October 2023
I have decided to continue the theme of climate change this month, simply because I think it is important for folk to understand what is happening, and what is at stake. It will affect us all as time progresses.
70% of oil deposits existing today were formed in the Mesozoic age (252 to 66 million years ago). This was when there was a mass extinction of life forms caused by a huge meteorite that crashed into the planet where Mexico now exists. The explosion cut out sunlight from much of the planet for years. Most life forms perished, but not all. The dead life forms decayed into oil, gas and coal. The survivors evolved into the abundant biodiversity that we see today, from bluebells to blue whales.
We are now digging/pumping that oil out of the ground at a rate of 93.9 million barrels per day. That is about 14,928,906,994 litres, this is slightly less than the maximum year (2019, about 95 million barrels/day), to serve 8 billion humans.. The upshot is that we are not reducing oil production and use by very much yet, and the reduction is slow at present.
So how much oil is burned and produces carbon dioxide per year? Answer = 35,442,913,090 Barrels. This figure is huge, and produces about 34 billion tonnes (Gt) of greenhouse gas – carbon dioxide per year.
How many oil fuelled aircraft are flying globally at any moment? Answer: between 8,000 and 13,000. This is continuous. There are also billions of fossil fuelled terrestrial vehicles (cars etc.) still on the global roads. Also oil, coal and gas fuelled power stations and heating systems. We are tapping the energy from billions of life forms that lived millions of years ago and burning them to sustain our modern lifestyle.
100 years ago, it was coal fired steam engines and chimneys that were polluting the world. Now it is mainly oil, but the mechanism, combustion, is still the same. However, we do have the technology to turn it around. 200 years ago, it was the build up of horse manure in city streets that concerned people. Now it is carbon dioxide and particulates. We all need to do something as 8 billion small adjustments = 1 solution.