Opinion – Candido Bracher: How the world really works

A few weeks ago, almost simultaneously, international newspapers reported on the decision of the Congolese government to bid for extensive forest areas for oil exploration and on the heat wave in Europe, which recorded record temperatures in several countries. A few days later, a flood claimed more than 35 victims in the US state of Kentucky.

The absurdity of the situation is evident from the widespread knowledge that: 1) heat waves and floods are a growing phenomenon –nine out of the ten warmest years in history have occurred since 2005– caused by the greenhouse effect caused by the emission of carbon dioxide carbon and other gases (CO2e) in the atmosphere, and 2) Congo’s decision has a double impact on these emissions: through forest degradation of the auctioned areas, which reduces the sequestration of CO2e, and through the emissions to be produced by the extracted oil.

Such a mismatch would perhaps be understandable if Europeans and Americans were ignorant of what is happening in Congo, and vice versa. But not only is this impossible in today’s globalized world, but European and American companies are likely to be among the bidders.

Asked about the bid, which will extend to Virunga National Park, the world’s most important gorilla sanctuary, Congolese officials say its only objective is to raise funds to support poverty reduction projects and activate the economy. “This is our priority. Saving the planet is not our priority.”

Faced with such evidence of the virtual absence of global leadership and coordination to combat the climate crisis, I sought guidance in a book with the inviting title “How the world really works”, written by Vaclav Smil, a recognized author of scientific books, which Bill Gates says be among your favorite authors.

As my father would say, “I went to get wool and came back shorn”.

Smil says at the beginning of the book and repeats at the end that he is neither an optimist nor a pessimist; he is a scientist. He then states that it is not possible to understand the workings of the world without understanding the fundamental importance of energy in human activity. It then brings a wealth of numerical data, information and comparisons that fully demonstrate our deep dependence on energy.

Not just the one necessary for obvious functions such as lighting our homes, heating and cooling, daily transport and intercontinental travel, but especially the one contained in virtually everything we consume. With fascinating precision, we learned the amount of energy required for different foods to reach our table, such as tomatoes, which consume up to 650 ml of diesel per kg.

The author demonstrates the importance of the “four material pillars of modern civilization” –plastic, cement, steel and ammonia (for fertilizers)– and explains how their large-scale production is unfeasible without the use of fossil energy. He also draws attention to the fact that renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, are intermittent in nature, requiring large storage capacity. It is also the space needed for their storage that makes the use of alternative energies for aviation and maritime transport unfeasible.

All these elements lead him to conclude that we will be dependent on fossil fuels for a few decades yet: “Even if we multiply the current rate of decarbonization by three or four, fossil fuels will still dominate in 2050.” To this conclusion, he adds two aggravating elements: the difficulty of making long-term forecasts and the lack of past examples of global coordination to assume present costs and sacrifices in exchange for benefits in the distant future.

The author mocks the optimists who believe in miraculous technological substitutes for fossil energy, like Chomski, as well as those who believe in our growing ability to control the world, like Yuval Harari. He also mocks climate conference participants, who for 30 years have been meeting regularly in tourist locations, unconcerned about the carbon footprint of their travels and without having produced a single effectively binding emission reduction agreement.

With all these elements, the book could be read as an important warning to the difficulty of the challenge before us and a call to action; an encouragement to demand greater coordination from global leaders and to accept costs and restrictions, to avoid excessive warming and its serious consequences, which are already being felt.

But that’s not the feeling we get at the end of reading. On the contrary, despite some encouraging phrases, the general tone is one of disbelief in relation to the possibility of a coordinated reaction and of conformity with the inability to plan; “the future is a repetition of the past – a combination of admirable advances with (in)avoidable setbacks”.

It is also surprising that the book does not contain policy recommendations or guidelines for accelerating emission reductions. While he claims that progress is not possible in the absence of a clear and irreversible agreement between the main emitting nations, he raises serious doubts as to the willingness of these nations to impose burdens on their citizens (and voters) in exchange for benefits that, according to him, , are two generations ahead.

It will be very sad if the principle that Max Planck, one of the fathers of quantum physics, coined for science becomes applicable to the environmental question: “A new scientific truth triumphs not by persuading those who oppose it, by making them see the light. But rather, because their opponents end up dying, and a new generation, already familiar with this truth, takes their place.”

Despite the enormous unpredictability of the future emphasized by Smil, there is no doubt that delaying the action, delegating it to the next generations, would cause great suffering. Despite all the precision of numbers contained in the book, the aphorism that says that it is better to be approximately right than precisely wrong remains valid.