Sustainability

Will the Noise About the Climate Crisis Ever End?

The climate changes approximately every 100,000 years. What makes this one any different?

For any avid news reader, climate change is all the rave these days. Here are some of the alarming headlines from the world’s top newspapers.

Climate Change is Speeding Towards Catastrophe — The New York Times Earth is at its hottest in Thousands of Years — Washington Post The Greenland Ice Sheet Has Melted Past the Point of No Return — The Economist

In reality, you don’t have to be an avid follower of the news to have observed the ubiquity of the discussion on climate change.

As time has progressed, the discussion surrounding climate change has become more serious, and the language in the discussion has become heavier — like the sort of language one would describe an apocalypse with.

As Gina McCarthy — a professor of Public Health at Harvard University — put it, climate change is the greatest public health crisis we face. The World Health Organization blames climate change for the increasing frequency and intensity of the heatwaves, wildfires, tropical storms, and hurricanes we have seen in recent years.

To world-renowned naturalist David Attenborough, climate change is the biggest threat to security that modern humans have ever faced. The U.S. Secretary of Defense and the U.N Secretary-General have called climate change an existential threat.

If there was a contest for apocalyptic language that communicates the gravity of the climate change situation, “existential threat” would emerge as the winner. The reason for describing climate change as an existential threat is because, according to many scientists, that is exactly what it is.

According to a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), if climate change continues on its current trend, global temperatures are projected to rise by 4.5°C or more by the year 2100. A rise of 4.5 degrees will make the earth much hotter, posing a major risk to the natural ecosystem; many plants and animal species will be wiped out. In addition, there will be major natural disasters — rising oceans will bring major tsunamis and the like — which will kill and displace a lot of people. It is a really scary prospect.

Question: How quickly do you think our bodies can adapt to Earth’s rising temperatures, and to what extent? — Leave an answer in the comment section

Listening to the present discussion on climate change, it is easy to be intimidated by the magnitude of the threat facing our planet. Don’t get me wrong, the threat is real. However, it begs the question: if climate change is an existential threat, how come we discovered how serious it is? How come we have only begun to talk about it this much?

To answer these questions, we must take a trip back to the 19th century. In 1896, the first scientific paper on climate change and global warming was published. The paper, written by Svante Arrhenius — a Nobel prize-winning Swedish scientist — explored the effect of atmospheric heat-absorbing gases on the earth’s temperature. This proves that the science of global warming has been around for at least 127 years. In fact, scientists agree that climate change has been around for much longer.

The history of the earth is the history of climate change. Paleoclimatology is the study of various climates and climate changes on Earth throughout its history. Paleoclimatologists use paleological remains to study the Earth's climatic cycles, going back to periods that predate the existence of humans on Earth.

Some of these paleological remains include layers of sediments and tree ring data. By studying the earth’s historical climates, scientists have discovered that during the earth’s existence, global and regional climate change over very long timescales has been the norm. These changes are usually a result of the natural changes in the configuration of the earth, for example, shifting oceans, volcanic eruptions, changes in the intensity of the sun, and those sorts of things.

As the earth’s configuration has changed and the concentration of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere has risen and fallen, the earth's average temperature has also risen and fallen. According to the Australian Academy of Science, the Earth’s temperature was higher several million years ago, and the Earth was much warmer.

From analyzing the earth’s climate pattern over a few million years, scientists have found that the earth’s temperature rises and falls by about 5°C every 1000 years. During the popular ice age about 20,000 years ago, the sea levels were much lower than today because much water was trapped in polar ice sheets.

Although most of the historical changes in climate took place over tens of thousands of years, some also took place over a few decades. However, for the last few thousand years of recorded human history, the earth’s climate has remained relatively stable, and with it, the sea levels, leading to the emergence of agriculture, civilizations, and an explosion in human population.

Discussions about the climatic variations of the earth have evolved with science. By the early 20th century, scientists such as C.E.P Brooks had started to argue about the possibility of the earth’s temperature changing rapidly over a short period.

If there is anything that this short history course teaches us, climate change is a normal part of the earth’s cycle and is as old as the earth itself. In addition, the discussions about climate change did not start today. Almost as soon as we had decent enough tools to embark on scientific research with the tiniest modicum of credibility, scientists studied the climate and publicly discussed climate change.

This begs the question: what is so different about climate change today? Since climate change is a normal part of the earth’s history, why is there so much noise about the ongoing climate change? Scientists have been studying climate change for over a century, so why are they suddenly alarmed?

Part II

In the first part of this article, we explored the palaeoclimatological history of the Earth. The earth has been around for about 4.5 billion years. In those years, the earth’s temperature has risen and fallen cyclically, and its climate has fluctuated in the same pattern. This means that climate change is a normal part of the earth’s meteorological history.

We also saw that scientists began to study the changes in the earth’s climate as far back as the 19th century. Since then, scientists have argued about the effect of greenhouse gases on Earth’s climate, as well as the extent of the role of humans (if any) on climate change. The conversation on climate change boosted in the 1970s through the 1990s.

During this period, advances in computer science and technology allowed scientists to form more accurate models of the climate, as well as observe changes in our natural environment that could only be observed with the use of hi-tech equipment. These improvements brought climate change to the forefront of public debate, raising the public consciousness to the existence of an unprecedented rate of climate change and ultimately leading to the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol by 160 countries in 1997.

When you learn that climate change is not a new phenomenon, that the earth’s climate changes periodically, and we have known this for a long time, one might be tempted to ask why there is so much noise about climate change these days.

Yes, the earth’s climate is currently changing, and the average temperature of the earth has been increasing. We have had more hotter days on record than ever in history — in July 2023, U.S. researchers recorded the world’s hottest day ever since scientists started keeping records — and scientists project that more will come. But what is different about climate change now that is getting everybody alarmed?

The science is clear.

Advancements in computer science and technology have not only revolutionized our daily lives through social media and smart homes but have also significantly contributed to scientific research. Specialized tools and instruments have been invented to help scientists take more accurate readings and observe events that would not have been possible just a few decades ago.

Just last year, two newly invented microwave radiometers — COWVR and TEMPEST — were installed on the International Space Station by NASA to collect data on the Earth’s atmospheric condition. More recently, NASA has built a new Greenhouse gas detector, which they plan to launch soon. Whereas toxic gases from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius killed Pompeinas in just a few minutes, today, we have satellites that can detect volcanic activity many years before the volcano erupts.

One area that has benefited immensely from this advancement is climate research. Using specialized instruments, scientists have been able to show a direct causal link between the C02 (Carbon Dioxide) emissions from human activity and the change in the earth’s climate. As we have seen, the Earth’s climate has changed in the past. However, these changes resulted from the natural progression of the earth’s cycle. I.e., these changes were not caused by human activity. The same cannot be said for climate change today.

Industrialization was good for human civilization. It gave us the steam engine, trains, electricity, and all the other good things we all enjoy today. But while it was good for science and technology, it wasn’t so good for the earth. Scientists have discovered that since the dawn of industrialization, human activity (trains, cars, airplanes, fossil fuel extraction, etc.) has put so much C02 and other gases in the air.

These gases absorb and trap heat in the atmosphere and are causing the Earth to heat up at unprecedented rates. According to NASA, the amount of C02 in the atmosphere is 150% times more than it was in the year 1750, and this massive increase is all thanks to human activities.

In the past, scientists used to argue a lot about different aspects of climate change: is the climate changing? By how much is it changing? How fast is it changing? Is that a good or bad thing? What are the effects of climate change? Etc. These arguments among the scientists made for interesting scientific conferences and papers. But those days are long gone. Today, there is a scientific consensus on climate change. Scientists agree that the earth’s climate is warming quickly and that this is directly caused by human activity.

But what is the evidence for this?

Rapid physical changes

You’ve probably heard that the ice sheets of Antarctica are melting and fast. Well, that is true. According to NASA, the ice sheets in Antarctica have been melting at the rate of 150 billion tons per year, and Greenland loses even more. This is a huge amount of ice that we lose from these landscapes every year. But the ice doesn’t just evaporate and disappear, no.

New research shows that we have warmed up the planet so much that even if we were to cut down on CO2 (Carbon Dioxide) emissions today, West Antarctica wouldn’t stop melting and would be lost completely. The massive ice that melts in Antarctica and Greenland adds to our seas, thereby leading to a rise in sea levels. Scientists say that this explains 1/3 of the rise in sea levels since 1993. Global sea levels have risen about 20 centimetres in the last century, which is almost double the rate of sea level rise in the previous century.

How sad for all the people who live in coastal cities and for all the animals and plants that are sustained by the coastal ecosystem. As these coastal cities are destroyed, people will lose their lives and livelihoods, and others will be forced to move to other regions or countries in search of a better life. Immigration, which is always a hot-button political issue, will increase.

As we have seen, all the emissions we put in the air (especially C02) trap heat in the atmosphere and cause the earth’s temperature to rise. Earth’s temperature has risen more than 1° Celsius since the 19th century. But the earth’s temperature isn’t the only thing that has been rising.

A lot of the heat trapped in the atmosphere is being absorbed by the oceans, causing our oceans to get warmer — about 0.5° Celsius since 1969. When the oceans get warmer, corals and other water organisms that survive in the oceans are also put at risk, beaches are eroded, putting entire landscapes at risk. Warmer oceans also cause the water in the oceans to expand, leading to rising sea levels.

Rising sea levels lead to more powerful and destructive hurricanes and more dangerous tsunamis. Warmer oceans also lead to more ice-melting in Antarctica and Greenland. Since melting ice sheets are also responsible for a rise in sea levels, it means we are in an undesirable cascade in which every event reinforces the subsequent event to produce more damage.

Can anything be done?

There is no shortage of suggestions of what can and should be done to save the world from an impending climate apocalypse. Numerous global conferences have been called, and high-power delegations have been set up to create actionable climate policies that address the current climate emergency.

Newspapers and media houses talk about climate change every day, and scientists keep ringing the alarm bell. Every year, the United Nations Climate Change Conference — popularly known as COP — is held in different countries around the globe. These conferences always end with a loud and mostly unanimous message about climate action and how the world desperately needs to transition to clean energy. So, if you are curious to learn what we should do to reverse or at least slow down the rate of climate change and return global temperatures to safer levels, a simple Google search would suffice.

But despite knowing what we should do, the question is, can we?

It is one thing to know what should be done — cut global emissions massively — but it is another thing to muster the political will and communal courage to do it. The largest portion of C02 and greenhouse gases that lead to climate change come from our use of fossil fuels and other non-renewable energy sources. Most of the pollution and emissions come from industrialized countries like the US (the largest historical emitter of C02), but also increasingly from developing countries like China and Indonesia.

Since we got hooked on fossil fuels, our societies have been built around them, and they have made our lives more comfortable. They power our cars, which drive us around; power our airplanes with which we fly around the world; they power the ships that supply our Amazon orders straight from factories in China; heat our homes so that we don’t have to wear thick wool to walk around our houses in winter.

From the Industrial Revolution to the advancements in science and technology, 21st-century life is only made possible because of the energy provided by fossil fuels. If reversing or slowing down climate change requires that we give up the style of life and 21st-century luxuries that we are used to, that would be impossible to do.

The only question then remains how fast we can find viable alternative source(s) of energy and configure our lives to run on these alternative sources without disrupting economic growth, advances in science, and the luxuries we are accustomed to in our daily lives.

If our history is anything to go by, we are resilient and smart when it comes to thinking up solutions to problems that threaten human existence on Earth. We have found vaccines for deadly diseases, tamed and navigated the oceans, put satellites in space, and travelled to other planets. Humans are ingenious. To the extent that our existence as a species depends on looking for alternative energy sources, we will finally come up with a solution.

We may or may not come up with these solutions in time to save all the corals, reverse the Antarctica ice melts, or stop the rise of the sea — as we saw, some of the damage(s) we have done might be irreversible. Where the damages or changes are irreversible, we will come up with political solutions that will accommodate the new realities of the world we face. We have always been good at coming up with solutions; we can only hope that human imagination and ingenuity don’t fail us this time.

How have you or your community been affected by climate change? Please share your experience in the comment sections. Your comment will add to the conversation and create more awareness about climate change.

Thank you for reading my story.