The Intergovernmental
Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) recently gave a 12-year deadline for
reducing human-caused climate change. The report
suggests that there is now little that can be done to prevent a temperature
rise of 1.5°C from pre-industrial levels by 2052, but states more worryingly
that if we do not take drastic measures to lower carbon emissions by 2030 then
a rise of 2°C will be inevitable. Whilst this difference does not sound like a
big jump, the report also
highlights that by 2100, global sea level rise would be 10cm lower with
global warming of 1.5°C compared with 2°C and that extreme heatwaves will be
experienced by over one third of the world’s population at 2°C, compared with
14% at a 1.5°C rise. In short, we will face the consequences of human-made climate
change, but we can still mitigate the effects if we act now.
The effects of climate change are
already being felt. According to the Internal Displacement
Monitoring Center, 2017 saw 18 million new displacements due to
weather-related disasters globally. This far surpasses the 11.8 million
displacements as a result of conflict in the same time period and the 800,000
displacements due to geophysical disasters.
The UN Human Security Unit
estimates over 2.5 million people have died as a result of disasters in the
last thirty years, and predict this number will rise as weather patterns become
more erratic and severe. Complicating the matter further, and as I have previously
discussed, resource scarcity as a result of environmental degradation has
led to increasing instability and conflict across human groups.
And it is not just humans that
are suffering; in 2017 it was reported
by researchers at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México that climate
change was causing a “mass extinction” event of a scale not seen since the
demise of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Species extinctions will become
more common as the planet continues to warm and this may have cascade
effects, where one extinction leads to the demise of other species in the
same food chain or ecosystem. Reading further into this all starts to sound
very apocalyptic. The horrifying “hothouse earth” theory
warns that a temperature increase of over 2°C may lead to runaway climate
change that cannot be stopped and make parts of Earth completely uninhabitable.
This is both terrifying and difficult
to comprehend. So many climate predictions start with “by 2100…” which, to many
of us, seems like such a long way off as to be not worth worrying about. By
virtue of the problem, research is heavily numbers-based, scientifically dense,
and consistently misrepresented in the media (I’m no scientist so don’t trust
me either, please check my sources linked throughout). It is a technically
difficult subject matter, with globally relevant outcomes that are difficult to
wrap our heads around. The effects of climate change are not immediately
visible – patterns of disasters and their effects may tell us something about
the changing climate, but one-off events often cannot be directly linked to the
wider cause. Other issues are often therefore seen as being of more immediate
concern.
And yet the climate change threat
is very real. And, as the IPCC report acknowledges, our response to the threat
should be quite a simple one: cut
carbon pollution as much as possible, as quickly as possible. With the increasing
capacity of alternative energy sources to support our modern lives, this
may not be as difficult a process as we may have first thought. We may
constantly be told that renewable energy is too expensive or too unreliable to
take seriously as a contender to the fossil fuel industry, but this no longer
seems to be the case. Innovations in renewable energy sources are supporting humanitarian actions and
increasingly allowing countries to avoid
fossil fuels for longer
periods. The problem is not the alternative energy sources. It’s us.
So why are we not doing more to
limit carbon pollution? It’s not through a lack of understanding. 97% of scientists working
on climate change agree that the current climate trend is largely as a result
of human activity, and environmental
activism is becoming increasingly
pronounced in the public sphere. And it’s not through a lack of capacity;
the recent success of the Last Plastic
Straw movement demonstrated that when there is a will an environmental
movement can quickly take hold and spread globally. Whilst the banning of
straws themselves has
become controversial, the awareness that has been raised around plastic pollution
and the legislation
to reduce plastic waste it has inspired has been immense. The main issue is
that, with the exception of the newly prioritised plastic pollution issue,
apathy rules when climate change is mentioned. The effects are seen as being
too distant from our own lives, and the inconvenience of making steps to reduce
our carbon footprint too unappealing to commit to.
For many, it was the image of
turtles and seabirds choking on plastic straws, that galvanised them to make a
change. The realisation of humanity’s unwitting destruction of such a large
area of our oceans and their wildlife led to a desire to change. For me at least,
it made me upset, and incredibly angry. In the US, states have strengthened their support for environmental protection measures in response to President
Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement and dismantling
of the EPA. The anger of the 200,000
protesters at the People’s Climate March has led to an increased focus on green
policies and actions in response to Trump’s perceived
irresponsibility on environmental issues. Similarly, other states reaffirmed
their commitments and doubled-down on the Paris Climate Agreement after the
US withdrawal. People know what the implications of not acting on climate
change are, but the haze of apathy stifles action until we are spurred to
respond to something that we perceive as a direct threat to our own health and
livelihoods. Paradoxically, Donald Trump might be one of the most convincing
advocates for environmental protection in the current public discourse.
What this demonstrates is that I’m
not alone in being most effective and active in responding to something when I’m
pissed off. Clearly, the knowledge of the threat of climate change is there.
But it seems to take a major public figure outright denying the reality of the
situation to force our hands to respond. So let’s be pissed off.
Let’s be pissed off that our
actions now mean we have only 12 years to turn this planet around.
Let’s be pissed off that the current
US administration can claim that the
climate “could change back again” whilst giving the go ahead for oil
companies in Texas
to dump their waste into rivers.
Let’s be pissed off that by
2040, almost 600 million children — 1 in 4 children worldwide — will live in
areas with extremely limited water resources.
And more importantly, let’s be
pissed off that since
1988, just 100 companies have been responsible for 71% of carbon emissions globally,
and that, whilst many of their own research divisions acknowledged humanity’s
key role in the current changing climate, many
donated money to thinktanks manufacturing doubt around the issue.
By all means we should try to
change our behaviour, reduce our own carbon footprint, and limit our
contributions to environmental degradation. But as a matter of priority we
should also hold others to account. Use your anger to vote for those not beholden
to the fossil fuel companies. Use your anger to spread the names of these top 100
polluters and demand action. Reduce your use of plastics, turn off the lights,
limit your heating usage. Sign the petition, join the march, demand those in
power follow our lead. It’s not too late, but it will be soon. Find out what
you can do here.
This was a blog I took a long time writing. I wasn’t sure what I wanted
to say or how to say it. I knew it was an issue I wanted to talk about but it
was too technical and in many ways too “boring” and science-y for what I’m used
to. Here’s to the songs
that finally pissed me
off enough to write it.
