Moving on, this is the next part of the book, “The Uninhabitable Earth” where Wallace-Wells starts to talk about different effects of global climate change. This short section deals with the heat increase, and is titled, “Heat Death.” Here we go:
In science, more specifically astrophysics, heat death refers to a theory of the way that the universe will end. The theory postulates that the universe will end when all matter is and energy is evenly distributed throughout. Some refer to this state as being “The Big Freeze.”
In the Uninhabitable Earth, David Wallace-Wells is speaking of essentially the opposite happening. Basically, global temperature increases more and more people will die because of it. So let’s break down just how and why this would happen.
Human beings need to cool down, or they overheat, go into heat stroke, and die. It’s why it’s important to stay cool and hydrated if exerting yourself outdoors in the summer. We tragically see stories every August of young football players who die because of becoming overheated during practice.
If the planet suffers 7 degrees Celsius of warming there will be parts of the world around the Equator, with humidity, where it would be impossible for humans to cool down outdoors, to the extent that they would die within a few hours. “At 11 or 12 degrees Celsius of warming, more than half of the world’s population, as distributed today, would die of direct heat.” It would could take centuries to reach that milestone, though.
In one analysis, if emissions continue at their current rate (which would likely lead to 4-5 degrees Celsius of warming by 2100), by the year 2080 there could be between 100 million to 750 million “person days” of the most severe heat waves and 1 million “person days” of temperatures beyond human survivability. (A “person day” is a unit of multiplying the number of people affected by the number of days affected).
We have already seen days of extreme heat and deadly heat waves in India, Russia, Europe, and the Middle East. At one point in 2015 the heat index in the Persian Gulf was 163 degrees Fahrenheit. Tens of thousands of people have died. Train tracks have buckled. Roads have melted. There have been days in Arizona where it is too hot to fly.
In a perverse feedback loop. As the heat increases, more people will turn to Air Conditioning to stay cool. Air conditioning currently accounts for about 10% of all global electricity consumption. And a lot of that air conditioning takes place in urban areas. The planet is rapidly urbanizing with ample asphalt and concrete. Growing cities create heat islands as the concrete and asphalt absorb heat during the day and release it at night creating areas where it eventually will just never get cool in the warmer months.
Because of all of the uncertainty in the projections of what the global temperature will be in the future, all we can do is guess. Wallace-Wells believes that the greatest probability is for global temperatures to rise by about 3 degrees Celsius by 2100. We have the tools to fight this warming, but they require political will. And that is what we lack.
If we are going to limit warming to 3 degrees Celsius by 2100, we are going to need to implement “negative emissions.” We are going to have to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. We currently have technology to do this, Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS). But because CO2 is in the atmosphere everywhere around the globe we would need to have CCS plants all over the globe to capture it. And, it is estimated that if we wanted to limit our warming to 2 degrees Celsius by 2100, we would have to open 1.5 new CCS plants (of the current technology) every day for the next 70 years. Currently there are 18.
This is the problem of scale. We do have incredible technologies (and will likely develop more in the future), but are we able to deploy them at scale? It would take political will to do so. Individual and corporate efforts aren’t going to remove the carbon necessary to get us where we need to go.
*I want to thank everyone who read my previous diary for joining in the discussion. I tend to stick to the political diaries around here, but have felt compelled to write as I am reading this book.*
Peace,
BL Hokie