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| Photo from Environmentla Photographer 2009, see http://www.ciwem.org/competition-and-awards/environmental-photographer/epoty-exhibitions--events.aspx |
This post is a really important contribution from my friend Martin Steiner (General manager of TBU Austria - see www.tbu-austria.com) and Ulrich Wiegel (Consulting Engineer, see www.icu-berlin.de). I found the article very interesting and speaking frankly very close to my own perceptions about the difficulties in addressing climate change issues. It also fits a lot with my previous post http://mavropoulos.blogspot.com/2011/10/urban-waste-management-and-climate.html.
Please enjoy it (unfortunately this is just a two pages abstract of a very important article that is too long to be published in my blog - but I tried to keep the fruitful thoughts and key-messages of the authors).
"The problem is not with waste, but with climate…-how perception influence behaviour
Both solid waste and greenhouse gases are “wastes”
in a broad sense, one solid, the other gaseous. The first
is perceived with our senses, the other not. Solid waste is accessible to all
the senses: we see, feel, smell
– and even hear it, once the garbage truck arrives. The essential greenhouse gases of methane, nitrous oxide and
carbon dioxide are outside our sensory capacities: invisible, odourless – and, moreover are disposed of at virtually
zero cost, even allowing for the current European carbon trade system. We
simply dump the gaseous garbage into the “air ocean” on the bottom of which we
live.
About 250 kg of household and commercial garbage is
generated per person per year. In addition, about the same amount of recyclable
materials is separately collected, comprising: paper, glass, biowaste etc.,
altogether 500 kg of “waste” per person per year. The quantity of greenhouse
gases (measured as CO2-equivalents, to which the various greenhouse gases are
converted according to their relative impact) comes to about 10,000 kg of
CO2-equivalents per person and year, or 10 tonnes, about 20 times the quantity
of waste.
Although
the green house management problem seems to be greater than the solid waste
management problem, little attention has been laid on it.
Solid waste
management became very quickly a major political and scientific issue in many
countries worldwide, the last decades. In this sense, many technological
achievements and policies have been implemented to minimize solid waste production and to limit adverse effects into the environment.
This quick response in the solid waste sector was a
consequence of the following three factors: the negative impacts of improper
waste treatment were quickly felt (e.g. groundwater pollution caused by
dumpsites), and prompted action to be taken. Secondly, waste – through its
sensory qualities – is present to some degree in everyone´s mind on a
day-to-day basis – this increased the political priority to deal with it.
Thirdly, the adoption of environmentally friendly waste treatment has enabled tangible
environmental benefits to be quickly realised.
However,
all these mechanisms do not apply to CO2-waste: damages occur only following
considerable delay and are not locally connected to the source. This, together
with the fact that CO2-waste cannot be perceived “sensorily”, has resulted in
less intense countermeasures being taken.
It is
clear that CO2-waste management depends on the existence of the problem in our
perception. To be accustom this the following example is provided: If somebody throwing a noticeable piece of paper litter out their car window every two
seconds for a minute, over one kilometre, resulting in 30 pieces of litter lying
on the road, altogether maybe 150 g of waste that would be noticeable and
annoying. If at the same time, the car has left behind 150 g CO2 over the one
kilometre “on the road” via its exhaust that would not be noticeable and
therefore not being annoying– so it does not exist in our perception.
On
further reflection, if CO2 were solid, the greenhouse gases management problem
would have already become a major issue some 80-100 years ago, with the rapid
expansion of electricity production and industrialization. Surrounded by rising CO2-ash heaps from these activities, the notion to
transport a human body weighing around 100 kg using a vehicle weighing more
than 1,000 kg, thus a payload of less than 10 % of the total mass, resulting in
more than 90 % energy loss, which is clearly too high as a proportion of energy
inherent in the system, would have been promptly rejected.
We have after all direct experience of the banning
of forms of energy consumption that produced atmospheric pollution which is
obvious, we could see smell, and even taste it, and in terms of fatalities: in
most of Europe in the middle of the last century laws were introduced to limit
particulate atmospheric pollution (‘smog’) through smoke control. Within a few
years people willingly gave up burning coal to heat their houses and water,
because they could see both the problem and the benefits of action.
For
these reasons CO2-waste management has been developed with considerable lower
rates than the solid waste management sector. It is characteristic in the case
of Austria that although a number of measures, introduced in a successive 10
years period, have already solved the waste ‘problem’ by nearly 100%, a
reduction within 30 years of fossil-based greenhouse gas by 16% has only been
announced.
Recycling is easy and makes us feel good – avoidance is hard and an annoyance
Another
important difference between solid waste management and CO2-waste management is
that the first is largely based on Recycling
and the second is base on Avoidance.
Recycling does not work with CO2-waste which final and only option is
disposal-either by conventional dumping into the ‘air ocean’ or by innovative
subterranean storage. So, a fundamental partial solution for reducing
CO2-waste is avoidance and that means abstaining from consumption, which people
are reluctant to do because they love convenience, and because they do not
suffer enough immediately from the problem.
With
over 100 years of increasing CO2 output, the unspoken assumption has been made
that its disposal would not cause environmental damage. Until science could at
long last agree that there would be any damage at all, technology and society
developed into a state of enormous – because of its free-of-cost – CO2-waste
production. The acknowledgement of the damage, and acceptance of the soon-to-be
enforced CO2-levies will be, unlike for solid waste, clearly more difficult, as
a) the damage is a future damage, is not clearly defined and not locally felt
b) the existing social and economic system would be hit hard – one may imagine
that all 10 tons CO2 per person per year would be charged per tonne analogous
to waste treatment with say 100 € (which is the cost for one tonne of avoided
CO2 for renewable energy technologies) and c) for this investment no reliable
and auditable outcome can be assured.
At this point a philosophical consideration of the
avoidance issue is necessary: Although technical innovations are important to
avoid CO2-waste a society-wide ‘value change’ is rather critical to be
achieved.
It is obvious that as humans – apart from the securing of our basic
survival needs – we ultimately aim for one thing: to be happy (according to competent studies “happiness” is the
least common human condition by the way, and not attainable by directly trying).
Now, happiness is a condition that exists only in our minds and is generated in
essence by ourselves and our emotional response to external influences.
In this direction ‘Low energy happiness generation
behavior’ is consider a key factor leading to climate protection. This means
that, if we can produce in ourselves the same level of happiness with reduced
material and energy consumption, it can be referred to as climate friendly
happiness. The initially noticeable satisfaction “loss” caused by abstention
and effort is counterbalanced by the satisfaction “benefit” caused by the
certainty of “doing the right thing”. This has already been achieved with
waste. If we were able to imagine greenhouse gases “materialized” in solid form
we would be able to create within us an increasingly greater sense of happiness
from the initially unpleasant sacrifice associated with “doing without”.
On the
other hand we realize that in the waste sector we have – with the participation
of the broader community and developments in technology and organizational
framework – been able to achieve something which, at the end of the seventies,
was also unimaginable. In the area of climate protection, technology, while
vitally important, will not provide the whole answer; the challenge remains to
shift our philosophical basis and value set. Only then will meaningful and
efficient outcomes be achievable.
The
technical/scientific knowledge for implementing a climate-related change of
values is available and is gathering momentum. It is now a priority to keep
this change of values in our conscience, and to increase its perceived
importance. In the area of climate
protection, technology, while vitally important, will not provide the whole answer;
the challenge remains to shift our philosophical basis and value set."
