The UN Climate Panel estimates that if global warming is to be limited to
less than 2 degrees by 2050 each world citizen must emit only 2-3 tonnes of
CO2.
2-3 tons of CO2… What does it mean? Few people have the
slightest idea about how much they, themselves, emit per year.
– Climate change and global warming are often shown by graphs presenting CO 2 emissions. It is very abstract. I hope that through real
people we can give a better understanding of how we ended up here, and what
it takes to avoid global warming, says museum inspector Sissel Bjerrum
Fossat from Odense City Museums.
New opportunities with coal and gas
Therefore, historians and engineers have joined forces on the project
"black transformation of the city life", where they will calculate how many
greenhouse gases a family impact the climate with at different historical
times.
– It is a completely new way of working, says professor and sustainability
researcher Morten Birkved from the Department of Green Technology, who is
responsible for calculating the families' CO2 impact on the
environment:
The first historical impact will be in 1853 when steam locomotives began to
be used, and Denmark's first gasworks opened in Odense. Back then when
people cheered on the new opportunities that coal and gas provided.
Great-grandfather's climate impact
But most of the project will be about the post-war period, where oil also
becomes part of the Danes' energy history.
During that period, the black transition came to affect all corners of
everyday life, from imported bananas, televisions, refrigerators to
detached houses with district heating.
The seven segments
The researchers must calculate a family's CO2 consumption from
these seven segments:
-
Housing; heating of the dwelling
- Electrical appliances; everything from lights to refrigerator and washing
machine
- Building materials; especially concrete and other materials.
- Personal transport; especially commuting to and from work by car, bus or
train
- Leisure travel; from car holidays to air travel
- Consumption of commodities and stuff: Especially clothes and furniture
- Food; from pork and cabbage to more meat and mangoes all year round.
– Instead of reading scientific and technical reports, we must dive into
the historical archives to closely study the efficiency of the gasworks and
other technologies; Read memos and shopping lists to see how much petroleum
a family bought, and what kind of food they ate in the 1850s, says Morten
Birkved.
Using the archived data, the researchers prepare in-depth life cycle
analyses across all seven segments selected.
– For example, the steam engine was of great importance for the industrial
revolution from the middle of the 19th century, but we know from the
historical archives that the degree of efficiency in some cases was only
one per cent, says Morten Birkved:
– This means that one per cent of the energy you put into the machine comes
out as electricity. Today, we have an efficiency rate of over 100 per cent
because we also utilise surplus heat.
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Both the museum inspector Sissel Bjerrum Fossat and the sustainability
researcher Morten Birkved are excited to see the final outcome of how many
greenhouse gases a family has emitted over time.
– The evolution of the environmental impact will certainly be dependent on
whether we examine housing, food or electrical products. Today's technology
has become much more efficient, but then there is the food, where we eat
more meat and exotic fruits and vegetables all year round, says Morten
Birkved.
– We are all part of climate change. It is all of us who emit CO 2, and through a specific picture of how much CO2 we
actually emit within different segments such as housing, electrical
appliances and food, we want to give people a tool to act on, adds Sissel
Bjerrum Fossat.
Oil and coal provided health
In the middle of the industrial revolution of the 1850s, oil, coal and gas
were “the shit” and brought about great optimism. Today, fossil fuels are
just "shit". We have become wiser and now stand with the bill for the great
gift that our great-grandparents launched 200 years ago.
Sissel Bjerrum Fossat emphasises that today it is difficult for us to
imagine how big the revolution coal, gas and later oil was amounted to. How
much it turned people’s opportunities and way of life upside down when
people could suddenly travel by steam engine and be able to heat and
illuminate their homes.
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– As a museum, it is our task to put our present into a historical
framework, and it had enormous significance for the entire standard of
living when our ancestors began using nature's large accumulated energy
battery in the earth. Not least for the entire public health, Sissel
Bjerrum Fossat emphasises:
– We take for granted that in mid-December we can walk around in a T-shirt
inside, but you would not dream of doing that back then. Oil, coal and gas
increased public health because people could suddenly heat their homes very
easily, cool their food, or wash their clothes - and not least, themselves.
The kind of perspectives that we would like to contribute, says Sissel
Bjerrum Fossat.
Photos: Odense City Museum
The black transition
Urban life has been inextricably linked to the burning of coal, oil and gas since the mid-19th century. Fossil fuels revolutionized urban life from the mid-19th century. Steam locomotives began to run, and the gasworks gave the townspeople light in the streets. The new amazing opportunities were crucial to the families. At the time, no one thought that the burning of coal and oil emitted an invisible gas, CO2, and that in time it would become a huge problem for the Earth's climate.