Climate change and planetary boundaries
Global carbon emissions in 2023
What is 37.4 billion tons?
(a new high, despite a goal of 0 by 2050)
Primary source of carbon emissions
Burning fossil fuels for energy
Green water
What is water held in the soil and available only to plants?
The book credited with inspiring the modern (US) environmental movement.
What was Rachel Carson's Silent Spring?
3 strategies that save money while reducing carbon emissions
What are residential insulation retrofits, switching to LEDS, using hybrid vehicles?
"Cleanest" to "dirtiest" fossil fuels
Methane, oil, coal--on the basis of pounds of CO2 emitted per BTU of energy
but methane leaks complicate this story...
Grey water
What is the relatively clean waste water from baths, sinks, washing machines, and other kitchen appliances?
The original US claim to small island military bases around the globe.
What are guano islands? or What is a nationally-important fertilizer source?
88 out of 90 paths to 1.5ºC rely on this underdeveloped technology
what is carbon capture and storage or carbon removal?
Top 5 sources of renewable energy
What are solar, wind, geothermal, hydropower (including ocean), and biomass?
Blue water
What is the name for water found in rivers and lakes, groundwater, and the water frozen in glaciers and the polar ice caps?
1970 campus teach-ins and protests against industrial pollution
What was the first Earth Day?
The Oxfam champagne graphic
What encapsulates the relative global responsibility for carbon emission by wealth?
The cost of US extreme weather disaster relief in 2022 versus government financing for climate change mitigation and adaptation
What is $165 billion versus $5.8 billion?
(Investment in renewable energy counts as mitigation)
Percentage of global population lacking access to clean water in 2023 (UN)
What is over 25%?
This is the connection between "carbon" and "democracy" in Timothy Mitchell's book
What is "the materiality of coal and oil shaping battles over industrial democracy and workers’ rights from the 1880s through the 1950s"?
The nine planetary boundaries
What are...
Climate change
Biosphere integrity
Land-system change
Freshwater change
Ocean acidification
Atmospheric aerosol loading (particulate matter)
Stratospheric ozone depletion
Novel entities (human-created pollutants, e.g. PFAS)
Amount of surplus energy the USA could generate from renewable resources (DOE)
What is "more than 100 times the amount of electricity Americans use each year"?
Number of lives that could be saved each year by improving access to water, sanitation and hygiene
What is 1.4 million? (WHO)
Lowball estimate of environmental defenders killed between 2013 and 2021 (Global Witness)
What is 1700?