Climate Change: A Global Crisis Unfolding

1. What lies ahead?

2. A taste of what is to come?The Chicago heat wave of 1995 • Temperatures of 38-41°C on five consecutive days • Chicago is in the centre of the US corn belt • The intense heat shrank the US corn harvest that year by 15% • = 3 billion dollars

3. What lies ahead? • A 2.1° rise will expose between 2.3 and 3 billion people to the risk of water shortages. • Soils will become a net source of carbon rather than a net sink. • The proportion of land experiencing extreme drought is predicted to rise from 3 per cent today to 30 per cent: with consequent crop reductions • The thermohaline circulation (THC) could weaken or shut down.

4. The Global Ocean Circulation System The day after tomorrow … ?

5. Doomsday predictions can no longer be met with irony or disdain. The pace of consumption, waste and environmental change has so stretched the planet’s capacity that our contemporary lifestyle, unsustainable as it is, can only precipitate catastrophes, such as those which even now periodically occur in different parts of the world. Laudato si, 161

6. What lies ahead? • - A rise in the middle of the expected range commits 15 to 37 per cent of the world’s species to extinction by 2050. • - At 1.4° coral reefs in the Indian Ocean will become extinct. • - With 2° 97 per cent of the world’s coral reefs will bleach. • - The oceans will acidify (from 8.2 to 7.7 by century’s end): too acid for sea creatures – including plankton – to make shells.

7. What lies ahead? • Even a small degree of warming could cause the loss of much of the Amazon rain forest, leading to the disappearance of rainfall. • The Amazon has the potential to release 730 tonnes of carbon – about 10 per cent of man-made emissions – every year for 75 years (this is an example of positive feedback: climate change accelerating itself).

8. What lies ahead? • - Rising sea levels will allow salt water to pollute the drinking water of some of the world’s largest coastal cities: Shanghai, Manila, Jakarta, Bangkok, Kolkata, Mumbai, Karachi, Lagos, Buenos Aires and Lima.

15. The scale of the challenge: what we need to do • By 2030 the capacity of the atmosphere to absorb carbon dioxide will have reduced from the current figure of 4 billion tonnes a year to 2.7 billion. • To maintain equilibrium in other words, that is the maximum we can afford to emit (to keep temperature rise below 2 degrees). • By 2030 the earth’s population is expected to be in the region of 8.2 billion. • Dividing the total carbon sink by the number of people we find that to achieve stabilisation the weight of carbon emissions (the carbon footprint) per person should be 0.33 tonnes per year.

16. How are we doing? • The carbon footprint of the average western European is about 12 tonnes. • It’s nearly twice that for Americans and Australians. • The global average is about 4 tonnes per year. • In Africa and India it is 1 tonne. • The usual target for what it needs to be is 3 tonnes … • … which is still ten times too much.

17. My carbon footprint • This figure will ultimately have to drop to below 1 tonne if we are to reach the level where global emissions are low enough to match nature’s ability to absorb them (which is maybe 10-20% of today’s emissions).

18. We are not going to change voluntarily • Only 4% of people have made substantial changes to the way they live. Everyone else is waiting for everyone else to act. • Global warming cannot be reined in unless we persuade the government to force us to change the way we live. • Although developed countries are responsible for only half of today’s emissions, they are responsible for 80% of what is already there.

19. What next? • Wake up. Become aware. • Check the websites and read more. • Know the facts well enough to argue. • Support measures to combat climate change. • Start with yourself.

22. Why nuclear energy is not a long-term solution • The safety issue (remember Chernobyl) • The problem of radioactive waste • The dangers of terrorism • Often a cloak for weapons development • Costs cloaked by subsidies • Worldwide supplies of cheap uranium will only last a few decades

23. Further study • Heat. How to stop the planet burning, by George Monbiot. Penguin Books, 2007. • How to live a low-carbon life: the individual’s guide to stopping climate change, by Chris Goodall. Earthscan, 2007. • The Weather Makers. The History and Future Impact of Climate Change, by Tim Flannery. Penguin, Allen Lane, 2006. • The Hot Topic. How to tackle global warming and still keep the lights on, by Gabrielle Walker and Sir David King. Bloomsbury, 2007. • Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet, by Mark Lynas. Harper Perennial, 2008. • Laudato Si, by Pope Francis (2015), especially Chapter 1: What is happening to our common home? • This Changes Everything, by Naomi Klein. Penguin Books, 2015. • National Geographic September 2004. Global Warning: Bulletins from a Warmer World. • Wikipedia: Kyoto Protocol • http://www.learner.org/channel/courses/envsci/index.html • www.lowcarbonlife.net • http://www.learner.org/channel/courses/envsci/index.html