Greta Thunberg (15 years old) is My New Hero

Greta Thunberg attended the Jan 2019 World Economic Forum at Davos and, in front of the world's most influential and powerful people, she said, 

"Now is the time to speak clearly. Solving the climate crisis is the greatest and most complex challenge that Homo Sapiens has ever faced.  

"The main solution, however, is so simple that even a small child can understand it.  We have to stop the emissions of greenhouse gases.  And either we do that or we don't.  

"You say nothing in life is black or white but that is a lie; a very dangerous lie.  Either we prevent 1.5 degrees of warming or we don't.  Either we avoid setting off that irreversible chain reaction beyond human control or we don't.  Either we choose to go on as a civilisation or we don't.  That is as black and white as it gets.  

"We must change almost everything in our current societies.  The bigger your carbon footprint is, the bigger your moral duty.  The bigger your platform, the bigger your responsibility.  

"Adults keep saying, "We owe it to the young people to give them hope."  But I don't want your hope.  I don't want you to be hopeful.  I want you to panic.  I want you to feel the fear I feel every day.  And then I want you to act.  I want you to act as if you would in a crisis.  I want you to act as if the house was on fire.  Because it is."

When we talk about the impacts of global warming, we ordinarily forecast to the year 2100, which seems a very long time in the future.  But, Greta will be about my age in 2050 and she may even live long enough to see the fireworks when the clock ticks midnight on New Year's Eve in 2099.  My youngest son, Peter, will be 87 years old if he lives till the end of the century.

So, when we talk about the warmer world of the future (predicted to be more than 3℃), all of our forecasts are part of our children's future.  This will be their reality.

At the young age of 15, Greta has already delivered one of the most impressive TED talks I have ever seen.  Click here to watch it.

Her impassioned plea has spurred me to action and I sincerely hope that others are equally inspired to take action.

The latest IPCC report, delivered last year, advised policy makers of the work that is needed to ensure that we limit global warming to 1.5℃, which was the aspirational target set in Paris 2015.  According to the summary of the report, "Global net human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) would need to fall by about 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching ‘net zero’ around 2050."

This is the global challenge, to halve our carbon emissions in the next ten years.  I know for a fact that this won't be possible for developing countries.  They have far more immediate concerns like building roads, hospitals and schools.  This means that it falls on us in the developed world to do the heavy lifting on this issue.  Those of us with the means to eliminate our emissions have a moral responsibility to do everything we possibly can, even if it means parting with some of our hard-earned cash.  As Greta says, we need to act as if the house is burning down, because it is!

Act on Energy

A few years ago I took the step of demanding that my electricity provider, Diamond Energy, charge me an extra 5.5c per kWh on my power bill.  They charge this premium so that they can then purchase Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) equivalent to the amount of power I consume.  In theory, this means that all of my electricity is 'green'.  This is one very simple step and it costs less than $1 per day.  Unfortunately, this small thing doesn't actually reduce the mix of coal fired power in our grid.  If every single household in Australia demanded 'green' power, the market simply could not deliver.  Most of the power that we use during the night comes from coal fired power plants.  So, even though Diamond Energy claim to be selling me 'green' power, the reality is a little more complicated.  They are actually selling me grid power and then offsetting my purchase by buying RECs.

To properly reduce my dependence on grid power, which mostly comes from burning coal, I need to produce my own power from a renewable energy source such as solar and / or wind and to store this energy in a battery so that it can be used when I need it, which is mostly at night.

There is an environmental downside to installing solar and battery in our home.  This is due to the raw materials and energy used to produce the solar panels and batteries.  Each solar panel produces about 300 kg of CO2 during manufacture.  Home batteries, on the other hand, produce about 100 kg of CO2 per kWh of capacity (Hao et al., 2017).

I recently received a quote for supply and installation of 26 solar panels (8 kW) and 10 kWh of home battery storage.  This system would have about 9 tonnes of embodied CO2 (similar to the embodied CO2 of a medium sized car).  So, how long would it take for this up-front environmental cost to be paid down?  Well, according to the 2018 National Greenhouse Accounts Factors report, every kWh of power produced in Queensland produces 0.8 kg of CO2 equivalent (CO2e).  This means that it takes 11,250 kWh to produce 9 tonnes of CO2e from grid power.  Given our historical power usage, our house would take two years to pay back the initial environmental cost of this system.

What about the financial cost?  Well, the up-front cost of 8 kW of solar plus 10 kWh of battery is just over $18k.  The system is forecast to produce an average 30 kWh of solar energy per day, which means that we will export about half of this power to the grid and use the rest ourselves.  Diamond Energy pays us a 12c per kWh tariff, so this should cover the cost of grid connection, which is about $1.30 per day.  We may even make a little money.  But, let's assume that our grid power connection ends up being a nett zero cost.  This alone will save us about $1,800 per year, meaning that, assuming power costs don't go up, it will take 10 yrs before our capital outlay will pay for itself.  If we anticipate power costs going up, then the system will take less than 10 yrs to pay for itself.  

So, in the long run, having solar and storage will actually save me money.  That's nice, but I don't think it's important.  What is much more important is that we will be reducing our greenhouse gas emissions.  By installing solar and storage we can save about 80 tonnes of CO2e emissions nett at our house over a twenty year period (the assumed life of the system).

Act on Food

I have been thinking that it's time to reduce the carbon footprint of my food.  I have read a lot about the environmental cost of red meat.  According to greeneatz.com, the average American has a carbon 'foodprint' of 2.5 tonnes CO2e per year (see below).  I'm guessing that the Australian diet is probably similar to the average American diet, so I'll assume that these figures also apply to Aussies.  I think we have a fairly normal diet at my house.  My three boys probably eat the equivalent of two adults worth of food, so I'm going to assume that we currently have a foodprint of about 10 tonnes of CO2e/yr.  If we cut red meat out of our diet, we will reduce our foodprint by about 2.4 t CO2e/yr.  If we go full vegetarian, we can reduce our foodprint by about 3.2 t CO2e/yr.  I'm not willing to contemplate going full vegan!

I doubt that we will be able to adopt a full vegetarian diet, but I suspect that we can probably cut our meat consumption in half.  If we are able to do this, we can reduce our foodprint from 10 t CO2e/yr to about 8.5 t CO2e/yr, a saving of 1.5 tonnes of CO2e.  Projected over a 20 year period, this equates to a reduction of 30 tonnes of CO2e.  If we were able to adopt a vegan lifestyle, we would be able to reduce our foodprint by an extra 50 tonnes of CO2e over a 20yr period.  Eating less meat is also a great way of reducing your grocery bill since meat products are often a lot more expensive than vegetarian products.

Act on Transport

The best way to reduce emissions is to walk or ride a bike.  Using motorbikes and public transport are also very efficient methods of transport.  But, if you must drive a car, then electric vehicles (EVs) have the lowest environmental cost when compared to vehicles with an internal combustion engine.

Australia is going to see a range of new low-cost electric vehicles entering the market this year.  The cheapest EVs are Hyundai Ioniq (selling now for $45k, range ~200km), the Nissan Leaf (available August for $50k, range ~250km), the Renault Zoe (selling now for $53k, range ~300km), the Tesla Model 3 (starting from $50k standard, but delivery uncertain, range ~350km), and the Hyundai Kona (available March? under $60k, range ~400km).

The carbon footprint of a new EV is about 50% higher than that of an internal combustion engine vehicle (ICEV), as I detailed in a previous blog.  This is due to the higher environmental cost, from energy and materials, of manufacturing the batteries.  But, EVs do not burn any fossil fuel directly and their indirect emissions depend on the proportion of fossil fuel sources in the energy supply network.  If you produce your own electrons from solar panels, then the car will be a zero emission vehicle.

Every litre of fuel creates about 2.8 kg of CO2e emissions.  If we assume that an average ICEV burns 8L of fuel per 100km travelled, and that the average distance travelled in a year is 15,000 km, then a year's worth of driving in an ICEV produces 3.36 tonnes of CO2e emissions.  By switching to an EV, and charging from your own solar cells, this will save a household more than 60 tonnes of CO2e over 20 years.

Plant Trees

Half of the dry weight of a tree is carbon.  Each tree that is planted and grows for 20 years should achieve a dry weight of about 200kg (Frederick et al., 1985).  Since the carbon content of a tree is about 50% of its dry weight, this means that each tree will capture about 100kg of carbon over twenty years of growth.  100kg of carbon is equivalent to 360kg of CO2.

Assuming that only half of the trees planted will reach 20yrs of age, you would need to plant about 6 trees to offset 1 tonne of CO2.

Planet Ark facilitate National Tree Day every year where individuals and groups can get involved in planting trees at locations all over Australia.  You can get involved with this event at https://treeday.planetark.org/.  Tree Day this year is 28 July 2019.  Get involved.

Get Political

Reflecting on Greta Thunberg's call for desperate action has pushed me to get politically involved.  We have a federal election coming up in May this year and I think we are all aware of the inexcusable behaviour of the Liberal and National parties who thought it was incredibly funny to bring a lump of coal into the parliament in a wacky attempt to win support for new coal mines and coal fired power stations.  Instead, they managed to highlight just how clueless they are and how careless they are with this globally important issue.  Labor haven't exactly shown much leadership on climate policy either.  They have publicly supported renewable energy projects, but they have been caught out holding hands with coal miners such as Adani.  I cannot support either of these parties because neither of them is willing to radically drive our emissions down.

While I am strongly opposed to the communist impulses of the Greens, I have nonetheless decided to join the Greens party as they are the only party to regularly take up the fight on behalf of future generations who have the unfortunate position of inheriting the planet we have so royally fucked up.

In addition to joining the Greens, I am also taking some time to write to politicians and other people of influence, such as the Vice Chancellor of my university, to let them know that I want them to behave responsibly on climate policy.  I want them to commit to cutting emissions by 2030 by at least 45% of 2010 values and to commit to zero emissions by 2050.  I don't know if letters will help convince the politicians, but I know that doing nothing is not going to get us anywhere.

Department of the Environment. (2018). National Greenhouse Accounts Factors. Australian Government: Canberra, Australia.

Frederick, D.J., Madgwick, H.A.I., Jurgensen, M.F., & Oliver, G.R. (1985). Dry matter content and nutrient distribution in an age series of Eucalypt Regnans plantations in New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Forestry Science, 15(2), 158-179.

Hao, H., Mu, Z., Jiang, S., Liu, Z., & Zhao, F. (2017). GHG Emissions from the Production of Lithium-Ion Batteries for Electric Vehicles in China. Sustainability, 9, 504.