Our Livable World

Creating the Clean Earth of Tomorrow

Marc Schaus

• Publisher: Diversion Books
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781635767209
• eBook ISBN: 9781635767216
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Global Warming & Climate Change
• Index: Biological Sciences

A vital guide to the frontlines of our fight against climate change and the scientific and technological innovations that will revolutionize the world.
The United States' accelerated plans to combat the existential threat of climate change finally give reason to hope. In Our Livable World, research specialist and author Marc Schaus explores the incredible new green innovations in science and engineering that can allow us to avoid the worst repercussions of global warming as we work to usher in a sustainable, livable world.
To beat a challenge the size of climate change, our solutions will have to be ambitious: solar thermal cells capable of storing energy long after the sun goes down, "smart highways" designed to charge your vehicle as you drive, indoor vertical farms automated to maximize crop growth with no pesticides, bioluminescent vines ready to one day replace our streetlights, jet fuel created from landfill trash—and next-generation carbon capture techniques to remove the emissions we have already released over the past several decades. Far from the geoengineering schemes of cli-fi action thrillers, real solutions are being developed, right this moment. Our Livable World features interviews with the innovators, real talk on the revolutionary technology, and a clear picture of a cleaner planet in the future.
"An important book that shows the dawn of a new kind of environmental movement?an age where we invest in deeply creative and fascinating technical solutions that work in harmony with the Earth. Marc Schaus lays out the exciting future of environmental innovation before us." —Katie Patrick, author of How to Save the World

CHAPTER 1

SCENES FROM THE CLIMATE CRISIS

I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if our house is on fire. Because it is.

—GRETA THUNBERG, DAVOS (2019)

In mid-2019, an ominous headline suggesting that our final few decades were upon us as a species circulated on several popular news media sites.

HIGH LIKELIHOOD OF HUMAN CIVILIZATION

COMING TO END BY 2050,

REPORT FINDS.¹

The report, produced by an Australian think tank, described in unsettling detail what we might expect in our near future if world governments do nothing about climate change. As you can imagine, the scenario becomes downright apocalyptic by mid-century.

It is true that our governments are not doing nearly enough to address climate change. Studies from academic organizations around the world indicate that our current goals—projected greenhouse gas reductions, speed in phasing out fossil fuels, and more—will not be sufficient to avoid the worst repercussions of climate change. Even the attainment of those inadequate goals has not been progressing efficiently. But, while being brutally honest about the challenge we face is necessary and appropriate, it is equally important to ensure that “doomsday certainty” is not the only narrative driving our decisions.

As temperatures rise, the report continued, reflective sea ice up north will melt. Widespread loss of our permafrost will occur and large-scale Amazon drought and dieback will follow. Sea levels will rise rapidly. Cities close to every coast will be inundated with flood waters. Multiple World Heritage sites will be lost forever. Residents who live in coastal communities will essentially become climate refugees, forced to flee from their homes to neighboring cities and towns—possibly to neighboring countries, if enough of their homeland becomes uninhabitable. Global coalitions will likely fracture and dissipate in the face of resource scarcity and humanitarian crises. Biodiversity will collapse and subsequently implode as mass extinctions occur worldwide.

It’s important to note that while these premonitions are unlikely to pass in full, they are certainly not impossible. If our governments truly were to do nothing about climate change—or to continue our woefully subpar response from the last decade—some or all of these prophecies could very well be fulfilled. But many of the most dire, apocalyptic scenarios sound more probable than they should, undoubtedly due to the drama-driven news cycle our major media networks tend to use. Amidst all the countless social media shares, viral headlines, and alarming reports—where most of us get our climate change information—plenty of hopeful news gets lost in the shuffle. Thoughts about climate change then seem to shift from a narrative of possibilities and innovations to the never-ending cycle of chaos, leading us inexorably to the end of our civilization in just a few decades.

Many of us in North America may picture the California wildfires and the rolling electrical blackouts. Some of those blackouts, we’ll remember, were reportedly triggered in pre-emptive attempts to spare ourselves from power-line sparks igniting dry forests. Or perhaps we might recall the scenes of floodwaters devouring levees across America following extreme rainfalls and rising tides, filling not just coastal cities but low-lying towns many miles from the coast. Then there are the images of flood survivors canoeing or kayaking to and from their homes in New Orleans through suburban neighborhoods—or possibly stranded on their residential rooftops with spray-painted pleas for help splayed across bed sheets, calling out to rescue helicopters passing overhead.

Or perhaps we picture throngs of protesters hitting the streets demanding that more be done to address our crisis. Recall the Extinction Rebellion protesters staging massive “die-ins” and mock funeral processions for the victims of future climate disasters. Maybe we envision climate protest signs appearing closer and closer to home, emblazoned with phrases more prophetic by the day. “Water is the immigrant they should fear,” read one sign in New York City, going basically Instagram platinum at the time.

On just one day in September of 2019, there were 2,500 protests scheduled in more than 163 countries on all seven continents. Roughly 4 million people stood in a collective call for action to address climate change. Protestors far too young to be worried about the end of the world held signs equally honest and devastating. “There is no planet B” read one. “You’ll die of old age, we’ll die of climate change” read another. “The climate is changing, why aren’t we?”

Youth climate strikes have ballooned out from teen titan Greta Thunberg’s humble beginnings outside the Swedish parliament. At the end of 2018, tens of thousands of schoolchildren around Europe followed her lead, skipping school every Friday to protest climate inaction. By the end of 2019, protests had spread with hundreds of thousands marching in New York alone, over a hundred thousand in London, and nearly 1.5 million across Germany in one day.² Streets filled with youth who feel, as Thunberg so perfectly encapsulates, the frustration and sense of despair in watching their world slowly reaching a point of irrevocable damage without even being of age to cast a vote in stopping it.

Or maybe we picture the world’s timeless landmarks already damaged by rising tides and swelling rivers. Think of the ancient cathedrals of Venice partially submerged in November of 2019, with the iconic St. Mark’s Basilica closed to tourists when its adjacent plaza’s outdoor tables and chairs were bobbing in floodwaters.

Or how about the raging Australian bushfires ringing in the new decade, where “firenadoes” and bloody red skies became the new normal? The combined rise in heat, dryness, and the subsequent wildfires created an environment so hot that so-called “pyrocumulonimbus” clouds—bringing with them fire-induced thunderstorms—formed as a result, according to CNN weather specialists.³ Embers carried by strong gusts of wind continually confounded responders with fires forming on multiple fronts, later converging into massive “super-fires.” Local news anchors reported live that they could even taste ashes in the air while filming the locals fleeing to escape boats. The scenes went viral immediately: the charred remains of kangaroos caught up in fences as they fled and the koalas so parched by the blazing heat they readily took sips from water bottles held by firefighters and dispatched soldiers.

This is how many of us see the effects of climate change: through the lens of scattered headlines, only loosely connected through their sense of doom and foreboding. The only theme connecting these images—aside from the shock and awe of our world under siege—is the sense that nobody really seems to have a stable plan for what we’re going to do here. The advancement of climate science, it seems, has simply been a never-ending stream of more and more bad news, punctuated by the occasional not-so-bad news, in the words of atmospheric scientist Katharine Hayhoe.⁴

This book was written to highlight that many scientists and organizational leaders out there do, in fact, have viable plans for achieving our climate goals and saving our planet. Incredible new advancements in science and technology have been developed that will be game-changing in our fight to stop the rise in global temperatures before it’s too late. My goal is to reinforce, in the paraphrased words of Thunberg herself, that we’ve been failing—but have not yet failed.

The problem, widely acknowledged and broadcast, is that we have pumped too many greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. In short: while we can now live lives of unparalleled luxury compared to past generations, we use very dangerous kinds of fuel to make it all happen. The energy we use for feeding, housing, moving, and entertaining ourselves are largely reliant upon “fossil fuels” like coal, oil, and natural gas—which, when burned to create the energy we need to power nearly anything we do, also release harmful emissions of carbon dioxide (CO₂).

What makes our problem so monumental in scope is that burning fossil fuels is now so entrenched within every level of societal function that swapping out these fuels will require massive infrastructural change. And that’s not mere hyperbole—it includes everything from the clothes we put on in the morning to where our breakfast cereal comes from; the car we drive to our day job; and the show on Netflix we stream at night. Nearly all of it has run on fossil fuels over the course of many decades. As a result, we’ve been pumping emissions of CO₂ and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere for quite a while.

With an excess of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, our first order of business will be to stop emitting more—after all, when you find yourself in a hole, the first step is to stop digging. Finding ways to feed, house, move, and entertain ourselves without the emissions should be the first thing we do. Moreover, we need to find energy sources that involve no net increase in emissions when either sourced or used. That’s a tall order, but incredible new advancements in science and technology are getting us very close. We’ll explore them throughout this book.

Still, reports are clear that transitioning toward a cleaner and more renewably powered civilization will not be enough to save us. Significant damage has already been done. Even if each of us were to procure our power from sustainable solar panels, drive electric cars, and give up meat for good, the existing greenhouse gases in our atmosphere will continue to warm the planet for many years to come. The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), as of early 2020, indicates that we will need to address those emissions even as we transition from fossil fuels.⁵ So our second order of business, arguably more difficult than our first, will be to remove a large portion of the carbon emissions we’ve already released. We have developed incredible new methods to accomplish this feat, but the cheapest, most reliable method for removing a greenhouse gas from the atmosphere is clearly not putting it there in the first place.

Globally, our emissions have continued to rise annually. At the end of 2019, our carbon emissions hit another record high of nearly 37 billion metric tonnes (or gigatons; Gt).⁶ But the rise had at least been slowing. Some of the world’s largest emitters, the United States and the European Union, both managed to cut their carbon dioxide output. Global emissions from coal, the worst of all fossil fuels, continued to decline around the world. So it is certainly possible to be a top industrial power and cut your emissions. Experts believed the continuing rise was potentially due to more output from China specifically, and more developing areas furthering their use of natural gas.

Data from the World Economic Forum’s annual Energy Transition Index tells us that Scandinavian countries are leading the world with renewables. Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, Finland, and Denmark took spots 1 through 5 respectively. Iceland was also in the top 10.⁷ The UK is also pushing forward—in 2017, carbon emissions actually fell to levels not seen since 1890.⁸

Incredible new advancements in renewable energy technology developed by scientists and engineers around the world are driving this process. And even more innovations are on the way to help speed up our transition. According to an analysis from Bloomberg, it is already cheaper for two-thirds of the global population to get power by building a new wind or solar farm than building a fossil fuel power plant.⁹ Not just better for the environment—but cheaper! In fact, solar energy is increasing so rapidly that one analyst with the World Economic Forum recently declared that the world will add nearly 70,000 solar panels every hour over the next 5 years.¹⁰ Many of these panels will increasingly feature new, state-of-the-art upgrades in efficiency and performance, forcing us to reconsider what is possible with solar energy.

The chapters ahead will focus on how new science and new technology are ushering in a much-needed boost of speed for clean and sustainable energy. Chapter two will hit you hard with what we’re up against in our changing climate—and a view of how much our world has already changed. It is a sobering assessment, but it’s absolutely crucial that we are honest about the size and scope of our problem. Doing so will help to showcase how truly transformative the impending new developments in cleantech really are. Chapter three will outline some of the most amazing new renewable energy innovations on the verge of changing the world.

For example, did you know that research teams have developed next-gen solar energy tech that will not only power your home long after the sun goes down—but can also produce clean drinking water for your family at the same time? Did you know that by focusing on microscopic aspects of solar cell tech, previously unattainable levels of efficiency have been obtained? Or that “thermal panels” may be able to provide even more energy coverage than traditional solar panels?

Did you know that engineers are crafting “smart highways” lined with solar strips to not only illuminate our lane lights at night, but also to wirelessly charge electric vehicles as they pass by? Or that electric vehicles we’re used to charging at night will soon be two-way generators capable of supplying power to our homes overnight and charging up with renewable energy during the day?

Wind energy is improving, too. It may sound incredible, but some newer wind turbine models will actually be larger than the Empire State Building. Engineering advancements in turbine blade tech could reduce manufacturing costs up to 90 percent, leading to similar reductions in cost for builders. Innovative new designs are integrating smaller, maneuverable wind energy drones—capable of self-piloting with a satellite uplink harnessing the power of aerial swells at higher altitudes, then relaying that energy down to the grid below through a ground tether.

In chapter four we’ll cover even more advanced renewables that are often less explored in mainstream literature. Some are so ground-breaking that they will impact industries far outside energy production. For example, did you know that biofuels—once derided as overhyped and non-competitive—have now been genetically overhauled after years of bioengineering to become a carbon-neutral ace-in-the-hole fuel source being developed by Big Oil? Or that scientists are now exploring a new and emerging field called synthetic biology for ways to design biofuel sources never before seen in nature?

Scientists are also developing new applications for an energy source derived from the most abundant element in the known universe: hydrogen. Advanced fuel cell tech and hydrogen refinement have progressed considerably, bringing us newer possibilities to use it more actively. And speaking of new fuel technology: Did you know that scientists have now developed the means to produce “solar fuel,” using rooftop refineries trapping only sunlight and ambient air?

We’re even developing remarkable new energy techs like smart clothing. So-called “green wearables” may soon be outfitted with yarn-like zinc ion threading to churn out electrical power whenever bent, stretched, or even washed with water. Sidewalks have been designed to generate power with the “footfall” of pedestrian traffic. And scientists are now trying to utilize the immense amounts of “waste heat” being released by our electronics and appliances. Want a new taste of the sci-fi? Try the incredible use of artificial intelligence to align vast fields of mirrors—perfectly in tune with the sun as it moves across the sky—to concentrate energy on a single point, generating heat in excess of 1,000°C for energy and industry alike.

Chapter five is about the nonstop forms of energy we will use to support grid function on our way to zero emissions. Critics of renewable energy often cite the unreliable “intermittency” of sun and wind as the Achilles heel of using these energy sources. What they do not often discuss, however, are the new advancements in not just energy storage and grid functions to smooth out the peaks and valleys of our energy use, but also the...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Our Livable World
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• PREFACE: COVID-19 and the Environment
• CHAPTER 1: Scenes from the Climate Crisis
• CHAPTER 2: Let’s Face It: Our Planet Is Changing
• CHAPTER 3: Powering Our Civilizations Cleanly and Sustainably
• CHAPTER 4: Broadening Our Energy Portfolio
• CHAPTER 5: Keeping the Lights On
• CHAPTER 6: Industry Without Emissions
• CHAPTER 7: Feeding the Post-Carbon World
• CHAPTER 8: Smart Homes, Smarter Cities
• CHAPTER 9: Stepping Back from the Brink: Reversing Climate Change
• CHAPTER 10: Damage Control
• CHAPTER 11: Possible Futures
• Photos
• Acknowledgments
• Source Notes
• About the Author