Major challenges of future generation!

I watched recently again the program by BBC (David Attenborough) about the capacity of planet earth. Although the program is from three years ago, the subject is getting more and more interesting. We are using simply about 50% more resources than the capacity of our planet. We have two major problems that are energy and water. Considering the increasing in population, decreasing in supply of resources and improving the global wellfare and life styles, and more consumption, we have major challenges in the future. Considering the life styles of American, the planet has the capacity of no more than 2,5 billion people, while with the current Indian life style, the planet has the capacity of 15 billion people. However, the trend for the Indian is to move toward the Americal style, and not the vice versa. It is at least a dream of many Indians.

If we want to be realistic and not idealist, we should encourage our students, teenagers and young brains to find some solutions to recycle resources, e.g. water, energy and materials! It is the main challenge of the future generation!

Costs of global warming: 5 trillion USD

I read yesterday on The Independent, quoting Dr. Keywan Riahi that the costs of delaying in actions against global warming is already estimated as 5,000,000,000,000 USD, which is 25% higher that the previous prognosis. As it is further delayed, we should expect more costs. However, it seems the politicians are ready to pay for the natural disasters, but not ready to pay anything to stop it.

In another news, we see that 30-50% of the foods are wasted in different steps of its processing from harvesting the agricultural products until its end usage. Its prognosis point to about 2,000,000,000 tons materials.

If we consider just these two news, we can roughly calculate the potential of producing fuels (such as biogas) for about 200 billion liters of gasoline or kerosene from this food materials that is wasted. This amount is equal to about 15% of the global gasoline market. This simple calculation shows the huge potential of our current resources for avoiding global warming. However, we have to wake up!