Carbon footprint (Part 7)

Last Thursday's discussion has become too technical, though we tried our best to simplify it further without losing the facts about climate change and global warming.  There might be no way we can really explain it in plain English because it's both a physical and a chemical phenomenon and anybody who enrolled in any chemistry class knows the formulas can be very disconcerting to say the least.  At best we said, increasing carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere in the last century or two induced a greenhouse effect which in turn heated the atmosphere slowly, resulting in abnormal weather patterns, melting the polar ice caps, which might cause sea levels to rise inundating whole islands in the process.

But what caused carbon dioxide levels to inflate?  We said that natural processes both absorb and emit CO2 into the air, yet maintaining a balance, for millions of years.  It was only in the last century or two that the balance was disturbed, mainly because of man's activities.  We could enumerate these one by one but in essence, these can be attributed to three main ones - continuous destruction of the earth's forests to give way to human land use, increasing use on internal combustion engines using fossil fuel for transport and industry, and the ever increasing production and use of electricity.

What are the more troubling issues in the country this week, besides the Yolanda aftermath, of course?  Just look at the headlines - fuel price hikes and power rate increases!  And these are real issues for everyone because nothing affects the lives of most people more than fuel and electricity.  The two are connected, of course; most of the power production on earth uses fossil fuel.  Even the rotating brownouts we experienced after the last typhoon still infuriate a lot of people.  And Meralco's announcement of rate increases in Manila brings people to the streets in protests, overshadowed only be the ones they have in Bangkok.  Let's be honest, eliminate one or both, and most, if not all, of us, will be lost and clueless.

Forget the present and try to recall elementary and high school history and science, and you will realize that both petroleum products and electricity are recent discoveries or inventions.  For thousands of years, man was without both, travelling by animal power on land and wind sails or sheer human stamina by oars at sea.  Sure, people use oil lamps in the past, but not from oil coming out of the ground.  By fossil fuel we mean all the coal and petroleum products mined out of the earth, and which were formed there by decaying living matter pressed by the earth's crust during geologic phenomenon in million years past.  From such oil and natural gas we get our gasoline and diesel, bunker fuel, crude, CNG, LPG, with which we crunch our industrial and manufacturing production, run our cars, buses jeepneys and LRTs, and produce electricity with which we charged our iPhones and iPads and android phones.

Burning coal produces carbon dioxide, not to mention all the other pollutants associated with it.  Vehicle engines belch smoke - carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and worst, pure carbon suspended particulate matter, in varying degrees.  Most of the electricity produced on earth comes from coal, bunker, or diesel-powered generating plants, and this is especially true in third-world developing countries.  Sure there are nuclear-powered, geothermal, and other plants powered by renewable energy or bio-fuels, but the bulk of electric power spews millions and millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the air.  And the total electrical production is ever increasing at tremendous rates, much higher than both the population and GDP.

Measure the carbon emissions in Manila or Cebu - lo and behold - 70% of the total comes from mobile sources … a funny way of saying it's from our cars and jeepneys, etc. … much, much more than that spewed out by power plants and factories.  Yet, we produce and buy cars every day, and we delight when car sales shoot up, because hey, it's an economic boom!  We now have more efficient engines of course, but with carbon emissions just the same.  The human generations in the last century and a half may end up with the notoriety of causing the world's downfall, if we don't take heed and examine ourselves.

Chaos theory has it that a butterfly's wings flapping in New York might end up causing a hurricane in Hong Kong.  Well, what if using your car for an unnecessary trip in Manila might have contributed to the fierceness of Yolanda?  Impossible, you say?  Well, you might be correct.  But what if you're wrong?  Wouldn't it be a better idea to study it first? (To be continued)