"Energy efficiency is the key to our future, there are no awards of this kind in the world, yet work in renewable energy technologies is extremely important," said Michael Nobel, the great-grandnephew of Nobel Prize founder Alfred Nobel.
In an interview with the Taipei Times yesterday, Michael Nobel shared his views on climate change, the Nobel Charitable Trust and feasible solutions to the energy crisis.
Nobel, who chaired the Nobel Family Society for 15 years until 2006, spoke about the Nobel Charitable Trust, which he and his cousins Philip, Peter and Gustaf Nobel established last year to reward young researchers or politicians in the fields of the environment and renewable energy.
PHOTO: LIN CHENG-KUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
“In the past 100 years or so, humans are rapidly consuming coal and oil … at the current consumption level, oil and coal will completely run out in 40 and 165 years respectively — we have got to find a working alternative,” he said.
Climate change is the most recent item on Nobel’s long list of social activism, which includes a non-violence project and a peace education program through music in schools. His work has won him the UNESCO Medal for Outstanding Contributions to the Cultural Dialogue between Nations and other awards.
However, Nobel feels climate change is “the most pressing and large-scale problem that the whole world is facing.”
“For the first time in human history, the world population is more city than rural concentrated — in 2028, the world will have an 8 billion population, 5 billion of which will live in cities, which means that more electricity will be needed for all of us to survive,” he said.
The rapid depletion of oil and coal and rising global temperatures has been caused by massive carbon emissions produced by human activities, Nobel said.
Citing the 2007 Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on climate change, Nobel said the ecosystem would soon collapse if energy consumption habits worldwide did not change soon.
“It is nonsense to say that we are ‘killing the Earth,’” he said. “The Earth is made of rocks and doesn’t even notice that we exist — rather, we are hurting the environment that we can survive in.”
The challenge facing the world now was that carbon emissions must peak within the next 10 years or it would face further catastrophic global temperature increases, he said, citing the IPCC report.
“According to the latest reports, only a handful of nations, including the UK and Germany, are reducing their emissions enough to meet the goals set by the Kyoto Protocol,” he said.
However, all is not lost as solutions are available, he said.
“The beauty of mankind is that we always come up with a solution in the end with research,” he said.
One possible solution was conserving unnecessary waste of energy, he said.
“It is ridiculous to see neon lights blasting at 2am in Manhattan — inexpensive computerized controls, such as ones produced by Taiwanese company CQi, can foster ‘intelligent environments’ and turn off systems not in use, including lights, air-conditioners and such,” he said.
Energies devoted to commodity transportation should also be re-prioritized, limiting import and export to non-replaceable items, he said.
“For example, it is idiotic for Taiwanese people to drink bottled water imported from France, since you have perfectly drinkable water here,” he said.
He also thinks everyone should eat less meat. Methane, a greenhouse gas, severely aggravates the already dire situation of global warming, Nobel said, adding: “The energy saved by everyone in the world going vegetarian would be greater than if every car owner swapped their big car for a smaller one.”
“I can go on, [but the essence is that] the solution is a joint effort of businesses, scientists, lawmakers, and the general public … it takes time and requires the accumulation of small things,” he said.
Another part of the solution to the energy crisis was for governments to support sustainable and alternative energies, he said.
“It is possible to change people’s attitudes, just like safety belt mandates and indoor smoking bans in some areas of the world,” he said.
Feasible renewable energy technologies already exist and can be mass-produced to bring down their unit prices if governments decisively supported their use, he said.
“For example, I see fuel cells and photovoltaic [PV] panels as possible solutions to the energy crisis — if governments allocated more money into their research, [they could become much cheaper],” he said.
As for biomass fuel alcohol, Nobel said that he “strongly suggests a shift away from using edible foods [in biofuel production] to cellulose in agricultural waste [such as rice stalks].”
“You have to think in an ethical sense — you cannot have 3 billion people starving in the world and use food as fuel,” he said.
Nobel was equally ambivalent about nuclear power.
“Nuclear energy is good in that its generation emits little carbon and it is an existing technology to effectively produce massive amounts of energy. However, nuclear safety and nuclear waste treatment remain major issues,” he said.
Nevertheless, though the public feels uncomfortable about nuclear plants, Nobel said there have been advancements in nuclear technologies and safety measures.
“Who knows, maybe in the end [advancements] would make it work,” he said.
Asked what drove his interest in social work, Nobel said: “I want to look back at my life and say that I have made efforts for the betterment of humanity.”
“Alfred Nobel was a miserable man,” his great-grandnephew said. “He worked 20-hour days in labs, had three miserable relationships but never married, and died envious of the family lives his brothers and sisters enjoyed — I don’t want to turn out like that.”
“I cannot commit to something I do not believe in … climate change is an extremely pressing issue and affects the survival of mankind … it does not matter if I fail in the end with the trust, I want to in the end be able to say at least I have tried,” he said.
“Only when the last tree has died, and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught, will we realize we cannot eat money,” Nobel said, quoting an American Indian proverb.
“Taiwan’s new government seems to be greatly concerned with the issue; from what I have heard, in the past the nation had mainly focused on economic developments, so I hope that a shift does occur,” he said.
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