Save the World - But who are the Cheerleaders?

This was in response to a thread in TWTD http://www.twtd.co.uk today

The thread started with someone wondering how much carbon was released in getting all the delegates to Copenhagen and all the protestors. There was little sensible debate thereafter...... so I pitched in

The facts are simple, since we stopped polluting the atmosphere with soot and other particulates which effectively offset the effect of increased levels of CO2 in the first eight decades of the 20th Century, the levels of CO2 have been rising but also the global temperature trend. The important word is trend, for those who do not understand the word, if for example you take a set of any figures against time and graph them, the trend, is the overall gradient of the slope eliminating the peaks and troughs of the individual figures.

The trend for global temperatures is upwards, the only plausible explanation (and all the cosmic ray/Sun Activity data does not work btw) is that this has been caused by human CO2 emissions. Historically the earth has warmed and then CO2 levels have risen with a time lag of a century. The current situation is different the CO2 levels are rising and so is the temperature AT THE SAME TIME.

The solutions are not easy. We need to cut CO2 emissions by an extraordinary amount maybe 50% or more in as short a space of time as possible, and it needs to be done on a global scale hence we need the agreement of EVERY country and industry in the world.

This is unpopular, it means change, the stupid hate change while the clever welcome change. We shall now find out how many are stupid and how many are clever. The stupid may want the status quo to remain as they get rich in the short term but they will all lose out in the medium to long term. The clever look to the longer term, they see the sense in pain now for gain later, whether that is in terms of money or not drowning or not starving or whatever.

The carbon points is a big red herring, you cannot offset your carbon emissions by someone in Brazil saving a few metres of rain forest or planting a tree. The CO2 in the atmosphere has a half life of many decades, best not to put the CO2 there in the first place.

In response someone suggested we could never build enough wind turbines my response was....

Renewables are but part of the solution.

Other solutions include:
Increasing household and other property insulation to the very highest standards and replacing all out of date and innefficient technology with more energy efficient technology would save at least 35% of all energy usage. These improvements include better roof insulation, low energy light bulbs, Combined Heat and Power home energy units, energy efficient transport (i.e. Hybrid/Electric/LPG) Switching to Public transport, energy efficient TVs etc. etc.
Building local Power stations for local power use, currently at least 25% of the energy created at Sizewell B is lost in the National Grid.

Other alternative energy sources, Windpower, Solar power (panels are now 25% cheaper than a year ago and could drop by half again making them viable) Ground and Air source Heat Pumps, Hydrogen Fuel Cells (once non-industrial manufacture of Hydrogen on a local scale is possible in ten years time), Small household vertical wind turbines (existing technology) Waste CHP plants plus many others.
Low Voltage Household Electricity Circuits for Lights, TV, Computers etc.

There are many ways to save and create energy, windfarms are just one solution and in some ways not the best as energy is lost in transmission.

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All well and good but just who is going to champion all these solutions, replace an infrastructure based around burning fossil-fuels.

The energy companies pay lip service to wanting us the consumers to use less energy, but actually complain if a consumer uses too little power, my gas supplier queried how I used less than one unit of gas per day on average over three years, the solution was put on a jumper rather than turn up the Central Heating.

The vehicle manufacturers are only now realising that we need alternative fuel sources for vehicles and working to make the technology as viable and easy as petrol and diesel, but what of all the existing vehicles, they may last and be in use for thirty years.

The public transport infrastructure in at least two major industrialised nations, the UK and USA is not fit for purpose and will not be for the foreseeable future, it is too expensive, not integrated, not comprehensive enough and run for profit before the common good. This is a political issue and not one likely to be addressed.

Exactly who is cheerleading the real solutions, is anyone in Copenhagen going to suggest all these things are fixed? No of course not. The devil is in the detail. The detail is probably in the hands of the stupid.