As this video progresses, key ideas will be introduced to invoke discussion.
Think about the following questions as you watch the video
What is decarbonization, and why is it challenging?
What are the five Grand Challenges?
Why are the Grand Challenge categories imperfect?
How can understanding the Grand Challenges be helpful?
: Let's say you're going to make a cake to celebrate your soccer team's winning season.
: You find a recipe for a layered chocolate cake with fudge filling and buttercream frosting. You buy
: ingredients like flour, sugar, and eggs. And spend an afternoon mixing baking and decorating your cake.
: Several hours later you've made an incredible cake. And added more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.
: Sounds dramatic, but it's true. Since the industrial revolution in the 17 and 1800s people have been
: using fossil fuels like coal, petroleum, and gas as a reliable source of heat and energy.
: Unfortunately, burning fossil fuels releases greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane. That makes our
: planet warmer and leads to things like rising sea levels, agricultural changes, and more intense storms.
: To fix that, we'll need to figure out how to stop releasing so many greenhouse gases and
: remove some of what's already in the atmosphere. That process is known as decarbonization.
: And it's not easy to do. That's because pretty much everything we do releases greenhouse gases.
: In fact, we're putting around 51 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere each year.
: That's a huge number. And it's really hard to think about where all those emissions are
: coming from or how to stop them. But we can start by breaking this huge problem into five smaller ones
: we call the grand challenges. They help us understand exactly where those 51 billion tons
: of greenhouse gases are coming from. And why even your soccer team's cake is part of it.
: The first grand challenge is how we plug in. It includes the emissions released when we produce electricity
: which we use for pretty much everything, including running the mixer and the oven when we're baking.
: Overall, how we plug in is responsible for 27% of the total emissions released each year.
: Next, is how we make things and we don't mean cake here. Think more like constructing the
: house where you bake the cake. Or the packaging ingredients come in. Activities in this category
: release a massive 31% of our total emissions. The third grand challenge is how we grow things, like,
: when we grow the wheat that becomes flour or raise the chickens and cows that produce eggs and milk.
: Agriculture contributes around 19% of our total emissions. Then there's how we get around. Like, when
: we ship sugar from a processing plant to a grocery store, or drive to the store to buy that sugar.
: The emissions from these activities make up another 16% of the total. The fifth grand challenge is how
: we keep cool and stay warm. It includes things like heating and cooling our homes and businesses, like,
: grocery stores. These activities are responsible for about 7% of the total emissions released each year.
: Those five categories are helpful because they show the primary areas releasing so many emissions.
: But they're also imperfect because of how interconnected everything is. For example, the
: milk used in the cake involves emissions from the cows that produced it, the refrigerators that kept
: it cold, and the trucks that moved it from the farm to the grocery store. These interconnections
: can make decarbonization seem even more difficult. There's no one simple way to reduce emissions.
: Plus, reducing emissions in one area might increase them in another, or create a whole new set of problems to solve.
: Like, as Earth gets warmer, more people need air conditioning to keep cool. The more air
: conditioning we use, the more greenhouse gases are released, and the warmer Earth becomes.
: But cutting back on air conditioning might mean that more people experience health concerns
: from extreme heat. Or, it might make more emissions in other areas as people try to find ways to stay cool.
: But even though the Grand Challenges are complex, understanding these categories--and the
: connections between them--can be really helpful for figuring out the best decarbonization solutions .
: Thinking through the Grand Challenges helps us see which parts of a process released the most
: greenhouse gases. That can show us which problems to tackle first and which solutions will do the
: most good across different categories. For example, almost everything we do uses electricity, so
: finding better energy solutions, like using wind or solar power could lower emissions in every
: other category. And concrete is the second most used substance on Earth. So, coming up
: with different kinds of building materials, like low-carbon cement, could help lower emissions for
: all kinds of processes and industries. In the end, we'll need solutions across multiple categories to