Traitors to the Human Species

The Three Body Problem is a gripping science fiction novel by Liu Cixin, which contains a wealth of information about ancient and modern Chinese history. But I fear it distorts science. And my first golden rule of good science fiction is not to distort science. I think distortions are dangerous because uninformed readers can be led to believe that certain false things are true.

I’m not worried about the assumption that string theory is true. It could be, although it has lost a lot of backing in recent years. But the description in the novel of the three-star system Alpha Centauri has nothing to do with reality, even though that description is crucial to the plot.

Solar energy and thermal pollution

A previous post in this blog stated that if 100% of the energy used by man came from solar energy, the Earth would warm up, and although air pollution and the greenhouse effect would decrease, there would still be thermal pollution. Can we give figures? By how much would the Earth's temperature rise in that case?

According to various sources ([1] and [2]), world power consumption by humans is currently about 18.5 Terawatts (18.5 trillion watts). To find the energy consumed during a given period of time, we should just multiply this figure by the given time. For example, the total energy expenditure during a non-leap year, expressed in Terawatt-hours, will be found by multiplying 18.5 by 365 and by 24 (the number of hours in a year), which is equal to about 162,000 Terawatts-hour.

Is solar energy clean?

For decades we have been sold the idea that when we fully harness solar energy, all our problems of getting cheap and abundant energy, air pollution, and global warming will be solved.

For decades I have been warning that this optimistic approach is not true. If we were able to completely replace energy from fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas) by solar energy, some of our problems will not go away, they will just take longer to become unsustainable, especially the problem of global warming.

Why do I think this? Because the Earth receives a certain amount of solar energy. A part is used by plants to carry out the chlorophyll function, which transforms inorganic matter into organic matter, thus making life possible for all animals, including us, humans. Another part heats the oceans and the continents, allowing the Earth to maintain an almost constant temperature, despite the heat losses it suffers every day from the side opposite the sun. Finally, another part of the solar energy is reflected or diverted, in the atmosphere or on the surface, and is lost in outer space.

Fires, bonfires and arson

Plastic contamination in the sea
(Source: Science News)

In the BBVA magazine of January 2020 there is an article entitled Top Ten, which lists 10 measures we can all apply to curb climate change, the first of which is this:

Committed waste treatment: ...in the next 30 years, 12 million tons of plastic waste will accumulate in the environment. When you go shopping, take a folded cloth bag...

It is true that, with our excessive use of plastics, we are turning the world into a dump, even the oceans. It is true that we must do something to avoid this. But since when contamination with plastics is a cause of climate change? We should learn to make distinctions, and correctly apply names to those phenomena we must face.

Daring to say “I don’t know”

I don’t know. It seems quite simple. Why so few people dare to say it?

Several years ago, when it became fashionable in popular newspapers to publish mini-surveys, answered by four or five people, about a current issue, I wondered at seeing that, whatever the question, not one of them ever answered I don’t know. Everyone was perfectly clear about what they should answer in every case.

Some of the questions had substance:

• How would you end the civil war in Yugoslavia?
• How would you solve the unemployment problem?
• How would you stop terrorism?

Climate change

From a comic strip by Quino:

Mafalda, her little brother Guille, and their friend Felipe, are sitting on a doorstep during a very hot day.

Felipe: Bother! It’s really hot!

Guille: It’s the fault of the government, right?

Mafalda: No, it's the fault of the summer.

Turning toward Felipe, she adds:

Mafalda: He’s a small boy, he still can’t put the blame right.

Listened in a radio station news in June 2017, on a very hot week:

Announcer: The cause of the heat we are experiencing is the climate change.

Like Guille, this announcer (or the person who wrote what she said) can’t put the blame right.

Nobody doubts that climate change is a fact. In recent decades there have been some evident changes in the global climate: the average temperature of the planet is rising; the glaciers are receding; the polar ice is melting; the distribution and intensity of extreme weather events (storms and hurricanes) is changing. What we must discover is the cause of these phenomena. Regarding this, there are two main theories: