Living Among the Stars: A Human's place in the Universe (The Stories behind the Future Book 2)

by R E Kearney

  In 100 percent cities like Georgetown, Texas, wind and solar provide an affordable and stable energy solution that shelters residents from the fluctuating costs of dirty fuels. Georgetown is now one of the first US cities to run entirely on renewable energy. Clean energy is providing savings to schools, businesses, and faith communities. Schools are saving millions of dollars that they are putting money back into the classroom after investing in solar. Churches are reinvesting in programs like food banks that serve low-income and impoverished communities with the money they save from going solar.

  “By establishing a 100 percent renewable energy goal, we have an opportunity to use solar power that we can control in our community, for our community. Clean energy is a way that we can save money for Abita Springs both today and in the future.” The Mayor of Abita Springs Louisiana says, “Transitioning to 100 percent renewable energy is a practical decision we’re making for our environment, our economy, and for what our constituents want in Abita Springs. Politics has nothing to do with it for me. Clean energy just makes good economic sense.”

  Atlanta Georgia lawmakers plan to power the city entirely on renewable power by 2035. The City is committed to develop a plan of action to transition all of its buildings to clean energy sources by 2025, and for the entire city to make the switch a decade later. “We know that moving to clean energy will create good jobs, clean up our air and water and lower our residents’ utility bills,” announced city council member Kwanza Hall. “We never thought we’d be away from landline phones or desktop computers, but today we carry our smart phones around and they’re more powerful than anything we used to have. We have to set an ambitious goal or we’re never going to get there.”

  The Earth’s biggest polluter plans the Earth’s biggest city to reduce pollution. China's leaders are planning a megacity that will be home to 130 million people and cover an area the size of New England. This huge city will be named Jing-Jin-Ji, which stands for Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and sits on the northeast coast of China. China’s government is expected to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on transport and infrastructure projects that will connect around 130 million people living in Beijing, the bustling port city of Tianjin and 11 other cities in Hebei province. "The biggest advantage of Jing-Jin-Ji is that we can have a more coordinated development and better environmental plan over a wider area," said Zhang Chao, an official at the Tianjin Free Trade Zone.

  While it is supposed to become a motor for innovation and growth within China, some experts think Jing-Ji-Ji could also become a model of sustainable growth for the rest of the country and the world. Hebei is China's most industrialized and polluted province and the main source of smog in Beijing, but it also has strong winds and higher than average sunlight, which could translate into wind and solar power and ease its transition to low-carbon manufacturing. A crucial part of the strategy is the revitalization of Tianjin as a base for advanced manufacturing and international shipping. Beijing will remain as the nation's capital and political and cultural center, while Hebei province will shift to clean manufacturing and wholesale trading.

  Tesla plans to build entire city, possibly hundreds of Tesla Cities. Tesla Cities will have several unique features. The buildings will all have solar roofs. For remaining electricity needs, electricity will come from wind farms or solar farms built in the region. Geothermal power, hydropower, and rainbow power might be used in certain cases. Some amount of battery storage, such as Tesla Powerpacks and Powerwalls, will be installed, so electricity supply and electricity demand always match.

  Plans for the world's first "Tesla town" are underway. YarraBend, a suburb-to-be located just outside of Melbourne's city center, is under development. Tesla Cities’ residents who choose to drive will have to drive fully electric cars, although, they can choose non-Tesla models if they prefer. Tesla’s self-driving electric minibuses, streetcars and subways will be implemented for certain routes as well. However, Elon is intent to make these Tesla Cities walkable and bikeable, with urban cores of mixed land uses, such as residential, commercial, governmental, etc., which will follow specific aesthetic guidelines.

  For last-mile deliveries within the urban cores, robots will be used in order to save on costs and further test and develop hardware and software that Elon wants to use for other applications at Tesla and SpaceX. Conventional shippers such as FedEx and UPS will simply deliver their packages to central shipping hubs where Tesla Cities robots take over. Industrial hubs will need to focus on matters that help to solve critical human/societal challenges.

  Asia has long been the main driver of future oil demand and so developments in India and China will be watched extremely closely.

  “China sees investment in climate-related action as essential to secure a safe and prosperous future for Chinese citizens, as well as a strategic opportunity to develop and supply the technologies of the future.” Isabel Hilton.

  China innovates to prosper. China is inventing, innovating and implementing a wide range of Earth preserving developments. One such innovation is the largest floating solar power plant in the world, now officially in operation. The floating solar power plant is located in the city of Huainan in the Anhui province in China. The system has a power output capacity of 40 megawatts, which is not sufficient to power the city of Huainan. But power production is not its only purpose. With this project, China gains four ways.

  First, this floating solar farm has the advantage of not using up valuable land in this densely populated area. The panels also help to conserve precious freshwater supplies by lowering the amount of evaporation into the surrounding atmosphere. The water surrounding and supporting the solar farm keeps ambient temperatures around the solar panels lower, which helps boost their efficiency and limits their long-term heat-induced degradation. Additionally, the solar power plant in Huainan is floating on a lake that was created by rain after the surrounding land collapsed in a process known as subsidence following intensive coal mining operations over a period of years.

  China has been building two wind turbines every hour. This is the world's biggest program of turbine installation, double that of its nearest rival, the US. China’s entire annual increase in energy demand has been fulfilled from the wind. But China has built so much coal-fired generating capacity that it is turning off wind turbines for 15% of the time. The problem is that coal-fired power stations are given priority access to the grid.

  Lu Kang, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman says, "China has made great efforts in areas including reducing emission, environmental protection and developing renewable sustainable energy. “The International Community recognizes our leading example role on climate change. I can assure you that China is determined to stick to this green sustainable path of development. This also serves China’s own need for development." It’s this decrease in demand and increase in renewables that gave China the confidence to ratify the Paris climate change agreement.

  Greenery clad towers take root in China. A tree grows in Nanjing. In fact many trees grow in Nanjing, and many of them will grow high in the sky. The planned Nanjing vertical forests will consist of a pair of towers atop a shared podium. In total, the two buildings will sport six hundred tall trees and five hundred medium-sized trees, plus two thousand and five hundred cascading plants and shrubs in concrete planters integrated into balconies.

  According to the firm, all this greenery will absorb approximately twenty-five tons of CO2 per year, while producing about one hundred and thirty-two pounds of oxygen a day.

  India Steps Up Climate Change Efforts. The India Ministry of Environment and Forests has developed and issued a list of twenty initiatives that the country is undertaking to address climate change at home. These steps come as part of India's larger National Action Plan on Climate Change. The Plan mentions reforestation as a priority on India's environmental agenda. A major drive is under way nationwide to add 0.8 million hectares of forest per year, coupled with efforts to improve forest management, cons
ervation, and regeneration and to boost local capacity and job creation for some of India's poorest communities.

  In a related area, India has scrapped plans for nearly fourteen gigawatts of coal-fired power stations, because solar energy is becoming much cheaper. “Measures taken by the Indian Government to improve energy efficiency coupled with ambitious renewable energy targets and the plummeting cost of solar has had an impact on existing as well as proposed coal fired power plants, rendering an increasing number as financially unviable,” according to Analyst Tim Buckley, director of energy finance studies at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA).

  China and the world turn to California for Climate Change expertise. California is emerging as the de facto negotiator with the world on the environment. California environmental officials are working with Mexico and Canada to create what is informally called the “Nafta” of climate change with a carbon-cutting program that spans the region. In 2017, the environmental ministers of Canada, Mexico and California signed a global pact in San Francisco, which was drafted largely by California, to lower planet-warming greenhouse pollution. In another action, the Government of California and the Scottish Government have signed a joint agreement which commits them to work with one another to fight climate change. Also, California officials have rolled out the welcome mat in the last two years for representatives from more than three dozen countries — including China, Kazakhstan, France and Abu Dhabi — in an attempt to spread the seeds of the state’s policies for fighting global warming.

  By establishing agreements with these foreign leaders, California officials have turned California’s Air Resources Board and Environmental Protection Agency into de facto diplomatic organizations. California is not only fighting to protect its legacy of sweeping environmental protection, but also holding itself out as a model to other states, and to nations, on how to fight climate change. “I want to do everything we can to keep America on track, keep the world on track, and lead in all the ways California has,” according to California Governor Jerry Brown, “We’re looking to do everything we can to advance our program, regardless of whatever happens in Washington.”

  “Observe always that everything is the result of change, and get used to thinking that there is nothing Nature loves so well as to change existing forms and make new ones of them.” Marcus Aurelius, emperor of Rome (121-180 AD)

  rEVolution. Fossil fuels are for fossil fools. The Earth can only get cleaner if all forms of transport get cleaner. Transport contributes almost one-quarter of the current global energy-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and is growing faster than any other energy end-use sector. But efforts to significantly reduce the transport contribution to GHG emissions are succeeding. Vehicles powered using renewable sources of energy are transporting passengers and goods on the streets of the world in ever increasing numbers now. The majority of these ‘green’ powered vehicles are Electric Vehicles, thus the EV of rEVolution. These renewable energy vehicles which do not leave a pollution footprint, a trail of stink and a choking cloud of carbon gases are the key factor in all plans for an environmentally friendly, low-pollution future.

  Fighting infernal combustion. Efforts to expand electric vehicles use are occurring worldwide. Partners to The Paris Declaration on Electro-Mobility and Climate Change and Call to Action have committed to broaden their efforts and called for a decisive joint effort towards sustainable transport electrification – including that at least 20% of all road vehicles (cars, 2 and 3-wheelers, trucks, buses and others) are to be electrically powered by 2030. The Declaration builds on current successful experiences worldwide and the converging interest of all transport modes for hybrid/electric solutions.

  "Let us reconnect with nature, fill our lungs with clean air instead of pollution, let us see beauty more clearly," says Leonardo DiCaprio in a commercial that's part of a display for an electric vehicle made by Chinese automaker BYD. "With new energy, we can see this future. Now let's make it ours."

  To fight today’s choking smog, cities in China, Europe, India and Southeast Asia are requiring the replacement of gasoline powered vehicles with electric vehicles. Beijing has announced a plan to replace all 67,000 fossil-fueled taxis in the city with electric cars in an effort to reduce its poisonous blankets of deadly air. China is also embarked on an aggressive program to encourage private citizens to buy what it calls “new energy vehicles” — hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and battery-operated cars.

  US automaker, Ford, which sold 1.3 million cars in China last year, has announced it will electrify seventy percent of its vehicles in China by 2025. Ford is responding to Beijing’s demand that auto manufacturers sell more electric vehicles to reduce vehicle emissions, as well as China's dependence on foreign oil. By early next year, Beijing will require automakers in China to ensure that at least eight percent of all vehicles they manufacture are electric. The country had more than one million electric vehicles in 2016, which is an 87 percent increase over the previous year.

  India will sell only electric cars within the next 13 years. Under new government plans, every car sold in India beginning in 2030 will be electric. It’s hoped that by ridding India’s roads of gasoline and diesel cars in the years ahead, India will be able to reduce the harmful levels of air pollution that contribute to a staggering 1.2 million deaths per year. The government of India has calculated that changing to electric vehicles would save their country sixty billion dollars in energy costs by 2030, while also reducing running costs for millions of India’s car owners.

  “Nature bears long with those who wrong her. She is patient under abuse. But when abuse has gone too far, when the time of reckoning finally comes, she is equally slow to be appeased and to turn away her wrath.” Nathaniel H. Egleston, Harper's Magazine (Apr 1882)

  Virtues of Volcanic Dust. As stated early in this discussion, much of the damage we have done to the Earth cannot be undone. But there are scientists searching for methods to at least reduce the damage. These scientists are exploring a process called Geoengineering. Geoengineering is the catch-all term for attempts to alter Earth's climate in order to mitigate the effects of climate change and global warming.

  As the ravages of climate change become ever more apparent, some scientists are contemplating an array of possible technological fixes and advancing many different strategies for geoengineering. One of the more extravagant solar engineering proposals is a plan to position giant mirrors in space, each with orbits that keep them between the sun and Earth to intercept some of the sun's rays before they reach Earth. Or trillions of oversized, Frisbee-like disks might be sent into an Earth orbit for the same purpose. Another geoengineering proposal is called "wake whitening", which is the manipulating of the wakes created by large cargo ships so that they're more reflective and last longer. According to a recent study, wake whitening could cool the planet by one degree Fahrenheit over the next fifty years.

  “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” The Bible, Proverbs (29:18)

  Possibly the most risky and controversial of these strategies is Solar Geoengineering. Solar geoengineering is a process that involves the deliberate injection of reflective aerosols such as sulfuric acid or diamond dust into the stratosphere as a way of temporarily offsetting the warming effects of greenhouse gases. Scientists have been studying the concept in the lab and in computer models in recent years. Due to their studies, they have come to believe eventually solar geoengineering could be a valuable adjunct   to cutting emissions.

  Some scientists believe a single act of solar geoengineering could cool down the entire planet, albeit for a short while, if the materials were dispatched from the right location. “If it takes place at the Equator, whatever enters the stratosphere will spread out to the entire globe,” according to Trude Storelvmo, associate professor of geology and geophysics at Yale. “The atmosphere will do that for you if the injection happens at the right latitude, which would be in the tropics.”

 
To understand how it solar geoengineering works, consider the 1991 eruption of the Mount Pinatubo volcano in the Philippines. Mount Pinatubo spewed millions of tons of sulfur dioxide gas into the atmosphere. Once in the atmosphere, the sulfur dioxide gas turned into small droplets that circled the globe for weeks, reflecting sunlight back into space. As a result: Earth became cooler.

  Storelvmo studies the role of aerosol particles and their effect on climate. “We had a cooling of a half degree of Celsius or more for a year or two after the eruption, until the particles settled down again. Every time we have a volcanic eruption, it puts particles up there. That’s how we know for a fact that this works.”

  But, employing any form of geoengineering is just addressing the symptoms of climate change and global warming. Geoengineering will not solve the existing problems we created. Advancing geoengineering theories may cause more problems. The public may be lulled into believing that a "technological quick fix" is at hand and that no other measures are needed to save Earth from potentially catastrophic climate change.

  And then there are the risks. Experts worry that large-scale solar geoengineering could disrupt rainfall patterns, possibly triggering droughts. There are also concerns over possible effects on the ozone layer, which absorbs most of the sun's ultraviolet radiation. As well, any disruptions that occur would very likely cross national boundaries, which means political repercussions are almost guaranteed.