Henryk Belda
I
would like to know how much everything costs, not what its price is. For this reason everything should be costed up in global warming kilowatt hours, (GKs). Initially it won't be as precise as the money systems we have at present, but with everything having a price tag in GKs it will show very clearly to every person in the world what is sustainable , what isn't, and to what degree. It would of necessity be a global currency to replace the ones we have at present, for international trading at the very least.The problem with the present currencies is that they are all surplus based, which means that any produce over and above that minimum necessary for human survival is allocated a price and put on a market to than be subjected to the law of supply and demand and greed. With a global warming based currency it makes no sense to acquire high priced goods for resale at a profit, and this will automatically cut out nearly all of the abuses of the present systems with the minimum of intervention. A GK based currency is a damage based system, so that one would choose a lower price not only to benefit oneself, but to limit climatic damage. It means of course that all the present currencies will have to disappear or be severely limited to a local level of trading where either all produce is from renewable sources, or all non-renewable sources. This would certainly be an improvement much in keeping with the present day conditions in the world where financiers with their still largely undebunked dogmas of everlasting growth always have the final say — ON PRACTICALLY ALL MATTERS.
It is necessary to clarify what the present system of finance has done to the world before people will readily accept a change. The system MUST BE PUT ON TRIAL. First and foremost it is a system for indiscriminate population explosion. Capital from the wealthy nations, which was almost all of it derived from fossil fuels, is channeled into poorer nations to breed up the populations into economic serfdom.
As a result of this the feudal system is propagated by multinational finance and whole ecosystems are obliterated. Quite plainly it is a method of ECO-VANDALISM. It has to be changed.
HOW WOULD THE GK SYSTEM WORK?
First of all, every carbon based fuel, whether it is food or fossil produces carbon dioxide which stays in the atmosphere for anything from 4 to 200 years, depending on the quantity released. The international Panel on Climate Change (IPCC95) report gives us a value of 1.6 Watts per square metre increase in global warming due to a rise of 78 ppmV (parts per million by volume) of carbon dioxide levels since pre-industrial times. This enables us to calculate the global warming due to one kilogram of CO2, which works out approximately at 1.3 Watts.
By setting an average time for the residence of CO2 in the atmosphere this gives us the total global warming energy due to one kg of CO2 which we can then compare with the calorific value of any (carbon based) fuel used to produce that one kg of CO2. The ratio of these two figures (energies) is then the global warming factor for that fuel. (See below for factors).
| Fuel | Factor | Electricity | Factor |
| Methane/Natural gas | 225 | Gas generated | 535 |
| Petrol | 275 | Coal generated | 1500 |
| Diesel/kerosene | 295 | ||
| Coal | 460 |
Supposing one grew one's own food in one’s own back yard then the carbon dioxide from that renewable source would (after the food had been eaten and turned into energy) last about 4 years in the atmosphere as part of a natural cycle. If that food were carbohydrate then it would contribute to global warming about 15 times its calorific value
- the whole earth would be heated by 15 times the number of calories (or kilojoules, or kilowatt hours) in the food. If one cycled to work the same argument would apply - the earth would be heated* by 15 times the energy of the cycle journey (the assumption that only carbohydrates are used to fuel cycling is a good one).If one were able to drive a car which was as energy efficient as a bicycle, and petrol were a renewable fuel then the carbon dioxide from the petrol used for the same journey would only heat the earth 11 times the energy used for the travel to work because petrol has a higher specific energy than carbohydrate. However, petrol is not a renewable fuel and the carbon dioxide it produces is not part of the 4 year cycle for removing CO2 but part of a longer 50 to 200 year cycle for conveying surplus fossil fuel CO2 to the depths of the oceans or elsewhere. There is still argument as to the exact time that the extra burden of CO2 from fossil fuels has to "wait" but one can assume that it is not much different from 100 years for an error of a factor of 2. If we assume a 100 year lifetime for CO2 then the global warming energy from petrol burned in a car is effectively multiplied by 25 times what it would have been had it been renewable. This means that petrol effectively heats the atmosphere by 25 X 11
= 275 times the energy it gives out for transport. The same applies for other fossil fuels but with different factors:Most products for human use or consumption in the present "economy" use one or more of these fuels in their manufacture. They all come neatly listed under one category or other in the budgets of businesses. It is a straightforward matter to calculate how many kilowatt hours of each of these fuels is used to market and sell any particular product. The total kilowatt hours for each fuel are multiplied by their global warming factor and these new totals are added up over all the different fuels used, to give a grand total of Global Warming kilowatt hours for any given product. This is then used as the price to sell the product.
Henryk Belda
(Scottish Green Party)
The calculation is actually for sucrose. Other values necessary are:
Area of the earth: 510 million sq km
Mass of atmosphere: 5270 bn tonnes
Ratio of mass of CO2/Average air molecule: 44/28.96