The problem of climate change is at the top of the biggest global issues. And this fact is easy to explain – our planet is the home for the mankind. If we don’t stop intensive changes in the environment now, in the near future our species will disappear. Growing public attention to climate issues seems to be the factor that unites scientists and activists.
In general, that’s true as they want to achieve the same goal – to limit greenhouse gas emissions but there are also some differences, in particular, they cover the means used to reach the goal. The biggest discussions and debates take place around the power sources necessary to eliminate emissions. One group argues that the only possible solution is renewable energy and its opponents, on the contrary, support the use of all available sources such as nuclear, biofuels, and carbon capture. But despite all differences, we can talk about common ground.
Pay for pollution
Most people and businesses got used to using the atmosphere as a dump for greenhouse gases for which they don’t have to pay anything. In this case, it’s high time to put the price on carbon and make polluting expensive; as a result, it can decrease the number of greenhouse gases and also encourage the development of better technologies. Such experience is widely used in 40 European and Asian countries, in particular, in Denmark, Germany, France, and China. There are a lot of examples when people could pollute for free until the pollution became a serious threat. Only after that and under the public pressure they started paying for damages. In the 19th century residents of New York were forbidden to throw dead animals, garbage or ashes into the streets. A little bit later they began paying to get their waste picked up.
Consume less energy
From the very beginning and during a long period of human history the creation of light required a lot of hard work and many resources and caused considerable environmental damage. Our ancestors burned beef fat, sperm whale oil, and even a fatty seabird known as storm petrels. This not only sounds awful but also terribly stinks. One more weakness is the high consumption of these materials, so you waste more than get. 70 percent of the energy is wasted in the USA every day. Such numbers are huge, it’s hard to imagine how much resources just disappear. For that reason, improving efficiency is a considerable step, especially, today when technologies allow us use more energy without emitting more carbon. Efficiency improvements cover various types of energy, e. g. electricity, petrol, gas, and other fuels.
Use the Sun and wind
In the seventieth when people just started talking about the solar energy and created the first solar photovoltaic panels, nobody expected them to become so popular. Step by step the price of solar energy has grown much more than experts predicted. Wind energy has also found many consumers, although, it has not become as widespread as solar. Many researchers support the statement that solar and wind are the cheapest carbon-free option. Most disagreements come when they talk about paying for renewable types because nuclear power is cheaper and the necessary number of renewables to power the country would be extremely expensive.
Global electrification
The quarter of the USA economy depends on the electricity, when the other three quarters use gasoline (vehicles), quadrillions of British thermal units (factories), gas or propane (buildings). We can talk about the two main areas in which we have to expand electricity – industry, and transportation. At the same time, there are some discussions concerning the appropriate scope of electrification. In this case, we can talk about a significant progress in achieving one of the goals set by the Paris Agreement – to reach 10 % of electric cars on the road by 2030.
Increase electric storage and transmission
Electricity is a specific product that has no shelf life and must be sold immediately. The amount of generated electricity must also be determined, otherwise, it will have a negative impact on the environment and the lives of thousands of people. This point explains why people are so interested in big batteries and work hard to store energy. Another possible way to control mismatch between electric supply and demand is to transfer the electricity farther to states where it is not enough.
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