A new year’s resolution of mine was to better explain to my friends and acquaintances why I have become so paranoid about ... well you know what.
I'm sure many of the people I know think I’m a little eccentric. My recent desires to get involved with politics, add all sorts to the roof, attend big rallies, convert cars, organise protests, eat less meat and generally do strange stuff, may seem a little bizarre. I should be putting my feet up and enjoying my retirement!
Anyway - I resolved to write a short story, in the hope that some of you may read it and better understand what motivates me. I do hope you will humour me - and have a good read :)
Cheers Tom
When we considered buying the lakeside property in Oak Flats in 2002, I had heard of global warming and the potential for rising sea levels. It probably didn’t make a big difference to our purchase decision, though I remember thinking at the time it was good that the place we were looking at was higher than most. Most houses on the lakes edge are only a metre or two above sea level. The estimates I had seen suggested that the sea level would rise but less than a metre by the end of the century. It seemed pretty safe. We invested and built our dream home.
Back then, I was willing to think “a little more carbon dioxide in the sky should help plants grow”, and “mother nature will balance things out with time”, but conflicting stories in the media made it hard to know who or what to believe. I had seen for myself the receding glaciers in New Zealand. One story I read suggested sea levels will rise 6 metres as Greenland thaws! What if they are right? Will our home become worthless if buyers start thinking that living on waterfront is a liability? (There’s more at stake of course but there’s nothing like your life savings being at risk to get you thinking).
It motivated me to do a little research for myself. Reading from trusted sources, encyclopaedias, recognised science publications and reports from the IPCC. I had the following questions in mind - How stable is the climate?, Can the sea level change that much?, Is the climate really warming?, How is carbon to blame?, What is the worst that can happen?, Don’t the authorities have it under control?
It was very interesting learning about the history of our planet and its climate. I remember hearing at school something like “the aboriginals probably came to Australia across a land bridge from Asia at a time when sea levels were much lower” but I had not given much thought to why and how the sea was so much lower back then. My time at Uni studying maths and physics didn’t tell me much about the environment though came in handy with understanding more recent reports and discussions in the media.
The story actually turns out to be pretty straightforward science, and thought there are a couple of confusing elements, the majority of doubt seems to stem from our nature of wishful thinking. There are some remarkable things I found out along the way, which you may find interesting...
Climate's not as stable as I thought
The last 8,000 years have been stable, yes. Since the earliest human ‘civilisation’, Earths average temperature has strayed less than a degree from the ‘normal’ you and I grew up with. However for the time we humans have been on the planet (~2.5 million years) average temperatures have gone up and down over a range of at least 6 degrees C.
We are currently near the top of that range. The temperatures have more commonly been around 4 degrees colder than today!
So why are people worried by an increase of a few degrees? That doesn’t sound a lot - but we need to consider climate, not just day to day weather. The weather patterns we get are determined by the overall temperature of the system. Sea currents and wind patterns change as the temperatures change. For example, sea currents like the Gulf Stream and winds like the Northern Jet Stream help to give warmth and moisture to Europe. It wasn’t always like it is today. You may have heard that the Sahara desert used to be an oasis. Well, much of Europe has been a frozen waste-land in the past too. Mind you that was in the ice age more than 10,000 years ago.
No one knows exactly what will happen with global warming, but a worrying example has recently appeared. The Northern Jet Stream has become a massive snake mixing up the air from the pole with that of lower latitudes (while the Gulf Stream has been reported as weakening ) and the result appears to be a massive cold spell in North America and Europe while the Arctic temperature has been as more than 25 degs C above average!
Sea levels and weather patterns can change a lot. Sea levels have been as much as 100 metres lower and 10 metres higher during this time. Sea level and temperatures have gone up and down many times during human history (though not significantly in the last 8,000 years).
It can be changed
Many things can affect the temperature on the surface of Earth, and the composition of our atmosphere is one of the more important ones that has changed considerably during earths history. So called ‘greenhouse’ gases in the sky, enable the planet to hold in it’s warmth. Without them, the earth would likely be entirely frozen. The primary greenhouse gas that changes with time is carbon dioxide (CO2).
Archaeological records show that CO2 levels have gone up and down many times, and the pattern aligns with temperature changes. Ice cores show that for the last 800,000 years the average of CO2 in the air has ranged from 180 to 300 parts per million... until our Industrial Revolution.
Its now more than 400 ppm. See the end of the green line in the graph below.
This sudden 40% increase in CO2 (as well as increases in methane and other greenhouse gases) has turned up the worlds thermostat and is now warming us. The big issue is, the ‘thermostat’ hasn’t been set this high for several million years, long before humans were around.
Mankind hasn't seen the thermostat set this high before
The temperature is now rising - it seems slow to us but it is more than ten times quicker than in the past.
The temperature has already risen by one degree above pre-industrial times (the majority of that in my lifetime). That doesn’t seem a lot - the temperature in any given spot goes up and down every day by several degrees. The big issue is that adding heat adds energy to the weather system. Every degree counts. Even assuming that variability stays the same, its logical to believe that every storm, every flood, every bushfire, and every drought is now a degree more severe. The fire authorities in Australia recently had to create a new “Catastrophic” bushfire danger rating, no doubt for good reason.
The sea level is rising - slowly now, but accelerating - quarter of a metre over the last century but expected to be a metre or two in the next century. If the temperature stays elevated, it wont be stopping for centuries, and there’s enough ice at the poles to raise it 65 metres.
The coal, oil and gas we burn is making the problem worse.
This is because these fossil fuels are stockpiles of carbon that mother nature took out of the sky countless millions of years ago and locked underground. It took her millions of years to accumulate it and we have added a good deal of it back to the sky in just a century or two. Humans currently burn more than 10,000,000,000 tonnes of carbon from coal, oil and gas every year. Yes that is the right number of zeros :) Think of that as a mountainous block of solid carbon a kilometre wide, a kilometre tall, and 10 km long. ALL of that goes into the sky and sea permanently* every year!
CO2 is not the only greenhouse gas we are adding by the way. Methane is a serious problem, escaping from coal mines, gas and oil wells, and from the billions of cattle, sheep and other ruminant animals we grow for food. Manmade nitrous oxide and refrigerant gases are also making a big impact on the atmospheres warming capacity.
*Permanently? Well not quite, but mother nature takes a long time even when at her best. Geological evidence indicates natural CO2 reduction at best (ie when there are plenty of healthy forests) as something like 1/100th the rate that we are currently adding it. Perhaps more correct to say, as the IPCC puts it, “for at least the lifetime of our society”.
Don't the worlds governments have it in hand?
They have been meeting every year since the UN called them to address it, more than a quarter of a century ago, and some headway has been made.
Governments talk of limiting warming to 2 degrees by reducing emissions over the next few decades, down to net zero.
I worry that our actions are too little and too late already, and I am not alone. Scientists are despairing and many organisations have sprung up around the world calling for more immediate action for this climate emergency.
I believe the reality is that we have already turned Earth’s thermostat up by more than 4 degrees C. Unless we can remove the carbon we have added, it’s just a matter of time before the Earth warms to that level and sea levels rise 10’s of metres.
Yet, continuing to burn fossil fuels at the rate we now are, is turning the thermostat up by another half degree every decade.
A growing number of scientists are concerned we may soon reach an irreversible tipping point.
The overall hope of the Paris climate agreement is that we can reduce emissions to net zero then find some ways to turn the thermostat down again (drawing down carbon from the atmosphere) before the warming gets too bad. Our country, and many others are still struggling to even agree on plans for the first simple steps of this. Sure, there are lots of things now happening with renewable energy, but the sad fact is that growth and development is still outstripping the initiatives undertaken so far. The measured CO2 in the air is still growing unabated.
Is there any good news?
The good news is we could solve it, but it will take a huge effort from all. Perhaps more effort than we put into World War II.
Paul Hawken, environmentalist, journalist, and bestselling author has a project involving 70+ scientists and researchers, to document, measure and rank all the proven technologies we can use to help stop climate change.
So what is the most important thing to focus on in the battle to combat climate change? Is it more important to replace coal with windmills, to put solar on every rooftop, to start growing seaweed for fuel, or just to stop eating meat? There have been many claims out there. What does the science say.
The Drawdown project evaluates the "100 most important solutions" including all the expected technologies, and also such diverse things as “indigenous people land management” and “building automation”, ranging from “food composting” to “high speed rail”, from “silvopasture” (forest grazing) to “smart glass”.
The good news from all this is that the figures presented - the scientifically tested and conservative estimates - appear to show that we can kick climate change - but it will not be easy. We will need to implement virtually all these solutions, in a short timeframe, and involve changes for everyone.
Many countries are now doing a lot of good things
Many European countries seem to be leading the way. Did you know Portugal powered the whole country from renewable energy for March last year! In Norway more than half of all new cars are electric. (By comparison, Australia's new EV cars are <0.1% of total). China is doing remarkable things with massive solar arrays, and they have more than 1.2 million EVs on the road including 100,000 electric buses.
South Australia is leading the way in Australia and across the country we have been leading the world with solar panels on our roofs. Solar and wind farms have been sprouting up too but we are not doing nearly enough, nor nearly quickly enough to even stem the carbon we are adding to the sky. (Our emissions are growing again after the carbon tax was removed)
Electricity generation only accounts for a quarter of our emissions. We still have a long way to go on that alone and we have hardly touched the other greenhouse sources such as transport, industry and agriculture. It turns out, per person, Australians are the worst greenhouse gas contributors of any OECD nation.
Governments, bless them, are driven by the economy, by big business, and by the need to get reelected in the short term. They do listen to the scientists a little, but they seem to listen more to big business, and to the mass of voters. Lets face it - the big miners, on whose back Australia seems to ride these days, stand to lose a lot of money if they stop mining coal, gas and oil. They have the best lobbyists money can buy, and even paid scientists, still trying to tell us that coal is good. They certainly seem to have convinced all too many Australian politicians.
This is where I think you and I are best placed to have an impact. We need to open channels to the politicians in power and convince them of the need for action. I have joined Citizens Climate Lobby (CCL) which I think gives individuals the greatest chance of a positive impact. The aim is to befriend our MPs and engage them to consider implementing a simple solution that can be acceptable to all sides of politics. I hold a great deal of hope with the fast growing CCL movement. Their results, in North America especially, have been remarkable.
What sort of world will our great grandkids inherit?
How will they remember our generation?
Our civilisation, our enormous global society, is geared to the way the planet is now.
Changes to the climate of the size we can expect will be a huge disruption. We don’t want to lose all the coastal cities and communities, we don’t want vastly different weather patterns, we don’t want impacts on our farming, and we don't need more mass migrations.
"Migration on an unprecedented scale" They estimate around 120 million people will have to migrate, just due to rising seas over the next 50 years. Consider that 2/3rds of the worlds population are fed by the monsoon rains that sweep across India / Asia / China. What if that weather pattern changed a little and left them short of water? Where would those billion people want to migrate to?
Did you know the Sahara desert was a vast oasis just over 10,000 years ago.
What changed? ...... The climate changed!
The truth is that climate change is more than just a little serious. It is far more than just our backyard getting wet. I believe it’s a very real threat for the future of our society.
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PS. You may question something I have put here. Some things appear to provide contradictory evidence but having checked out all the arguments I’ve heard, I am still confident in what I’ve included. I have a lot more information and explanations for all that I’ve written here, but have tried to keep it short and readable. If there is anything you doubt, let me know and I will provide my reasoning and references.
I’m open to new ideas, I’d love to find out we have no problem after all, and am always willing to do more research or answer your questions. Please let me know your thoughts.
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