Climate Change 101

I have started to talk about climate change.  A lot.  Too much, say my husband and daughter.   I am doing a training session at work and I have recently started speaking at schools.  What amazes the most is that there are people that still know so little about climate change or even worse, deny it exists.  This is true of all kinds of people, “well educated” or not. Given my limited energy, I have decided to forget about talking to climate deniers.   I wish that climate change wasn’t happening and that I didn’t have to talk about it.  I would much prefer spending my golden retirement years just having fun and doing whatever I wanted to do. But the sad reality is that I cannot do that.  Well, at least, I cannot do that in good conscience.  The only way out of this climate crisis is to bring the situation to the mainstream.  As they say, education is power and  the more people know about the climate crisis, the better we can all take action together.  Taking action together is really what we brings me hope and optimism for the future.  As a result, I thought I would share what I consider some of the basics about climate change.

#1 Climate and weather are not the same thing.  This is a primary and important concept.  People will say “It’s -20 C today so how can the planet be warming?”.  -20 C represents the local atmospheric conditions at a specific place and time.  This is the weather.  Climate, on the other hand, refers to the long-term regional or global average conditions such as temperature, humidity, and precipitation.  Climate is determined over multiple years, or decades.   When we talk about climate, we are usually talking about average global conditions over a long period of time.

#2 The average global temperature of the earth is 1.2 deg C higher than the pre-industrial era. I am sure that most of you have heard that piece of data.  The following graph shows how the average global temperature of the earth has changed since 1850:

Global Temperature Report for 2021

While the average global temperature varies from year to year, the trend for the last fifty years shows a dramatic, hockey stick increase from 1960 until now. 1.2 deg C doesn’t sound like a lot does it?  However, the average temperature of the earth is like the temperature of our body.  If our body temperature increases by 1 degree, we know that something is wrong and we have a fever.  It is the same thing with the earth.  Like Goldilocks, humans can only live on a planet with specific conditions, not too hot and not too cold.  Since this is an average, it also means that some regions of the earth have average temperatures that are much higher, such as Canada’s north and Greenland leading to melting glaciers and sea level rise.

#3 The amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere has increased dramatically in the last 50 years. When you see the graph representing the carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere from 1960 to now, the curve is also like that of the temperature of the earth, almost a straight line increase:  

Why is high CO2 a concern?  CO2 is a greenhouse gas, meaning that it acts a blanket over the earth, and  its increasing concentration is responsible for the increase in the global temperatures of the earth.  If the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere continues to rise, there will be regions of the world that will become inhabitable because it is too hot.  For those who are not the faint of heart,  I recommend that you read “The Uninhabitable Earth” by David Wallace Wells Book review Uninhabitable Earth.

#4 CO2 levels in the atmosphere are directly related to the burning of fossil fuels.

As early as 1895, the Swedish physicist and physical chemist, Svante Arrhenius made some calculations that predicted that the burning of fossil fuels such as coal would lead to dramatic increases in CO2 emissions.  He estimated that doubling CO2 would cause an increase in the global temperature of the earth by 5-6 C (The Father of Climate Change).  While scientists today predict that the temperature would be half of that, the data today continues to confirm that it is fossil fuels that are responsible for high levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. 

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has shown that emissions from fossil fuels are the major cause of global warming, with coal being the worst offender (Fossil fuels and climate change. ) Of course, fossil fuel companies don’t want you to know or focus on that.  The data is clear.  We need to move away from fossil fuels and towards renewable energy sources such as hydroelectric, wind, geothermal and solar as quickly as we can

#5 Moving towards renewable energy alone will not solve our issues. Good news: Renewable energy usage has increased by 25%. In fact, by 2025, renewable energy will represent the largest energy source, replacing coal (New York Times, December 6 2022).

The not-so-good news: Our overall energy usage is more than that which means our net usage of fossil fuels has not decreased.

As a result, we have to start thinking about the D word: Degrowth. What is it?  Read this: Combatting climate change means embracing degrowth. I get it. The thought of degrowth makes my head explode.  We want the companies that we work for to continue so that we have work available, we want our investments to grow and we want to buy what we want to buy.   Our entire society has been built around capitalism and continued growth. Unfortunately, our planet has finite resources and we cannot continue to consume with abandon.   Those of us living in wealthy countries need to rethink our consumption and way of living.  This means that even if you have renewable energy to heat your home and drive an electric car, it is not enough.  We need to be more mindful of our consumption and focus on less but better.  Less but better.  Less work but better work. 4 day work week anyone? Less consumption but better quality items.  A smaller home with less maintenance and work.  More time for family, friends and meaningful activities. As an essentialist, this couldn’t be more desirable.

These are the 5 key concepts that I consider the “basics”.  What do you think?  Yes, it is all a bit depressing. My next post will focus on what we can do to take action to prevent the worst of climate change.  You can also check out my previous blogpost on the topic (Crisis? What crisis?) or this website: Not Too Late  Thanks for reading!