Climate gloom must spur drastic global action
.jpg)
By Ryan Rutherford
It is doubtful most people, even the most committed current affairs junkies, actively enjoy reading bad news. Unfortunately, achieving an informed status about the world often involves becoming better acquainted with humanity’s darker aspects. In matters of pressing public urgency, simply absorbing information is not good enough. Citizens should ideally be prompted into action by what they read or see. Few subjects more readily warrant the term urgent than climate change.
Climate news in just the last few months has been far from good. According to a recent
by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), October was hotter than any such month since records began in 1880. Furthermore, the period between January and October 2014 has been the warmest on record, with this year likely to be the hottest ever. If that was not bad enough, the report further points out that October marked the “sixth month in a row that global ocean temperature broke its monthly temperature record.”
Ocean acidification, an even more serious issue, is also getting worse. An
published by Scientific American this month describes how, according to measurements taken over four decades by Taro Takahashi of Columbia University, the ocean has become “30 percent more acidic.” The reason for this is that the ocean absorbs almost 25 percent of annual CO2 emissions. The amount of CO2 pumped into the atmosphere each year continues to grow at alarming rate, with
reporting in August that the total rose from 40 billion tons in 2000 to 49 billion in 2010.
Still not convinced of the severity of climate change? In its latest report released in early November, the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC),
that climate change is set to wreak “severe, widespread, and irreversible impacts” on humans and the natural environment unless carbon emissions are rapidly cut. The report, comprised of input from thousands of scientists, is the most comprehensive and significant such study ever published.
Not only will warming temperatures cause rising sea levels, more droughts, and accelerate wildlife extinctions, climate change is further “projected to undermine food security” and “indirectly increase risks of violent conflicts.” The picture, in short, could not be bleaker for people or the planet.
This latest report concludes that global warming is “unequivocally” happening, with humanity’s contribution absolutely “clear.” Acknowledging humanity’s role in causing climate change is essential, for only then will it be possible to change our current course. The previous IPCC report increased the likelihood of human responsibility for climate change to 95 percent. According to a
by John Cook published in May 2013, 97 percent of climate scientists agree that climate change is occurring and that humans are the chief cause.
There was some hope amid the gloomy prognosis, with Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the IPCC, saying, “we have the means to limit climate change,” as there are many solutions that “allow for continued economic and human development.” According to him, “all we need is the will to change.”
With such an overwhelming consensus surrounding the existence and dangers of human-driven climate change, and many alternatives available, the choice for global society is clear. U.N. Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, perhaps put it best when he said, “science has spoken ... there is no ambiguity in the message,” adding that “leaders must act” because “time is not on our side.”
With a little over a year left before a major new global climate treaty is to be signed in Paris in December 2015, it is up to the world to radically shift to an economy based on renewable energy. Nothing else will avert the worst catastrophic climatic consequences.
The author is a freelance writer who lives in Yongsan, Seoul. His email address is rruthe@gmail.com.