Quite heavy reading, but very, very good; “The Global Carbon Cycle” (Amazon link) has a great selection of research papers covering most areas from anthropogenic CO2 cycles in the Oceans to regional Carbon-flow based on global trade (e.g. did you know 174 billion tons of paper were Exported globally in Y2000? – that’s a lot of Carbon being moved about, never mind the fuel). Measuring Carbon flow in terms of physical trade is quite fascinating and a very different visualisation than ‘pollution’. I’m thinking of ways to capture that into some tangible measure of personal CO2e.
One of the many wake-up stats is that the measurements are made in PgC. That’s Petagrams of Carbon. A Petagramme is 1,000,000,000,000 kilograms. And then they talk about PgC per year…
The total world energy consumption is about 400EJ (that’s Exajoules per annum, Exa is a 1 with 18 zeroes after it).
It all really helps drive home the idea that relocalisation of all forms of production is absolutely mandatory. Not just a sustainable power-station on every street corner, or good insulation of your property, but all other forms of human consumption have to be legislated into local re-existence.
So, how to re-seed what we used to do… and fast?
Getting there?
