of extreme climate
as the usual fluctuations that occur in nature. Indeed during the late 1960s and
early 1970s, it was the forecast of global cooling that had captured public
imagination (Gribbin, 1975; Thompson, 1975; Peterson et al, 2008).
Global Warming A Scientifically Accepted Fact
During the last 20 years, the balance
of evidence has gradually and decisively shifted towards global warming. It is
now a scientifically accepted fact that global warming is indeed occurring and
that it will have long-ranging impacts on the earth’s ecosystems. There is no
longer a disagreement on the existence of global warming; if there are
disagreements, they are on the extent of harm global warming will cause. There
is also near-complete consensus that use of fossil fuels is the principal cause
of global warming and unless the emissions to atmosphere of CO2 and
other greenhouse gases are drastically reduced, global warming will
progressively increase and lead us to our doom.
Adverse Effects of Global Warming
So, global warming has already hit us,
and it is beginning to hit us harder. It has also produced another monster
which may me even more destructive than temperature rise and ocean
acidification .Given that 70% of the world is covered by oceans, any
disturbances in oceans can have bigger and ‘deeper’ effects on earth than the
disturbances in the rest of the 30% of the world!
Global Warming and Renewable Energy Source: India and the world
Once again, there is a
groundswell of demand for ‘alternative energy sources’, particularly the
‘renewable’. Even before global warming became an accepted reality in the
post-modern era, fossil fuels were almost universally perceived as highly
‘unclean’ fuels responsible for numerous forms of gross pollution, including
acid rain. On the other hand, non-conventional energy sources, especially the
renewable energy sources, have created a ‘clean’ image regarding environment
impacts. But obviously there is exception, one of the major exceptions is the
large hydropower projects. Past experience showed us that they can be
catastrophic for the environment. Now it is believed that mini-hydel and
micro-hydel projects can be proved harmless for alternatives.
The tide has turned so strongly in favour
of renewable that for the first time ever since the dawn of the fossil fuel era
over two hundred years ago, renewable energy technologies have attracted more
investment globally, ($140 billion) in 2008, compared with $110 billion for
fossil fuel-based technologies according to figures released by the United
Nations, June 2009 (Macalister, 2009). Wind energy has attracted the highest
new worldwide investment, $51.8 billion, followed by solar at $33.5 billion.
Biofuels are the next popular investment, winning $16.9 billion. There is as
much as a 27% rise to $36.6 billion in developing countries led by China, which
pumped in $ 15.6 billion, mostly in wind and biomass plants. India’s overall
spending on renewable energy has risen to $4.1 billion 2008, 12% up on 2007
levels.
India has started Spending on Renewables to reduce global warming and pollution
According to India’s Ministry for New
and Renewable Energy (MNRE, 2009), India has a potential of generating over
82000 MW (8.2 GW) of power from just wind, small hydro and biomass (Table 1.1).
Of this, only 6100 MW, i.e., a mere 7.4% of the potential is presently being
realized. There is a similarly vast potential for dispersed units, but only a
small fraction has been realized (Table 1.2). Which is why India has stepped up
its spending on renewable, just as the rest of the world has. It as if the
world is preparing to stake it’s all on renewable in the hope that renewable
will save it from the looming disaster of global warming and irreversible
pollution.
Table 1.1 : Potential of Power Obtainable from wind, small hydro and biomass in India vs its actual realization at present (MNRE, 2014)
Table 1.2 : Potential utilization of biogas and dispersed solar energy, biomass and wind energy systems in India and the present state of its realization (MNRE, 2014)
These links gives glimpses of the
renewable energy sources. It also addresses these tricky questions: are
renewable energy sources really as benign as is widely believed? Are they
really a sure answer to the problem of global warming?
Is there any major proof that Renewables are environment friendly ?
One may say that for thousands of
years when humankind was dependent almost totally on renewable, the world was
much less polluted and there was no global warming. Is this itself not a major
proof that renewable are environment-friendly?
Sadly, it isn’t!
The reason is
that till the mid-18th century the global population and the per
capita energy consumption, hence the total global energy consumption, were
small fractions of what they are today. Had we used fossil fuels at the rate
renewable sources were being used till 1850, we would not have experienced
global warming. But at the present rate of population growth and per capita
consumption no source of energy, however, clean it may be, can bail us out of
rapidly increasing global warming and other forms of pollution.
India, in its
National Electricity Policy 2005 (MNRE, 2009), has set for itself the goals of,
among other things: (a) access to electricity for all and (b) increase in per capita
availability to over 1000 units by 2012. In other words, we want to greatly
enhance energy consumption. In doing it, we will have to face the inevitable
consequence of more serious pollution. And, as we will bring out in the next
articles that renewable aren’t as squeaky clean as are popularly believed. Nor
is the use of renewable energy sources on a large scale an insignificant burden
on the environment.
