Chris Gardner didn't intend to write "The Pursuit Of Happyness". He actually had written and intended to publish a self help book called "Start Where You Are", which was published after the inspiring biographical film starring Will Smith. In explaining that decision, Mr. Gardner opined that his advice had no teeth without first understanding his struggle. And that explains why this article desperately needed a Part 1.
We simple cannot properly make any deductions about anything without first having unvarnished details on the subject. So understanding the entire picture of the environmental impact of fossil fuels was a necessary base to make decisions on the subject of "Part 2", on the economics of fossil fuels.
Just what has the Age of Fossil Fuels given us?
The first oil well in the world was drilled in Titusville, PA in 1859 by Edwin Drake. Coal began being used to power factories in the 1880s. Coal Mining and usage existed in human history dating back to the Aztec and Roman Empires, and was used primarily to smelt weapons and more recently, heat homes. Given that coal was cheaper and more efficient than wood, it began to reach its apex of powering steam engines, heating large buildings, and then generating electricity. And so begins the Industrial Revolution.
We have witnessed, what will go down as a greater advancement in technology, and in the human condition as a whole over the past 150 years, than the rest of all of humanity's existence combined. Its completely inconceivable to see what was coming in the 1880s. It happened so fast, and life became so easy, that we almost have no collective memory of how much worse life was then. Take a look below at a few of the indicators for human progress since 1880.
Life expectancy has doubled from 40 to 80
Literacy rates went from 12% to .4%
Workplace fatalities have declined 90%
Global death by famine is down 92%
Infant mortality went from 216 per 1000 births to 6 per 1000
Deforestation declined rapidly (US & Europe Only)
Death by infectious disease has fallen from 17 per 1000 to around 3 per 1000 per annum
With results like that, it's really difficult to argue against the positive effects of the Fossil Fuel revolution. However, as discussed in Part 1, Climate Change is real, and for those on the American "Right", its a mistake to deny this. The question really to be answered is, what are we going to do about it? Two paths are available for humanity in the all important next 100 years...mitigation VS adaptation.
What will the climate change actually look like?
Truthfully, we don't know how much climate change there will be, there is no real consensus on that rise in global temperature the planet will actually see. The range among competing predictions is 2 to 4 degrees Celsius. That may seem like a small number to the uninitiated, but that's not exactly a cranny. The former seems almost a shoe-in for adaptation, the latter would require an amalgamation of adaptation and mitigation measures.
We also have no viable method for predicting weather/climate related "Shock Events". These events such as drought, floods, or heat waves, present significant and immediate threats to household food security, as well as causing deep economic bends. There is an incomplex solution to help temper the damage of these events, and I will discuss in a later section of the article.
Energy Poverty
Energy Poverty is very simply the lack of adequate, affordable, reliable, quality, safe and environmentally sound energy services to support development. Energy Poverty is currently the greatest preventative statistic denying advancement in developing countries that we can look to.
For a better look at our current global situation, consider the following facts.
According to 2018 IEA World Energy Outlook one billion people in the world – 14% of the global population – have no access to electricity, mostly in Africa and South Asia.
2.7 billion people – 40% of the world population – lack access to clean cooking facilities worldwide, relying instead on solid biomass, coal, or kerosene as their primary cooking fuels that we all know for being the highest polluting energy sources available.
Household air pollution stemming from inefficient and polluting cooking fuels was linked to nearly 500,000 premature deaths in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2018
Globally, the WHO estimates deaths from indoor air pollution at 2.5 million – a figure comparable to the combined death toll of malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS in 2018
We in the developed world take access to this energy for granted. We don't discern or take into account the health detriment we put developing nations into when we legislate unthoughtful and strident environmental laws.
These countries simply cannot join the modern world and cannot improve their vital health metrics without affordable energy. But most importantly, we will not see the intellect, ideas, innovations, and overabundance of gifts in the world that these people have to offer if they have to work 2 hours each day just to have clean water, as most women in Africa do.
Take a look at the Electricity Consumption Per Capita globally
Now take a look at the most recent global map of malnutrition by country. Notice the remarkable overlay. Are we to deny these countries the ability to achieve modern nutritional and living standards that we enjoy? The World Bank, the European Development Bank, other large commercial banks simply won't fund any hydrocarbon plants in these countries. This is terrible policy and must reversed for a brighter future.
How do we know cheap energy is the answer? Well we can simply look to the two 30 year experiments to evaluate in India and China. The Human Development Index (HDI) is a summary measure of average achievement in key dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, being knowledgeable and have a decent standard of living.
Since 1990, China and India has seen a 50% and 51% increase in HDI, an unfathomable increase in that period of time. How did the countries, with over a billion people in population each, achieve such a feat? Simple, they had accessible cheap energy.
In that same time period, India increased it's energy per capita 82% and China 192%. Simultaneously, Haiti had a net loss than its previous Energy Per Capita usage, and resorted to wood(biomass) to fuel much of its energy needs. Wood burning is environmentally unsound and much more of a pollutant than fossil fuels, and has left Haiti with almost complete deforestation.
Take a look at the pic below. This is the border of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. DR uses a much higher rate of carbon energy consumption per capita, and has its forest intact, Haiti has has nearly none left on it's side of the border.
So what do we do? What trade-offs do we make?
What amount of climate change are we willing to accept?
In order to make any mitigating changes to the current climate path, sacrifices will have to be made, trade-offs will have to occur. Society as a whole will have to figure out exactly what those will be. One thing is certain, the current idea of a full or dramatic carbon reduction, ie Paris Agreement, will almost certain be too costly economically.
On Economics, If we abided by the Paris Accords climate regulations, it would lead to a $20,000 loss of income per family, and an aggregate GDP loss of 2.1 Trillion dollars.
Yes, Trillion. Not to mention, the UN Environmental Commission concluded, that the Earth will still warm by at least 3 degrees Celsius by 2100, if every single country on earth abided by the agreement. If the US cut its carbon emissions 100%, the result would only be a .2 degrees cooler change. The Green New Deal would cost a typical family of four over $8000 every single year.
As you can see, the financial damage is severe on a national and individual level. Which would lead most to choose adaptation over these Draconian mitigations measures offered by politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. However, the damage will almost certainly be fatal to developing countries heavily dependent on these fossil fuels for sustainment. The countries that don't abide by the agreement will certainly have a huge advantage economically over the countries that do.
So Really, what can we do?
There doesn't seem to be one answer. We obviously can't just "full-stop" carbon usage. Nor can we sit idly and do nothing. Nobel Economist William Nordhouse probably has be the best proposal on how to act going forward. First, need to accept that a certain amount of global warming is inevitable now, and we're going have to be able to adapt to it within that range. We seemed to have forgotten how talented humans are at adapting. The cost of mitigation to keep the temperature rise under 2 degree C far exceeds the damage that climate change would cause. What we need to focus on is curbing global warming beyond that range, which is 3.5 degrees Celsius over the next century.
If we accept this proposition, how do we ensure we achieve that < 3.5 degrees target and protect humanity with adaptation measures? The first thing we do is pour money into research and development. Believe it or not, the energy companies will be the catalysts who actually solve this problem. The Frac revolution in the US has lead to emissions dropping dramatically since 2005 with the increasing usage of much cleaner natural gas. Take a look at the dramatic drop in emissions since fracking exploded in 2005.
Further, we need to be able to store solar and wind power, as we currently cannot, and that energy has to used immediately. That will be solved in the next 100 years. An increase in Nuclear Power, which has no pollution, would also help the process. We also need to focus on carbon capture technology. In 2019, a team at MIT invented a process to remove Carbon Dioxide from the air.
There are two types of people in the world, those who believe in humanity, and those who don't.
I happen to be a believer and have great confidence that we will invent the technology to solve this problem, as humanity always has. Remember in 1908 the Model T was the worlds first factory car.
90 years later, we have the remote control Rover on the surface of Mars! We really don't even need that giant of a leap to solve the climate problem in the next 100 years.
In addition to more R&D, we need much more clean, cheap energy. That seems antithetical to the mission, however its important to remember that we are choosing a mostly adaptation plan. The poorest countries are going to suffer the most as shock events get worse, and oceans rise. They need technology, energy, access to medication, and proper food supplies in order to combat these events. They can't get to that point without clean and cheap energy. We have to keep the push to provide electricity for these countries to not only solve the problems mentioned above, but unlock the potential of the humans living there. With increased EPC usage, labor becomes less intensive. Can you imagine all of those beautiful minds with time and access to technology to offer their own ideas on how to solve our problems? I can and it fascinates me.
The one thing "The West" did better than the rest of the world was unlock the potential of the citizens living within these countries. The US is the greatest example of humans achieving to their capabilities in history. The energy revolution was the greatest catalyst that pushed that achievement. For the last 30 years, that same potential has been unlocked in India, allowing many great achievements by their citizens.
Need proof? In 2020, 30% of all Fortunate 500 CEOS were Indian, despite being 1.2% of the total US population. Near and Far East Asians have come here as immigrants and lead the technological revolution. They were able to do so in congruence with gains in access to power, freeing up their time to achieve. Think that is impressive? Wait till see what happens when the same thing happens in Africa....the best of humanity will be unleashed and the possibilities will be limitless.
The Plan
Solving the climate crisis is difficult, but not complicated. We will have to choose adaptation and will need to take 3 major steps:
Pour massive amounts of funding into energy technology R&D
Increase development of natural gas and other transition energies such as hydrogen and nuclear energy, allowing developing countries to improve their abilities to handle shock events.
Ease financing to developing nations to build carbon based energy plants.
Making drastic changes to our current energy sources now will just be too damaging financially, leading to a much worse human condition than the worse case climate models currently predict.
Humanity has an incredible ability to survive when pressed. Consider the Toba Catastrophe, in which the Toba Super Volcano in Indonesia erupted 70K years ago, and left humanity with a population of somewhere between 3-10K globally. We survived and here we are.
Climate Change is a challenge, but we have faced tougher ones. There is currently a little girl in Africa that will unlock the cure for Cancer. There's small boy in Asia, who will invent the technology to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. I believe in humanity because humanity has proven itself time and again to meet the task at hand. As long as we don't overreact, maintain vigilance, and choose what's best for the entire planet.