Climate change is enormously complex, and yet quite simple. Amidst the doom and gloom there is also hope, and each of us have a part to play in shaping the future.
Short of nuclear war, climate change will be the greatest challenge to face human civilisation with mass extinction of earth’s species’ – including us – a stark prospect. The underlying principles of what needs to been done to avoid disaster are fairly straightforward. Implementing these principles, however, is where we are stuck. But you can help.
The complexity of numerous chemical and physical systems, interacting at a planetary scale and for many years to come, is mind-boggling. There are variables we do not understand, and undoubtedly others we are not even aware of yet. The mathematical modelling makes super computers sweat. This is why it is so hard to predict exactly how bad things will get, and by what date. These uncertainties regarding magnitude and timing are really not the point. The science is absolutely clear about one thing: if we do not make a some fundamental changes to the way we use earth systems, things are going to get really, really bad, and it will happen in the lifetime of people born this century. Sceptics and deniers ignore what is accepted by the vast majority, and try to direct the discourse away from what the scientific consensus insists is urgently required.
Imagine if ninety-eight out of one hundred doctors diagnosed you with the same life-threatening condition – your body temperature is on the rise (anything from 2-7 degrees Celsius) and you need to make urgent lifestyle changes to avert this catastrophe. Whilst they might not understand everything about your condition, they are in agreement about it’s root cause, and the consequences should you ignore their advice. They tell you that any increase over two degrees will be horribly unpleasant; four degrees fatal. Do you take action based on what is known and has consensus? Or do you choose inaction because there’re a few unknowns?
What Do We Know About Climate Change?
Our atmosphere is the gatekeeper for solar energy coming in from the sun and back out from reflection and radiation. As the net concentrations of greenhouse gases (e.g carbon dioxide and methane) increase in the atmosphere, they cause an average warming effect over time as they absorb and emit thermal radiation. Since the industrial revolution, humans have been remarkably good at pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The main culprit is emissions that result from burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas. Our use of fossil fuels has facilitated man’s technological advancement but has drastically altered earth systems. While it is true that over millennia, the composition of our atmosphere has changed, it is the rate of change caused by human activities (anthropogenic) that is the main problem.
The full carbon cycle involves oceans, plants, animals and soil; and while humans are affecting all of these systems, it is disruption of atmospheric carbon levels that is the main driver of anthropogenic climate change. We are putting carbon into the atmosphere way faster than nature can deal with it, and at the same time destroying those parts of nature (like forests) that can regulate carbon levels. We are completely out of sync with long-term natural cycles and there is only so far we can push earth systems before they start pushing back. The recent increases in frequency of extreme weather events point to a scary future. To put it in perspective, the rate at which human activities are altering atmospheric carbon level has been estimated at ten times faster than when the last great extinction happened around 55 million years ago…
This is where climate change it simple. While the fancy projections with their statistical confidence levels and influencing factors like “tipping points”, “lock-ins” and “positive feedback loops” have their place, the critical message is much easier to understand:
If humans are to remain a going concern on this earth for generations to come, we need to urgently reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases at a monumental scale. For this to happen, world leaders and decision makers must prioritise climate change and take action now.
We must rapidly move away from the burning of fossil fuels for energy and transport. We need to make major shifts in industrial and agricultural processes. These ideas are simple, but involve fundamental changes in the way we produce energy, how we travel, what we eat and how we grow it, what products are made of – the list goes on. The good news is that there are solutions to many of these challenges. The bad news is that currently governments and decision-makers are not taking it seriously, and the tiny, incremental changes that are being made are completely insufficient relative to what needs to be done. Yet, if we all push hard enough, we can improve the world we share.
To play devil’s advocate, even if climate science was a massive con-job involving almost the entire academic community of the world, consider the cartoon below:
What Prevents Us From Taking Climate Action?
So why is so little happening when we are faced with such a huge and existential threat? Well, consider the following factors:
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Communication
In general, climate science has erred on the conservative side and has understated the risks and consequences. Each year, as more evidence is gathered, the picture gets worse, but the true extent of the crisis is still not being communicated effectively.
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Politics
Climate change requires immediate action to minimise the long-term consequences, but these consequences lie outside of election cycles. Politicians say what is needed to get votes, and so far climate change has not been high enough on the agenda to lead to the required action. Some countries are leading with progressive policies, but the majority are favouring short-term and immediate issues.
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Psychology
Humans are not good at preparing for non-immediate, impersonal danger, especially when the threat is made less certain by doubt and confusion propagated by those who want to carry on with business as usual.
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Poverty
A large percentage of the world’s population live in circumstances where their concerns are around how to survive from day to day. While they will be the most affected by climate change, they are the least able to put resources into fighting it.
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Economic System
With a few exceptions, the world relies of the mantra of ‘economic growth’. For the most part this is linked to both resource use and high carbon emissions. So we are entrenched in a system that will continue to contribute to climate change.
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Finance
Who is going to pay for climate change mitigation and adaptation? The debate around the contribution of developing versus developed counties has left the bill on the table amid contestation of who should be putting in the cash.
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Vested Interests
Many individuals and corporations have vast amounts of money tied up in practices that are damaging the environment and driving climate change, and they will not give them up easily. These vested interest groups have ample finances to lobby governments to keep their priorities in front.
In short, we have constructed a world based around processes that contribute to greenhouse gas emissions and environmental degradation. So while it is easy to see that the core issue is reducing emissions, this essentially means re-engineering the world we live in. Since we are not yet really feeling the full-blown effects of climate change, and the task is huge, and there is so much money tied up in the emissions-heavy industries, it has been mostly ignored by world leaders.
What Can You Do?
There are many actions each of us can take in our personal lives, as all of us have a carbon footprint. Rather than thinking of specific examples, it can help to think of it holistically. Essentially, almost all aspects of modern life have emissions associated with them, so for everything you do there will be a lower carbon way of doing it. So, implementing considered choices around what products to buy (and if it is necessary to buy), what food to eat, how to power your home and how to travel can all contribute to emissions reduction. You can move your financial investments to environmentally beneficial sectors. You can have fewer children. While it is important that we all ‘walk the talk’ and make changes in our behaviour, this is unfortunately not enough. For example, becoming more energy efficient is an important way to improve your carbon footprint, but if that energy still comes from fossil fuels, then the impact of that energy efficiency is limited.
To tackle our carbon emissions meaningfully, there needs to be massive changes at a national and system level, such as moving toward 100% renewable energy for electricity production. This requires decisive action from governments and decision makers. To date, far too little has happened on this front, particularly in South Africa, and so it becomes our collective responsibility to apply the pressure. The urgency of the situation also means that we need to ramp up the scale at which we push for transformation.
Momentum is gathering. Since late 2018, school children have started striking about climate change under the #FridaysForFuture banner. Social movements, such as Extinction Rebellion, are no longer holding back in making their calls for governments to take climate change seriously. While it may be easy to dismiss these trends as the work of fringe activists, it might be exactly what we need. Concerned citizens, scientists, civil society organisations and many others have been pleading for urgent and ambitious action on climate change for years, and largely overlooked. Decades of procrastination has led to radical steps being all that is left to avoid disaster.
We can all assist in increasing the volume on calls to action. If you are in a position of power in your community or place of work, use it wisely. If you have influence over funding and investment, leverage it in a positive way. Have discussions with your friends, contact local authorities, write to leaders. Support those who take bold and radical steps that the rest of us are not yet prepared to do. The fate of humans, and the other living beings we share this earth with, is at stake. Future generations will need to survive on the earth we leave them, and the youth are speaking up. Enough is enough, it is time for urgent action on climate change. It is that simple.
Article written by Richard Halsey, Policy Officer, Project 90 by 2030
