Cure your Earth Day hangover: 4 reasons to be optimisticabout the planet

Cure your Earth Day hangover: 4 reasons to be optimistic about the planet

Earth Day can be rather depressing, given the slew of statistics showing that we've got majorenvironmental problems, from endangered species to global warming. But there are plenty ofreasons for optimism, too.

Satellite image of the Northern Hemisphere on the first Earth Day in 1970.

Image:NOAA

1. We may finally be separating global warming emissions from economic growth

For decades, trends in global warming pollutants like carbon dioxide went hand-in-hand witheconomic growth rates. As the economy grew, so too did emissions, as factories burned more fuels tomake more goods, people bought more gas-guzzling cars and trucks. Yet recently, there have beenindications that the U.S. and the world may be beginning to "decouple" emissions from changes ineconomic growth.

See also: Wonderworld: A spectacular photo journey of Earth

If this trend holds up, it will prove to be a key to a successful effort to curtail greenhouse gasemissions without stunting development in rapidly growing countries like Brazil, China and India, aswell as the U.S. and other industrialized nations.

Energy use per capita, along with energy use per GDP, as forecast from a recent EIA report.

Image:EIA 2014

According to a recent report from the International Energy Agency, global emissions of carbondioxide flatlined in 2014, despite global economic growth during the year. This was the first time in40 years in which there was a halt or reduction in greenhouse gas emissions without an economicdownturn, according to the IEA, which is based in Vienna, Austria. The new data may indicate someprogress is being made in addressing global warming, which is caused largely by increasingamounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

The IEA data showed that emissions from the energy sector, which includes power plants that burncoal or natural gas to generate electricity, remained at 32.3 billion tonnes in 2014, which was aboutthe same level as in 2013.

"This gives me even more hope that humankind will be able to work together to combat climatechange, the most important threat facing us today," IEA Chief Economist Fatih Birol said in astatement.

The IEA found that the halt in emissions growth is likely due to changing energy consumption inChina as well as industrialized countries. In China, where rapid economic growth has led to massivepollution problems, there was a greater reliance on renewable energy sources in 2014, such ashydropower and wind energy.

However, a slowdown in the growth of emissions will not solve global warming by itself, sincebillions of tonnes of planet-warming gases are still being added to the atmosphere much faster thanthe rate at which the environment can absorb them into the oceans and forests. Last year was thewarmest year on record globally, and the amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere hasalready hit an all-time high so far this year, likely the highest levels since the dawn of the humancivilization " or longer.

A report from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) last year found that average energy useper person in the U.S. is declining each year, and is projected to plunge in the coming decades.

Another report from the EIA released in April found that although the U.S. saw its greenhouse gasemissions increase in 2014, its economy grew faster.

The new data showed that energy-related carbon dioxide emissions rose at a rate of 0.7% in 2014,while 2014 GDP growth was much higher, at 2.4%.

2. Renewable energy technologies are booming

Part of the reason for the relative separation between greenhouse gas emissions trends andeconomic development is related to the rapid shift from coal-fired power plants to natural gas as thetop choice of fuel for generating electricity in the U.S. Natural gas emits about half of the carbondioxide as coal does when it is burned, although total emissions of another global warming-gas,methane, are higher.

But another reason is the rapid growth of the renewable electricity sector, both in the U.S. andabroad.

According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, the world is now adding more renewable energy thancoal, oil and natural gas combined. This is a fundamental shift that will take decades to fully playout, but, depending on the pace of the transition, it could help countries achieve emissions cuts onthe scale that scientists say would be necessary to avoid the most dangerous consequences of globalwarming.

Workers install photovoltaic modules on the roof of fishponds at Yantou Village on April 1, 2015 inJiaxing, Zhejiang province of China.

Image: ChinaFotoPress/ChinaFotoPress via Getty Images

Solar energy, in particular, is booming, as is wind power. In the U.S., renewables only generated13% of its total electricity in 2013, but it is growing faster than any other power source. China hascommitted to obtaining about 20% of its electricity from renewables by 2030. This is no smallcommitment, as it would require China to add a total amount of low-carbon energy sources between2015 and 2030 as nearly the entire electrical grid in the U.S.

A report released in March by the Solar Foundation found that employment in the U.S. solarindustry jumped nearly 22% in 2014, with 31,000 new jobs added during the year. Wind energy jobsalso increased during the period.

In India, too, solar is on the march. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set a goal of increasing solarenergy by 12 gigawatts per year, with eight gigawatts a year added in wind energy. Both thesetrends would be at least double the rates of growth seen in that country so far.

3. A successful climate agreement is already at hand

While global leaders have had trouble coming up with a successful global climate change agreementunder the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, there is actually another treaty that hasalready had major climate benefits, and is about to get even more effective.

The Montreal Protocol went into effect in 1989, and has successfully arrested and reversed the

decline in stratospheric ozone over the North and South Pole. The Protocol regulates sale and use ofchluorofluorocarbons, more commonly known as CFCs, and other ozone-depleting compounds. It justso happens that many of these are also effective global warming agents too.

One of the substitutes for CFCs that industry has turned to for refrigerators, air conditioners andinsulating foams, are known as hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs. However, these are extremelyeffective at trapping heat in the Earth's atmosphere, far more so than carbon dioxide is.

For years, environmental activists and diplomats from countries including the U.S. have advocatedfor adding HFCs to the Montreal Protocol in order to use that agreement to address a problem itwasn't originally intended for.

On April 16, India dropped its longstanding opposition to such a plan, which was a move hailed bythe U.S. climate negotiating team at the State Department. Now the U.S., China and India are aunited bloc standing behind an amendment that would phase out HFCs over a period of 15 years.

Depending on the exact text that is passed, an HFC amendment could result in the equivalent ofreducing more than 90 gigatons of carbon dioxide-equivalent through 2050, according to the StateDepartment. This is about equal to two years of current global greenhouse gas emissions.

Durwood Zaelke of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development told Reuters that themove will help the UN climate talks, which are set to culminate in a Paris summit in December.

"It will build critical momentum for a successful outcome in Paris for the climate negotiations inDecember, and complement what is expected to be an agreement where all countries participate bypledging to attack climate pollutants at their own pace," he said.

4. Some species are coming back from the brink

At the time of the first Earth Day in 1970 the outlook for many iconic species, such as the bald eagle,was bleak. Chemicals like DDT were harming a host of species, putting them on the endangered list,and some waterways in the U.S. were so polluted that they were catching on fire.

Today, not only have bald eagles recovered, but our water is far cleaner too, thanks to laws like theClean Air Act and Clean Water Act, among others. The gray wolf has been proposed for delistingunder the Endangered Species Act, for example, in states like California, Oregon and Washington.

One of two female gray wolves at the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington, DC on May 4, 2014.

Image: Linda Davidson/The Washington Post/Associated Press

New technologies such as high resolution, relatively low cost satellite imagery as well as artificialintelligence may open up new avenues for monitoring habitats where rare species are known toexist, such as tropical rainforests. In fact, the potential for innovations in the area of deforestationmonitoring and prevention, species protection and other environmental goals that require constantvigilance and lots of data processing power seem limitless in the next several years.

Such technologies have already enabled the designation of the world's largest marine preserve,announced by the UK in March.

http://mashable.com/2015/04/23/optimism-about-planet-earth/