Download Deliberating on the Lifestyle Oriented to Low-Carbon Economy

Deliberating on the Lifestyle Oriented to Low-Carbon Economy
GUO Yemin, WANG Lanmei
School of Agricultural and Food Engineering, Shandong University of Technology, P.R.China, 255049
[email protected]
Abstracts: Low-carbon development becomes an inevitable choice and an inevitable trend in future due
to the warming global climate. After carbon cycle being analyzed, the concepts of low carbon economy
and low carbon lifestyle are put forward. Meanwhile this paper offers many different ways to realize low
carbon lifestyle from different angles---optimizing the structure of energy, developing low carbon
energy system; attaching importance to technology innovation to construct technology superiority;
accelerating the Industry of low carbon; protecting the forest; changing the philosophy and constructing
the low carbon lifestyle and consumption model; fostering the talents of low carbon to realize the
sustainable development.
Keywords: carbon cycle, low carbon economy, lifestyle, deliberating, sustainable development
1.
Introduction
In recent 10 years, natural disaster has something with the change of climate. The total death caused by
natural disaster occupies 86% of the whole death. All the disasters occur under the background of the
warm climate. Why does the earth become warmer? The answer is that the concentration of Greenhouse
gases become higher such as CO2 . Due to the concentration of CO2, O3,CH4,N2O and other gas
become higher, the surface of the earth become much hotter. The process is called a greenhouse effect.
Why does the concentration of CO2 become higher? This phenomenon is caused by some unsuitable
behaviors of human beings. The annual emitted CO2 reaches 5 billion tones[1]. In recent 50 years, the
concentration of CO2 is 131% times as high as before. During the gases caused by human activities, CO2
occupies 60%. Some experts estimated that if the fossil fuels on earth are used up, the concentration of
CO2 will reach 2000 ppm. [2] The CO2 mainly comes from the combustion of coal, petroleum, natural gas.
Of course, the quantity of plant becomes smaller has something with the phenomena of more CO2 due to
the over-hag of forest and over-reclamation of grassland.
Now the carbon cycle is studied. As we know, carbon is a basic element of organic compound and is
distributed everywhere. All the organic compounds include the element of carbon. The element of
carbon circulates between biology reservoir and non-biology reservoir (see the following figure). The
carbon element exists in different status in the four reservoirs of atmosphere, hydrosphere, geosphere
and biosphere and circulates among the reservoirs. [3]
，
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Fig. 1 carbon cycle
Meanwhile, the carbon element mainly stored in limestone and sediment. Only a small part of the
carbon element stores in atmosphere, ocean, soil, and land biosphere. The carbon element of atmosphere
mainly exists in CO2 CO and CH4 . And CO2 is the main existence carrier of carbon element. The total
mass of CO2 is about 2. 5 ×1012 t. As matter cycle is concerned, the carbon cycle mainly refers to CO2
cycle. [4] CO2 is one of important elements of photosynthesis. The quantity of CO2 has direct influence
on the climate and biosphere. Up to now, the higher temperature in high latitude zone and thaw of ice&
snow in Antarctic Ocean have something with the greenhouse effect of CO2. [4-6]
、
2.
Low-Carbon Economy
Along with the development of population and economy scale, environment issues caused by energy use
are recognized. The higher concentration of CO2 leads to a warmer climate. A Low-Carbon Economy
(LCE) is an economy which has a minimal output of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions into the
biosphere, but specifically refers to the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. Recently, most of scientific and
public opinion has come to the conclusion there is such an accumulation of GHGs (especially CO2) in
the atmosphere due to anthropogenic activities, which the climate is changing. The over-concentrations
of these gases are producing global warming that affects long-term climate, with negative impacts on
humanity in the foreseeable future. The Low-Carbon Economy is one of important progress besides
primitive civilization, agricultural civilization, industry civilization. [7-11]
Globally implemented LCE therefore, are proposed as a means to keep zoology balance and avoid
catastrophic climate change by improving efficiency of energy greatly, adopting renewable energy and
low-carbon energy on large scale, studying on emission reduction of greenhouse gases. The
development of LCE is a global revolution concerning production style, lifestyle, value, national rights
& interests and destiny of human beings, what’s more, it is an evitable choice that switches from
high-carbon energy to low-carbon energy. To develop LCE, a low-carbon lifestyle must be adopted.
3.
Low-Carbon Lifestyle
Low-Carbon means lower emission of Greenhouse gases (mainly refer to CO2).Low-carbon lifestyle is a
concept that has the opposite meaning with high-carbon lifestyle. The meaning of low-carbon lifestyle is
a lifestyle with reduction of CO2 emission lower energy consumption, lower cost. It is a contracted
lifestyle and a habit. Of course it is an involuntary habit of saving every resource to form the low-carbon
lifestyle. Not only is low-carbon lifestyle behavior of government, enterprise and individual but also it is
，
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a new trend of lifestyle. It is important to reduce the emission of CO2 and restrict some consumption and
production. The Low-carbon lifestyle is one of lifestyles being advocated.
4.
Path to Realizing The Low-carbon Lifestyle[2,8-12]
The realization of low-carbon lifestyle can reduce the emission of greenhouse ga improve the quality of
human beings, and realize zoology balance and sustainably development. Based on the chart of carbon
cycle, the low-carbon lifestyle can be achieved through the following channels.
4.1 Optimizing the structure of energy, developing low-carbon energy system
It is very important to combine the adjustment of energy structure with energy efficiency.
Based on the improvement of energy efficiency, the low-carbon energy system can be
constructed through developing new energy and renewable energy. The percentage of coal and
petroleum in energy resource will decline and the percentage of natural gas, hydropower,
nuclear power and renewable energy will increase. It is necessary to develop wind energy,
biomass energy, solar energy, terrestrial heat energy and ocean energy in order to increase the
percentage of renewable energy.
4.2 Attaching importance to technology innovation to construct technology superiority
Energy saving& emission reduction, lowing the concentration of CO2, the development of low-carbon
energy and construction of low-carbon Industry depend on the development and its application of
low-carbon technology. It is very necessary to attach importance to technology innovation of low-carbon
and to promote the innovation of related technology and Industry. These technologies include energy
saving, clean coal, renewable energy, advanced nuclear technology, carbon capture and storage (CCS)
[13]
and so on. Meanwhile, the improvement of energy efficiency of end use is important too.
4.3 Accelerating the Industry of low carbon
The development of low-carbon Industry is be propitious to the strategic adjustment of
Industrial structure, energy saving and emission reduction, improvement of energy efficiency.
It is necessary to construct low-carbon Industrial system based on first, second and third
Industry.
4.4 Protecting the forest
Tropic forest that the life relies on is destroyed continuously and dramatically. The effective measures
are stopping destroy and planning trees. It is estimated that CO2 emission due to forest destroy is about
1 2gt annually. If every country stops the destroy and promotes tree planning, the absorbed CO2 by the
biomass circle will be 0.7gt. That will reduce 7% greenhouse effect.
～
4.5 Changing the philosophy and constructing the low carbon lifestyle and consumption model
On condition that the life quality of people is improved, human being must change the lifestyle
of grace that consumes a lot of energy, emits a lot of greenhouse gases. Over consumption,
Excessive consumption, and luxury consumption must be forbidden. In the meantime, human
being must construct the value of sustainable development that based on suitable consumption
and green consumption. Philosophy of low-carbon development must be integrated in the
administration of government and enterprise. So the path of low-carbon development is
established concerning individual, enterprise and government.
4.6 Fostering the talents of low carbon to realize the sustainable development
The aim of green development, low-carbon development and sustainable development is to
improve the quality of people’s existence and life and promote the development of human
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beings all-roundly. The aim depends on the talents. The system and mechanism of human
resources must be established. It is very important to fostering different talents to promote the
progress of green development, low-carbon development and sustainable development.
5.
Conclusion
As we know, environment crisis becomes serious than before. The earth becomes warmer and warmer.
Greenhouse gas emission is one of the important causes leading the earth hot. It is the time all the
countries take effective measures to protect the earth. In order to keep the sustainable development of
the whole mankind, low-carbon economy and low-carbon lifestyle is the right choice. The low-carbon
economy and low-carbon lifestyle will be one of important channels towards alleviating the pressure of
climate change, keeping sustainable development and improving zoology civilization. It is the only way
to sustainable development and zoology civilization through discarding traditional development model,
adjusting the structure of energy, improving the efficiency of energy use, adopting new technology and
mechanism, protecting the forest, fostering talents specializing in low-carbon industry, and deploying
low-carbon economy and low-carbon lifestyle.
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