Europeans are increasingly aware of just how dramatically they have transformed their environments over the past several thousand years and are now taking action on many fronts. Nevertheless, the European Union still has a long way to go to meet its goals of clean air and water; sustainable development in agriculture, industry, and energy use; and maintenance of biodiversity.

Europe leads the world in responsiveness to global climate change, with EU governments having agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2020. Europe has been more willing than any other region to address climate change, largely because its governments and corporations see economic advantages to doing so. Recent research suggests that investments in energy conservation, alternative energy, and other measures would cost EU economies 1 percent of their GDP. By contrast, doing nothing about climate change could shrink GDP by 20 percent.

83. GERMAN INVESTMENTS IN CLEAN ENERGY PAY OFF

Europe’s increasing concern about global warming may also be influenced by public alarm at recent extreme weather. The summers of 2003 and 2012 broke high-temperature records across Europe. Crops failed, freshwater levels sank, forests burned, and deaths soared. In 2003, three thousand people died in France alone. On the other hand, in 2002, 2006, and 2012, rainfall and snowfall in Central Europe reached record levels. In the spring of 2006, the rivers of Central Europe—the Elbe, the Danube, and the Morava—flooded for weeks. Unusual vacillations in weather still continue.

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Europe’s Vulnerability to Climate Change Europe’s wealth, technological sophistication, and well-developed emergency response systems make it more resilient to the consequences of climate change than are most regions of the world. Nevertheless, some areas are much more vulnerable than others because of their location, dwindling water resources (Figure 4.5A), and rising sea levels (see Figure 4.5B), or because of the effects of poverty. Figure 4.5 illustrates some of these vulnerabilities.

Europe’s Green Behavior By global standards, Europeans use large amounts of resources and contribute about one-quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. However, one European resident averages only one-half the energy consumption of the average North American resident. Europeans live in smaller dwellings that need less energy to heat or cool. They drive smaller, more fuel-efficient cars and often use public transportation. Because communities are more spatially compact, many people walk or bicycle wherever they need to go.

These energy-saving practices are related in part to the population densities and social customs of the region, and also to widespread explicit popular support for ecological principles. Green political parties influence national policies in all European countries, and Green policies are central to the agenda of the European Union. Results include strong regional advocacy for emission controls, well-entrenched community recycling programs, and grassroots work on local environmental concerns.

84. ICELAND: ENERGY TO SPARE

86. MCD’S GARBAGE HEATS AND LIGHTS BRITISH CITY

87. LONDON LEADS BY EXAMPLE TO CURB POLLUTION, CLIMATE CHANGE

Changes in Transportation Although Europeans have for many years favored fast rail networks for both passengers and cargo (see Figure 4.20D) rather than private cars, trucks, and multilane highways, they have recently been drifting closer to the American model of private cars and trucks driven on sweeping freeways. This change is now happening in even the poorest parts of Europe, where cars have been scarce in the past (see Figure 4.5C). In response to rising fuel costs and CO₂ emissions, though, the European Union has developed long-term plans that reduce the emphasis on cars and trucks and involve designing multimodal transport to link high-speed rail to road, air, and water transportation (Figure 4.6). This is because highway transport is inefficient and polluting relative to rail or water transport. One gallon (3.7 liters) of gasoline can move one ton of cargo a distance of 59 miles (94 kilometers) by truck, 202 miles (323 kilometers) by rail, and 514 miles (822 kilometers) by waterway. An EU report shows that private cars used for passenger transportation produce three times more CO₂ emissions than does rail-based public transportation.

Europe’s long, irregular coastline and the low cost of water transportation have been a boon for the development of links to global trade. Europe has numerous modern ocean ports that cater to container ships: Helsinki, Riga, Hamburg, Copenhagen, Antwerp, Rotterdam, Plymouth, Southampton, Le Havre, Marseille, Barcelona, and Koper. Soon, newly built Mediterranean ports in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Malta, and Egypt, all of which cater at least in part to European markets, will join these ports. One-third of the world’s container traffic now goes through the Mediterranean. The container ship industry is keenly attuned to the concerns about CO₂ and climate change, and is now using optimal (often slower) speeds that are carefully calculated to minimize fuel consumption and emissions while maximizing profits.

There is a geographic pattern to the ways in which human activities have transformed Europe’s landscapes over time. Western Europe shows the effects of dense population and heavy industrialization (Figure 4.7A), and Central Europe reveals the results of long decades of willful disregard for the environment. Central Europe continues to have a major impact on the biosphere through the air and water pollution it generates (see Figure 4.7B).

Europe’s Energy Resources Europe’s main energy sources have shifted over the years from wood to coal and, more recently, to petroleum and natural gas and in some countries to nuclear power. Europe is now leading the move to renewable energy sources in response to rising energy costs and commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The 28 members of the European Union (the EU-28) get a large portion of their fuel supplies from Russia—30 percent of their crude oil and 34 percent of their natural gas, as of 2011. Most of the gas now comes via pipelines through Belarus and Ukraine, but Turkey supplies Russian gas to Europe via the Black Sea and hosts a pipeline that carries gas from the Caspian Sea to Europe. Russia is negotiating for another trans-Turkey pipeline to carry oil and gas to the Mediterranean. While Europeans fear that this dependency will be used against them by Russia, which periodically withholds and releases flows to Europe through Ukraine and Belarus, Russia is actually also dependent on the EU fuel trade because 80 percent of Russia’s oil exports and 70 percent of its natural gas exports go to the European Union.

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Another 30 percent of the gas and oil that the European Union consumes comes from various Middle Eastern producers. Large oil and gas deposits in the North Sea, most controlled by Norway (not an EU member), have alleviated Europe’s dependence on “foreign” sources of energy, but the production of oil from the North Sea has already peaked and is expected to run out sometime in the next decade.

The use of nuclear power to generate electricity has been more common in Europe than in North America. The EU-28 depends on nuclear power for 30 percent of its total needs. In France, 78 percent of the electricity is generated by nuclear power (compared with only 20 percent in the United States). However, support for nuclear power has declined, partly in response to the disastrous nuclear accidents in 1986 in Chernobyl, Ukraine, and in 2011 in Fukushima, Japan. The safe disposal of nuclear waste products is also a concern.

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Air Pollution At present, there is significant air pollution in much of Europe, but it is particularly heavy over the North European Plain. This is a region of heavy industry, dense transportation routes, and large and affluent populations. The intense fossil fuel use associated with such lifestyles results not only in the usual air pollution but also in acid rain, which can fall far from where it was generated (see the Figure 4.7 map).

There is also much air pollution in the former communist states of Central and North Europe. Mines in Central Europe produce highly polluting soft coal that is burned in out-of-date factories and power plants (see Figure 4.7B). Central Europe produces high per capita emissions from burning oil and gas; it also receives air pollution blown eastward from western Europe. In Upper Silesia, Poland’s leading coal-producing area, acid rain has destroyed forests, contaminated soils and the crops grown on them, and raised water pollution to deadly levels. Residents have higher rates of birth defects, high rates of cancer, and lower life expectancies than comparable populations in the rest of Europe. Industrial pollution was one of Poland’s biggest obstacles to entry into the European Union; Poland barely met the EU’s requirements.

Central Europe’s severe environmental problems developed in part because the theories and policies promoted by the Soviet Union portrayed nature as existing only to serve human needs. During the Soviet era, little pollution data was collected and public protest against pollution was prohibited, but because of the recent shift toward democracy in places like Hungary and Bulgaria, more activism has been possible, and popular protest has resulted in reductions in air pollution.

The new market economies in the former Soviet bloc countries are improving energy efficiency and reducing emissions. Power plants, factories, and agriculture are polluting less, and the countries with the worst emissions records, such as Poland, have been making the most progress.

Freshwater and Seawater Pollution Sources of water pollution in Europe include insufficiently treated sewage, chemicals and silt in the runoff from agricultural plots and urban areas, consumer packaging litter, petroleum residues, and industrial effluent. Most inland waters contain a variety of such pollutants. Any pollutants that enter Europe’s inland wetlands, rivers, streams, and canals eventually reach Europe’s surrounding coastal waters. The Atlantic Ocean, the Arctic Ocean, and the northern reaches of the North Sea are better able to disperse chemical pollutants dumped into them because they are part of, or closely connected to, the circulating flow of the world ocean. In contrast, the Baltic, Mediterranean, and Black seas, along with the southern North Sea, are nearly landlocked bodies of water that do not have the capacity to flush themselves out quickly and are prone to accumulating chemical pollution (see the red areas in Figure 4.8).

In the Mediterranean, the effect of the pollution that pours in from rivers, adjacent cities, industries, hotel resorts, and farms is exacerbated by the fact that the sea has just one tiny opening to the world ocean (see Figure 4.8). At the surface, seawater flows in from the Atlantic through the narrow Strait of Gibraltar and moves eastward. At the bottom of the sea, water exits through the same narrow opening, but only after it has been in the Mediterranean for 80 years. The natural ecology of the Mediterranean is attuned to this lengthy cycle, but the nearly 460 million people now living in the countries surrounding the sea have upset the balance. Their pollution stays in the Mediterranean for decades. As a result, fish catches have declined, beloved seaside resorts have become unsafe for swimmers, and agricultural workers have become sick.

There are 34 countries with coastlines on Europe’s many seas, all with different economies, politics, and cultural traditions. Such diversity makes it difficult to cooperate to minimize pollution or even reduce the risk of severe pollution. Although most of the Mediterranean’s pollution is generated by Europe, rapidly growing populations and economic development on the North African and eastern Mediterranean coasts of the sea also pose environmental threats because these countries still lack adequate urban sewage treatment and environmental regulations to control agricultural and industrial wastes.

The Wide Reach of Europe’s Environmental Impact The term virtual water, introduced in Chapter 1 as the volume of water required to produce, process, and deliver a good or service that a person consumes, has come into use as fresh water becomes more scarce. In Chapter 1, we discussed average per capita water needs per day (5 to 13 gallons [20 to 30 liters]) and noted that to arrive at a person’s annual total water footprint, one must add the water required for basic needs to a person’s virtual water footprint (see Table 1.1). Although Europeans do not import as many of their consumer goods as do Americans, they still consume one-fifth of the world’s imports; many of these goods have a high virtual water component (the water consumed in the production process). Nearly all EU countries import more virtual water than they export, and Europe as a region imports more virtual water than any other. The countries that produce Europe’s imported virtual water often have very little water to begin with, and the costs of this water loss are not being adequately figured into the price of the products exported to Europe.

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