The Future: six drivers of global change - Part 126
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Part 126

2 Industrial Revolution at a rate

Original calculations were derived from: Scott Mandia, "Global Warming: Man or Myth: And You Think the Oil Spill Is Bad?," June 17, 2010, http://profmandia.wordpress.com/2010/06/17/and-you-think-the-oil-spill-is-bad/. Mandia's original calculations were revised to reflect later scientific estimates of the number of barrels per day. Source: Marcia McKnutt et al., "Review of Flow Rate Estimates of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, December 20, 2011.

3 prospective extinction of 20 to 50 percent of all the living species

Nicholas Stern, The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007).

4 400,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs

James Hansen, "Why I Must Speak Out About Climate Change," TED Talks, February 2012.

5 already compet.i.tive with the average grid price for electricity

"Commercial Solar Now Cost-Compet.i.tive in US," CleanTechnica, June 20, 2012, http://cleantechnica.com/2012/06/20/commercial-solar-now-cost-compet.i.tive-us/; "Wind Innovations Drive Down Costs, Stock Prices," Bloomberg, March 14, 2012, http://go.bloomberg.com/multimedia/wind-innovations-drive-down-costs-stock-prices/; "Grid Parity and Beyond: Brazilian Wind Energy Supported by Turbines Manufactured at 'Chinese Prices,' " CleanTechInvestor, August 29, 2011, http://www.cleantechinvestor.com/events/es/bwec-blog/301-grid-parity-and-beyond-brazilian-wind-energy-supported-by-turbines-manufactured-at-chinese-prices-.html.

6 renewables will be the second-largest source of power generation by 2015

International Energy Agency, World Energy Outlook 2012.

7 each and every hour than would be needed for all of the world's energy consumption

Nathan Lewis and Daniel Nocera, "Powering the Planet: Chemical Challenges in Solar Energy Utilization," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 103 (October 2006): 1572935.

8 wind energy also exceeds

Xi Lu et al., "Global Potential for Wind-Generated Electricity," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106 (June 2009): 1093338.

9 there were periods when Germany

Reuters, "Solar Power Generation World Record Set in Germany," Guardian, May 28, 2012.

10 entire world's additional electricity generation

Fiona Harvey, "Renewable Energy Can Power the World, Says Landmark IPCC Study," Guardian, May 9, 2011.

11 exceeded those in fossil fuels ($187 billion, compared to $157 billion)

Alex Morales, "Renewable Power Trumps Fossils for First Time as UN Talks Stall," Bloomberg News, November 25, 2011.

12 102 percent over those installed just one year earlier

Climate Guest Blogger, "Solar Is the 'Fastest Growing Industry in America' and Made Record Cost Reductions in 2010," Think Progress ClimateProgress, September 16, 2011, http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/09/16/321131/solar-fastest-growing-industry-in-america-and-made-record-cost-reductions/.

13 approximately 30 percent of all CO2 emissions come from buildings

Harvard Center for Health and the Global Environment, "The Built Environment," http://chge.med.harvard.edu/topic/built-environment.

14 of all buildings needed by 2050, two thirds have yet to be built

Alexis Biller and Chris Phillips, "The Role of Engineering in the Built Environment," Inst.i.tution of Engineering and Technology lecture, London, November 26, 2009.

15 "30 percent of the energy consumed in commercial buildings is wasted"

A Better Building. A Better Bottom Line. A Better World, Environmental Protection Agency brochure (2010), http://www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/publications/pubdocs/C+I_brochure.pdf.

16 more concern about global warming than most elected officials

"Climate Change May Challenge National Security, Cla.s.sified Report Warns," ScienceDaily, June 26, 2008, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080625090302.htm.

17 "our government, our inst.i.tutions and our borders"

Don Belt, "The Coming Storm: Bangladesh," National Geographic, May 2005.

18 "direct cause of large-scale human crises"

David Zhang and Harry Lee, "The Causality a.n.a.lysis of Climate Change and Large-Scale Human Crisis," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108 (March 2011): 17296301.