Welcome to the Bio-Based Society – the Best Defense Against Climate Change
Novozymes
It is time to rethink tomorrow, says Novozymes CEO Steen Riisgaard. Within a few years, he writes, advances in biotechnology will enable us to begin using biomass to replace oil in everything from fuels to chemicals, plastics, packaging, and pharmaceuticals.
The world faces challenges unseen by any other generation.
Since 1950, the human population has doubled to over 6 billion: with a current growth rate of more than 200,000 people a day, 3 billion more will join us over the next 40 years. By the time our grandchildren reach the age we are now, pressure on sources of energy, water, and society's basic building blocks could take the environmental strain on the planet past breaking point.
Current CO2 levels generated by human activity show with absolute clarity that the world needs to take immediate action to ensure a sustainable future. Whoever takes the lead must do so quickly. Without action, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere will reach levels that scientists predict will have a catastrophic effect.
One-quarter of the world's CO2 emissions are created by the transport sector, which accounts for some 60% of the world's total oil consumption. Yet the world also uses oil in many other ways in our daily lives – from plastics to chemicals and toys – that we take for granted. And although these also account for greenhouse gas emissions they are not always in the front of our minds.
So it is time to rethink tomorrow. This means developing and investing in novel and creative ways to use renewable resources. Humankind has had an impact on the Earth ever since the first seed was planted. It now has a collective responsibility and opportunity to take the tools it has shaped and put them to use for all our collective futures as never before. So rather than panic about these enormous problems, we need to develop immediate solutions that allow us to see them all as one combined challenge.
The good news is that answers can already be found right in our own backyard. Renewable energy resources in combination with a balanced use of our remaining fossil fuels will allow the development of a sustainable energy supply that will put real-world solutions into the hands of governments, businesses, and consumers.
Wind, solar, and hydro power are just some of the renewable resources that we must invest in and utilize as effectively as possible. Biomass, the plant or agricultural residue that goes widely unused in modern society, is one of the Earth's largest potential sources of renewable energy, and also has the potential to replace oil in everything from fuels to chemicals, plastics, packaging, and pharmaceuticals.
Within a couple of years, nature's own workhorses – enzymes and microorganisms – which are already helping to reduce CO2 emissions in tens of industries around the world, from food to drinks and even detergents – will begin converting fast-growing energy crops and by-products from both agriculture and households into the products that are made from oil today. Biotechnology will drive the transition from an oil-dependent society to a bio-based society, and in a sustainable way.
This is not a pipe dream or a grand vision of the future. Advances in enzyme-based technologies have already set us on this road.
By way of just one example, second-generation (2G) bioethanol, which will go into large-scale production next year, will be able to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 90% when compared to oil-based fuels. Building on investments in first-generation technologies, the cellulosic biorefineries that will produce 2G will require little or no fossil fuel inputs and are even likely to return power to the grid, utilizing a range of crops and currently unused plant matter to do so.
Sweden has the ambition of eliminating use of fossil fuels by 2030, and 25% of cars already sold there today are able to run on biofuels. In Brazil, that number is 90%. And one of the world's largest car manufacturers – GM – puts the cost of producing these "flex-fuel" vehicles at just a tenth of the price of an electric car. By next year, half of all GM vehicles made will be flex-fuel.
Developing the bio-based society is not without challenges. Public policy and private enterprise must now work together on a global basis to capitalize and support bio-based technologies, including those that can convert biomass to energy and other products, to reduce CO2 emissions and help meet society's needs. The United States already has a great deal of infrastructure in place, and China is speeding up its own development at a remarkable pace.
If further innovation and improvement of bio-based solutions are to continue, action and commitment must be taken in terms of three key steps:
- Governments must shape policies to enable faster and successful commercialization of these new technologies and support their further development through incentives, key procurement programs, and sustainable investment strategies;
- Businesses must invest in technologies that improve their operational effectiveness by producing more products using fewer natural resources;
- Consumers must be incentivized across the full product chain, so that they not only realize the impact of their purchase decisions but also how these empower them to support sustainable business practices.
Today, a solution to humankind's greatest challenge lies within our reach. The world need not mortgage the future trying to fix the problems of today. With just a little more research and innovation, we can create more by using less. And in the process, we can create new green jobs, grow our economy, and make our world a better place to live for generations to come.
Key Websites & Blogs
Key Media Sources
Key Policy Documents
Key Climate Agencies
Key International Organizations
Key NGOs
Key Science Reports
Key Business Networks
Key Research Centers
Key Clean-tech Companies
Comments feedcheck permaculture if not already familiar
Reseeding the deforested areas by dropping masses of seed balls (seeds mixed with clay)
And moving from our agricultural systems into the models as demonstrated in permaculture protocol. If deserts can grow life again. We have technologies. A man invented a imprinting machine that makes imprints so water collects in deserts and seeds don't blow away
We need to harvest rainwater and grow food locally
on one acre if 1" of rain falls, it is 27,000 gallons. There are many ways to work with energy in its various forms- to cooperate with Nature's process of self-beautication--- and to become conscious co-creators on this beautiful planet creating abundance for every person.
Sustainable technology, even if enforced by government and business makes a reaping, is better than the route we are on. We have an island twice the size of Texas in the Pacific, made of 6' ft of melted plastic. We are a throw-away society.
So much is short-term. We are a society of debt. We tax the resources and make agreements that bind the life-essence of eachother.
Our fundamental errors are in our current consciousness. We will evolve either through ignorance or grace
There are categorical names for such assertions, basically that x or y technology will fix the problems created with b or c technology. The extremes quickly begin to resemble science fiction, e.g. robotic body parts, weather manipulation, off-world colonies.. all seriously proposed by their various adherents. The precautionary principle tells us that we are wise not to deploy until proven safe. But markets reward quick movers, and there is a "race to the bottom" in international regulation.. Human cloning in some exotic island laboratory, for instance.
I am fundamentally unconvinced of the safety of genetically arbitrary organisms replacing anything. Who could have imagined that young Monarch butterflies would be killed by the pollan of an unrelated crop? The response of the creators of the GE crop was predictable, and does not inspire confidence in resolving future situations.
Is it possible that mankind may lay huge swaths of destruction to the natural world, if it is profitable in the short term? Is it possible that socially, steering mechanisms would be applied to protect the profitable behavior,even in the face of overwhelming evidence of the long term consequences of the action? I suggest the extinction of hundreds of prominent animal and plant species, and the history of war, tell us the answer.
Do not rush to panacea technical solutions. If they sound too good to be true, they may be exactly that.
I wonder if there really is a crisis, from What I have seen, there is really no crisis.
I was less then 10 years old when I read an article in a Petroleum Engineering Journal that said the Probable Cause for Global Freezing was the Rotation of the Orbital Axis of Earth, called Precessional Orbita Rotation.
Tne Following Reasons are my Reasons for disbelief of The Global Warming being Caused by CO2 Emissions.
1.I first heard of Global Warming and the Source from which I got the information cast doubt on the Truth of their Information.
I knew that the News Media in the US is Owned by the Largest Manufacturing Companies in the World.
2. The Profit from Global Warming, True or Not will Be Enormous as it seems to Be Dictatorially Done, it will Be Forced on Citizens by their Governments.
3. It is opposed by Mathematical Predictions made previous to My Mere Three Years of Education in College, I have no Degree,
4. The Reason I think we have Global Warming is Possible, and 1 I have heard no Discussion on this reason 2. It is Totally Discounted and Ignored, 3, I have drawn it out and can see it in progress but I am not an Astro Physicist and Do Not know with Certainty our Earths Position as it rotates in its Orbital Path around The Sun and I believe it is in the Position which would cause Global Warmin.
5. Global Warming would be beneficial to Earth, Fishing, Farming, and to Life in General, and would not result in Crisis but Good Climate and Economy and Health, Cleansing the Atmosphere and Milder Weather, due to milder prevailing winds due to a diminished temperature gradient between the Tropics and Polar climes.
It would last perhaps as much as 180 years if this is so depending on when the warming began as it takes 180 years to traverse 1 degree of precessional orbital rotation.
This is just the kind of technology needed...although this too doesn't reduce CO2 in the atmosphere, it recycles it. Fast-growing plants perhaps will help us to fix more CO2. Very innovative.