Do you know enough about the world's most pressing issues? Are you familiar with the consequences of climate change and methods for sharing the permissible carbon quotas? Are you aware that we are using up nature's capital and not just its interest, that world poverty is rampant and urgently needs to be reduced, and that the consequence of current US immigration laws is unsustainable population growth? We Have to Change aims to highlight these issues, to make us stop and think seriously about them, and to encourage everyone to become actively involved in the global challenges facing the world today. It presents climate change, liquidation of nature's capital, world poverty, and unsustainable population growth together, in their interaction, in one concise volume. Author Maria Ronay reviews the world resources available, predicts the dangers ahead, and proposes courses of action for individuals and the world to mitigate climate change, preserve nature's capital, reduce world poverty, and stabilize the world's population by emphasizing existing United Nations programs. For the US carbon tax on gasoline and electricity invested in reducing atmospheric carbon and reforming legal immigration laws are recommended.

WE HAVE TO CHANGE

taking action to stabilize climate change, curb population growth including immigration, end poverty, and the liquidation of nature's capitalBy MARIA RONAY

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2010 Maria Ronay
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4502-7131-8

Contents

Preface................................................v1. Where Are We Now?...................................1LAND...................................................1WATER..................................................3AIR....................................................4GLOBAL WARMING.........................................5OIL....................................................5NATURAL GAS............................................7COAL...................................................7POPULATION.............................................82. The Danger Ahead....................................123. The Age of Healing..................................17US.....................................................17THE WORLD..............................................21Climate change.........................................21Preserving nature's capital............................26Reducing world poverty.................................30Stabilizing the world's population.....................33THE UNITED STATES......................................41Climate change.........................................41Housing................................................45Immigration............................................48The impact of immigration laws.........................51Afterword..............................................66Further Reading (References)...........................67

Chapter One

Where Are We Now?

Let us take an inventory of Earth.

Land

Firstly, in order to produce food, we need arable land. Currently, of the world's total land area (150 million square kilometers) about 10 percent is arable land. Meadows and pastures account for 24 percent, and forests and woodlands, 31 percent. The remaining 35 percent is either too dry, too cold, too hot, too rocky, too mountainous, or too poor in nutrients to be used for agriculture.

In addition to the use of pasture, more than half of US grain and about 40 percent of the world's grain is being fed to livestock rather than being consumed directly by humans. Producing one meat calorie requires ten to twelve grain calories, while animal protein is only 1.4 times as nutritious for humans as plant protein is.

Arable land is not a given; it is constantly created and destroyed. Its creation is a slow process; it may take hundreds of years for an inch- thick layer of topsoil to develop. The destruction of arable land, however, occurs much more quickly. The loss of land that is used for food, feed, and fiber is due mainly to the following:

? desertification;

? deforestation;

? erosion; or

? urbanization.

Desertification proceeds with an alarming rate, particularly in Africa and Asia, caused by droughts and overuse. If current trends of soil degradation continue in Africa, the continent might be able to feed just 25 percent of its population by 2025, according to the United Nations University Institute for Natural Resources in Africa. Nearly 80 percent of potentially cultivable arable land is now under cultivation in Asia.

Deforestation is harmful in more than one way.

Forests regulate water supply by absorbing rainfall and releasing it at a steady rate. As long as forests are intact, rivers transport water fairly uniformly throughout the year from their basins. If forests are cleared, the water supply changes from being fairly uniform to the alternating between floods and droughts. One of the consequences is that the floods wash away the soil from the steeper slopes, causing erosion. Deforestation also opens up areas to the devastation of wind. Because of deforestation on the slopes of the Himalayas, droughts are plaguing 500 million people in the Ganges valley and Bangladesh.

Increasingly important is the forest's role as a carbon sink; they absorb carbon dioxide, thus helping reduce greenhouse gases.

Deforestation is carried out to clear arable land, cut firewood, clear land for cattle, and grow biomass for ethanol. About an area of Greece (131,990 square kilometers) is lost to deforestation per year. The greatest loss is that of the tropical forests, some of the most valuable parts of Earth's ecosystem.

More than 90 percent of US cropland is losing soil to wind and water erosion at thirteen times the sustainable rate. Urbanization takes land for buildings, roads, and pavement. Urban land expansion and arable land loss are particularly great in China.

Agriculture requires fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides, which in turn require energy to produce. In addition, their manufacture releases large amounts of greenhouse gases to the environment.

Both agriculture and animal husbandry require vast amounts of water.

Water

The greatest amount of water is required for agriculture and meat production. Nine hundred kilograms of water go into the production of one kilogram of wheat, whereas about twenty thousand kilograms of water go into the production of one kilogram of beef. This amounts to more than the use of water for thermoelectric generation, as well as industrial and domestic uses, with the proportions depending on the specific area.

A prime cause of the global water concern is the ever-increasing world population. As populations grow, industrial, agricultural, and individual water demands escalate. According to the World Bank, worldwide water demand is doubling every twenty-one years, more in some regions. Scores of countries are over-pumping aquifers as they struggle to satisfy their growing water needs, including each of the big three grain producers: China, India, and the United States.

More than half of the world's people live in countries where water tables are falling. Chinese wheat farmers in some areas are pumping from a depth of three hundred meters, or nearly a thousand feet. In the United States, the Department of Agriculture reports that in parts of Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas, three leading grain-producing states, the water table dropped by more than thirty meters (one hundred feet) since large-scale irrigation began in the late 1940-s. Although this mining of underground water is taking a toll on US grain production, irrigated land accounts for only one-fifth of the US grain harvest, compared to close to three-fifths of the harvest in India and four-fifths in China.

In developing countries water shortage looms just as large as food shortage. More than 1 billion people lack access to potable water, and adequate sanitation is lacking for 2.4 billion people. About five million people die each year because of poor drinking water and lack of sanitation. Women and children in places all over the globe walk long hours to get a few liters of dirty water.

Air

Earth's atmosphere is a layer of gases surrounding the planet and containing roughly 78.08 percent nitrogen, 20.95 percent oxygen, 0.93 percent argon, 386 parts per million carbon dioxide, 1,745 parts per billion methane and 314 parts per billion nitrous oxide, together with a varying amounts of water vapor and some trace elements.

We are mainly concerned about the amount of greenhouse gases in the air. It is a lesser-known fact, that livestock is responsible for 18 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions as measured in carbon dioxide equivalents. By comparison, the world's entire transportation sector emits 13.5 percent of the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere, while power plants emit 25 percent. Of course, these fractions depend on the degree of development for individual countries. For example in the United States, which produces about 23 percent of global greenhouse gases, agriculture accounts for 7 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions (in carbon dioxide equivalents), while transportation produces more than 25 percent, and power plants, about 40 percent.

There are however greenhouse gases other than carbon dioxide. Agriculture produces 65 percent of human-related nitrous oxide (which has 296 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide) and 37 percent of all human-induced methane (which is twenty-three times more potent than carbon dioxide).

Because conditions change rapidly—alas, always for the worse—it is not possible to forecast the increase in the amount of greenhouse gases in the air from the trend representing the past twenty or thirty years. For example China overtook the United States in 2008 as the largest greenhouse gas producer in the world, despite the fact that five years ago, the nation was far behind. Also, in the past three to four years, the entire Siberian subarctic region began to melt. The sudden melting of the frozen peat bog, the size of France and Germany combined, could unleash billions of tons of methane into the atmosphere.

Global Warming

Unfortunately climate change is already here. Subtropical regions expanded northward, yielding increased aridity in the southern United States, the Mediterranean region, Australia, and parts of Africa. Impacts of this climate shift reveal that the carbon dioxide level (386 parts per million) is already causing much harm.

Alpine glaciers retreat, bringing with them dry rivers for the summers. As temperatures in the Arctic warmed at three times the global average, last summer the Arctic lost more sea ice than ever before, amounting to the combined land areas of Texas and California. Increasing ice mass losses in Greenland and West Antarctica also increase concerns about ice stability, leading to a rising sea level and the potential acceleration of global warming.

Oil

Oil reserves are the estimated quantities of crude oil recoverable under existing economic and operating conditions. Crude oil reserves are estimated to be about 990 billion barrels, or, if Canadian oil sands under active development are included, then the world's proven oil reserves in 2007 according to Oil & Gas Journal are 1,317 billion barrels of oil. Dividing this with a yearly oil production of twenty-five to thirty billion barrels, we can predict the reserves will last forty-four to fifty-three years, assuming no increase in yearly production.

The major use of oil is in transportation; gasoline, jet fuel, and diesel provide more than 95 percent of all fuel used by cars, trucks, aircraft, trains, ships, agricultural, and industrial machinery. Oil is also used as the starting material for many chemicals, pharmaceuticals, synthetic materials, and so on, and it is used (to a decreasing extent) for the production of electricity and heating.

There are about 850 million cars in the world today, including commercial vehicles. There are 251 million cars, SUVs, and light trucks registered in the United States with a fuel efficiency of seventeen to twenty-two miles per gallon. It is in the transportation sector, particularly in passenger cars, that substitution of oil products is the most problematic. Two popular alternatives, hydrogen and corn ethanol, are less than good alternative fuels. Hydrogen has to be produced from the electrolysis of water (today it is derived from fossil fuel, which defeats the purpose); this requires very much energy, though renewable energy sources like solar, wind, or atomic energy can be used for this purpose. Hydrogen is very light; therefore it has to be compressed or liquefied to obtain sufficient mass. It forms explosive and flammable mixtures with air in a broad range of concentrations. It diffuses through most materials due to the small size of the hydrogen molecule and embrittles many metals, including steel, further increasing the danger of storing it under high pressure in a passenger car. Hydrogen would require a totally new and very expensive infrastructure for distribution.

Roughly one gallon gasoline equivalent of fossil fuel is used to produce 1.5 gallons of ethanol from corn. Since its energy is only two-thirds that of gasoline, fundamentally 1.5 gallons of ethanol is needed to replace 1 gallon of gasoline, which is used to produce it, thus the energy gain is zero. The environmental loss, however, is huge. Corn produces more soil erosion than any other US crop; and it needs more irrigation, fertilizer, herbicide, and pesticide than any other crop, thus causing more water pollution. In 2008 nearly one-third of the US grain harvest was going to ethanol. Since the United States is the leading exporter of grain, what happens to the US grain crop affects the entire world. Exports will drop. The UN currently lists thirty-four countries as needing emergency food assistance. People are dying of hunger. Using corn ethanol for car fuel is bad environmental engineering at best and immoral human behavior at worst.

Natural Gas

Proven reserves of natural gas are at 180 trillion cubic meters, which would supply the world at the current rate of consumption for about seventy years. The major part of natural gas is methane (chemical formula: CH₄). Because of its high hydrogen content, it adds the smallest amount of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere as compared to the other two primary fossil fuels, petroleum oil and coal. It is clean-burning and flexible and has a high energy content. The major sources are in the Middle East and Russia. Transport may take place through pipelines, but when being moved over large distances or across seas, natural gas has to be liquefied, transported in huge tankers, and re-gasified. Each step is costly and consumes large amounts of energy. In addition there are safety concerns associated with all of these steps.

There are nonconventional sources of natural gas, as well, representing larger resources like coal bed methane, tight sands, and shales; however, the extraction of natural gas from these sources is more expensive and rises some environmental concerns. Methane hydrates exist in vast quantities at great depths, for example, in the oceanic sediments of continental slopes and the continental shelves of seas; but exploration of these sources is still in the research stage.

Natural gas is increasingly replacing coal in electricity generation and replacing oil in residential domestic applications. It is used for the production of hydrogen, and from hydrogen, through ammonia, for the production of fertilizers. While petrochemicals (which constitute the building blocks for many chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and synthetic materials) can be easily and economically produced from petroleum, they can also be manufactured from methane, although this is less efficient and requires a greater expenditure of energy.

Coal

Recoverable coal reserves are estimated at about 900 gigatons (one gigaton equals one billion tons). World coal consumption is about 6.2 gigatons annually; at the current consumption rate, this would last roughly 150 years. The largest coal reserves are in the United States (27.1 percent), followed by Russia (17.3 percent), China (12.6 percent), and India (10.2 percent). Many other countries around the world have smaller coal reserves; the largest coal producer and user, however, is China. Worldwide about 75 percent of coal consumption goes toward the production of electricity; 51 percent of US electricity comes from coal-fired power plants.

Coal-fired power stations are the least carbon efficient in terms of the carbon dioxide produced per unit of electricity generated. In addition to emitting the most carbon dioxide, they also emit significant levels of pollutants, such as sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides (which cause acid rain) as well as arsenic and the heavy metals mercury, lead, and uranium, all of which pose health hazards. Modern coal-fired power plants have improved efficiency and emit reduced amounts of pollutants, but due to their long life (seventy-five years), even developed countries have plenty of old ones. Unfortunately China now opens a new coal-powered power station every week; in addition, it does not buy modern equipment from the West, and instead secures polluting, low-efficiency equipment from other sources.

The high temperature needed for cement manufacturing makes it an energy-intensive process. Large amounts of coal are used in cement manufacturing, and here again, China is the leading producer with 1.3 gigatons of cement manufactured annually (that is, one ton of cement for every Chinese person) with the concomitant carbon dioxide and pollutant release.

Population

In 1950 Earth's population was still at 2.5 billion. Then came an enormous jump in population. The populations of the most populous countries are shown along with the world population for 1950 and 2009, and as predicted for 2050. The numbers (obtained from GeoHive) are given in millions and are rounded to the million.

The term total fertility rate refers to the average number of children born to women during their childbearing years. Two children per woman would replace the parents, but because slightly more boys than girls are born, and because some children die, the replacement fertility rate for countries with good healthcare is an average of 2.1 children per woman. When women have more children than the replacement fertility rate, the population grows. Even with a growth rate (as percentage of population) of 2 percent per year, a country's population doubles in thirty-five years. But even if a replacement fertility rate is reached, it takes three generations, or, roughly one life expectancy (sixty-six years worldwide) to reach zero population growth due to so-called population momentum. In China a mandatory one-child policy was introduced in 1980, and while the country's fertility rate is currently 1.6, the population is still increasing at a rate of 0.6 percent per year.

Few people realize that according to the 2005-2010 list by the UN, the United States has the largest population growth rate among large developed countries at 0.97 percent. This is due to immigration and the high fertility rate of immigrant women. If current trends continue, the US population will rise from 308 million in 2009 to 420 million in 2050. Over 80 percent of this increase will be attributable to new immigrants arriving after 2005 and to their descendants. For example the fertility rate of Mexican women in the United States is 3.5 children, compared to 2.3 children per woman in Mexico. (The total fertility rate for the world is 2.6 children per woman.)

(Continues...)

Excerpted from WE HAVE TO CHANGEby MARIA RONAY Copyright © 2010 by Maria Ronay. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.