Energy and sustainability, from the point of view of environmental physics
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REVIEW Energy and sustainability, from the point of view of environmental physics
Micha Tomkiewicz, Department of Physics, Brooklyn College of CUNY, Brooklyn, NY 11210, USA; Ph.D Program in Physics and the Ph.D Program in Chemistry, The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, New York, NY 10016, USA Address all correspondence to Micha Tomkiewicz at michatom@brooklyn. cuny.edu (Received 20 January 2015; accepted 17 August 2015)
ABSTRACT The author defines sustainability as the condition that must be developed globally for humanity to flourish until technology advances extraterrestrial travel that will allow migration to another planet once conditions here deteriorate. The emphasis is on anthropogenic climate change caused primarily by changes in the chemistry of the atmosphere due to dominant use of fossil fuels. This review is focused on climate change. It is based on the understanding that anthropogenic climate change is caused primarily by changes in the chemistry of the atmosphere due to dominant use of fossil fuels. Stabilization of the climate requires energy transition from business as usual scenarios to a mixture of noncarbon based energy sources. The starting point for discussing this transition is the so-called Kaya–IPAT identity, which parametrizes the transition in terms impact (I) driven by population growth (P), increase in the standard of living (A), the required energy intensity, and the transition to different sources of energy (T), i.e., both “hard” and “soft” science parameters. Important issues that are not explicitly part of the identity are the differentiated requirements of developed and developing countries and the required duration of such transition. Such a transition inevitably involves winners and losers and is, thus prone to lead to political conflicts on local and global scale. Such a transition brings also opportunities for future growth. The review highlights some of the specific opportunities that such a transition brings to material science. Keywords: environment; energy generation; photovoltaic; society; sustainability
Background—physics & sustainability
DISCUSSION POINTS • If one agrees with the Brundtland definition of sustainable development that states that it is “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs,” how far into the future should we project? • The Anthropocene is often defined as an “epoch that begins when human activities started to have a significant global impact on Earth's ecosystems.” With 7 billion people (October 2012) and growing, the changes in designation of our epoch to Anthropocene become inevitable and humans will officially become a dominant part of the “natural environment” with “verification and falsification” of any theory requiring full consideration of human behavior, no matter from which academic discipline we approach the issue. The investigators will become not only observers but part of the observed system. How will these changes affect the nature of sc
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