2. INTRODUCTION
There are many discussions on going over the usage of fossil
fuels and the influence on climate change. All these discussions
are very concerned about our future. Many people are getting
the impression that the problem is getting so big that we cannot
solve it anymore and that a big disaster is coming over us.
I wonder if we should be so skeptical. There are many positive
developments on going in many different fields, as well social,
agriculture, technological etc. . Due to these developments there
will be a strong decrease in our CO2 emission and subsequently
in the CO2-concentration in the atmosphere. Moreover there will
be many other benefits as well.
Even if we cannot manage to keep the temperature
increase below 2 C we have learned a lot that will help us to
keep the temperature-increase below 4 C.
3. Examples of positive development
In the next slides examples of positive developments will be
given. There will be many more examples. However the idea is to
show that we know that we are on a wrong track but that we are
improving constantly.Many new and interesting developments
will be realized in the coming decades in order “to stop the
heat”.
A few of them will be given in this presentation.
4. Social Innovation
• The way countries will work together will become much
better and more succesful.This will also be helpfull for many
other challenges.
• Awareness that we have only one globe and that we have to
share the resources in such a way that it will be benifical for
all of us. We are all responsible for this globe and the people.
• Solving the poverty problem in the world.
• Many other innovations will be necessary to manage mankind
in such a way that we all and also other species will survive
the strong increase of the number of people on the planet.
5. Stopping and reversing desertification
Ecologist Allan Savory explained how we currently can stop
desertification and how to reverse it, by dramatically increasing
the number of grazing livestock. Millions of square km’s have
already been turned from desert into green valleys. These valleys
will be helpful to absorb CO2, grow vegetables and livestock’s.
This extra food production will be helpful to support the
increasing world-population in a ‘natural’ way. See his impressive
presentation on TED talks.
• http://www.ted.com/talks/
allan_savory_how_to_green_the_world_s_deserts_and_rever
se_climate_change
6. Improve our agriculture on a global scale
• There is constantly research going on how to improve the
productivity of our agriculture activities. A good example is
given by The university of Wageningen (The Netherlands). They
started the project Cascape to support farmers in Ethiopia to
improve the productivity of their land.
• http://www.wageningenur.nl/en/show/CASCAPE-1.htm
• World wide many of this kind of initiatives have started. As a
result food production in ‘difficult’ areas will become possible.
A good example is the development of the salty water potato.
• http://phys.org/news/2015-04-dutch-saltwater-potatoes-
world-hungry.html
7. New awareness of agri-culture in our
society
• International Assessment of Agricultural Science and
Technology for Development (IAASTD) focuses on agriculture
as the provider of food, nutrition, health, environmental
services, and economic growth that is both sustainable and
socially equitable. This assessment recognizes the diversity of
agricultural ecosystems and of local social and cultural
conditions.
• http://www.greenfacts.org/en/agriculture-iaastd/index.htm
8. Decentralized power production
• The western infra structure for electricity distribution is far
too expensive. Local power stations based on solar cells or
wind are much more effective and produce much less CO2.
• New battery systems are developed that can help to maintain
a constant voltage over the local grid and to cover period of
low electricty production.
• Commercial systems are already available. However in the
coming decade the performance of batteries will improve a
lot (higher efficiency, higher capacity etc).
9. Improving the mileage of petrol
• The effective usage of petrol in our combustion engines is low. On
average about 4% in city traffic and about 7% on the high way.
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Energy_flows_in_car.svg
• Students have proven that it is possible to drive more than 2900
km with one liter of petrol.
• http://energyblog.nationalgeographic.com/2012/07/07/thai-
students-beat-own-record-achieve-highest-mileage-at-shell-eco-
marathon-asia/
• The difference between the current performance, about 10 km/l,
vs the performance of the students is so big that it is clear
that a significant improvement should be possible.
10. Developing better houses and
residential facilities.
• During the last 20 years many improvement on energy
handling have been achieved. However at the moment there
is even research going on to develop houses that can produce
their own energy.
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSzu83fyQaQ&list=PLA3F
A81425568E9F9
• In case this research will be successful this will result in a
significant reduction of greenhouse gas.
11. Development of new technical
materials is constantly on going
• Very promising is the development of Grafene. This material is
made out of graphite and there is no shortage of this on earth.
This material has an electrical conductivity that is 300 times
better than copper. This will be a new material for developing
supercomputers, electrical transport system with almost no
losses and many other applications. The expectations of this
material are so high that the EU started a sponsorship of 1
billion Euro.
• http://graphene-flagship.eu
• http://mrsec.gatech.edu/page/2013-highlights-georgia-institute-
technology-nsf-mrsec
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xp9OKouxd4s
12. Discussion
As described there are many very positive
developments going on. Only a few examples
are given. However the net benefit of these
developements will depend on how the global
society will be dealing with this. If everything
works out very well it will end up in a very
positive way instead of a big disaster
